Hurricane Katrina
I’ve been thinking quite a bit – as I’m sure most people around the world have been – about Hurricane Katrina. Lot’s of people no doubt have been asking questions about how this kind of tragedy could happen. And – more specifically – how a good God could allow such devastation to take place. Sadly, I was watching some Christian television last week, and heard a very highly regarded Christian leader referring to the hurricane as an act of God’s judgement because of the sinful practices of the city of New Orleans. I wasn’t surprised to hear some people saying that sort of thing, but I was very disappointed. I mean really, was God sitting on His throne thinking, “I’ve had it with those sinners…let’s kiss ‘em all�? I don’t think so. As I see it, we’re living in an era of grace and who says New Orleans is “more sinful� than any other city in the world? God doesn’t. He says ALL have sinned and fallen short of His glory. It is man who comes up with different categories of sin – not God.
Having said that I really don’t believe the hurricane was an act of God’s judgement, I guess that still leaves the question of why maybe God didn’t intervene to stop it or something. Without wanting to get too theological, I do actually think that bad thinking about all of this kind of stuff actually flows from a limited understanding of what we Christians call “the fall�. It seems that most people have been taught about the “fall of man� (ie Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s command about what they couldn’t eat) and not been taught about the fall of creation. The world that we live in now is not the world God intended. Both humanity and creation are out of sync with God’s original purposes and both have become subject to evil. How else would we explain Jesus’ calming of a storm in the Gospel’s? If Jesus is God and yet He felt the need to calm a storm, it gives us a clear indication that the weather system is operating outside of God’s intention. And that as I see it is very telling.
I think ultimately, we can be sure that God is far more devastated by the loss of life through Hurricane Katrina than we ever could be. As I see it, these sort of tragedies are the horrifying results of living in a fallen world. That doesn’t make it any less painful and certainly doesn’t satisfy all our questions. But maybe it helps us to not doubt the goodness of God.
S.
