God and Hurricane Katrina

In the mid 1970s, I was home one weekend from college when an old friend I’d taken karate classes with called and invited me to Bible study. It was held at a place called Reach Out Ranch, and when we arrived there were several other teens to late-teens there along with a middle-aged woman who was leading the class. She was going to guide us through part of the book of Jeremiah with the help of an overhead projector.

She began, “This is God . . . ” At that point she drew a bunch of squiggly lines. “. . . And this is man.” She drew a little stick figure. She continued, “Man sins against God and is cut off from God.” She drew a big thick line separating the stick man from the squiggly God.

At this point I asked myself, “How can humans repent if they are cut off from God?” But she continued, her voice sounding sterner and her pace quickening. She drew the little stick man across the projector saying, “Man keeps on sinning against God, and sinning and sinning, until what happens?” At that point the whole room said in unison, “God kills him!”

I closed my Bible as the hair on my neck rose while a chill ran down my spine. She went on to regale us with tales of how God broke a young man’s arm so he’d repent. She also told us how God struck another man with cerebral palsy so he’d preach the word. “And you can see him today out in the street shaking and preaching away at Tennessee Temple Bible College!”

In this time of war and natural disasters, there probably are some people scratching their head and saying something along the lines of, “Wonder what those folks in Biloxi and New Orleans did that upset God so much? They must have done something.”

Well, why do bad things happen to people? Is it because they sin and God gets angry with them? If that were so, this planet would more than likely have been free of human beings ages ago. That logic just doesn’t hold up. However, those questions are going to be on the minds of adults and children as scenes of nature’s violence and human violence are continually displayed in our newspapers, on the Internet, and on TV.

Most adults realize that we live in a world that has a volatile ecosystem. The earth has a crust that sometimes shifts, causing earthquakes and tsunamis. The oceans are warm in the summer, and once a circulation of low pressure builds up that warm water acts like an engine that starts a tropical storm that can turn into a hurricane. People who live along coastal regions in the South or along fault lines stand a good chance of having their lives interrupted by a natural disaster.

So how do you explain that to your grade schooler who asks, “Mommy, Daddy, why did God make the hurricane?”

Children ask questions like these from a place that is different from adults. Adults want a reasonable answer to the question; children want reassurance. More than likely when a child asks questions about war or natural disasters in relation to God, they are very concerned about their own vulnerability. They see it in the newspaper or on TV and worry: If it could happen there, then could it happen here. And of course, to a certain extent that’s true — just because I believe God didn’t attack people with a hurricane in Biloxi or New Orleans doesn’t mean that a hurricane couldn’t motor up the Hudson and create havoc in our lives.

As a parent, I have often made the mistake of trying to answer my sons’ concerns with a reasoned adult response only to be met with a blank stare in response. Has that ever happened to you? Once I understood that such questions were motivated by fear and was able to respond with reassurance that I would take care of them no matter what happened and that God would help me to do so, then their faces would respond with a look of relief.

Personally, I don’t believe that God is in the business of chastising human beings with natural disasters. After that Bible study, I caught up with my friend Skip. “Skip,” I asked, “When Jesus was here did he break anybody’s arm?”

“Uh, no,” he replied.

“Did he strike anybody with cerebral palsy?”

“No.”

“Did he kill anybody?”

“Of course not!”

“But did he cure the lame?”

“Yes.”

“Did he raise people from the dead?”

“Yes.”

“Then, Skip,” I said, “Why would he change now?”

Joel t