MSNBC has an article on the various apocalyptic expectations which have arisen from the recent string of natural disasters. I’m not sure what to make of these events, but I suspect that this line of apocalytic thinking is based on poor theology:
Alabama state Sen. Henry E. “Hank” Erwin Jr., a Republican, expressed a similar view in a weekly column he writes for news outlets. “New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast have always been known for gambling, sin and wickedness,” he wrote. “It is the kind of behavior that ultimately brings the judgment of God.”
Considering the fact that the vast majority of the people impacted by Katrina were the poor, rather than the gamblers, and that the French Quarter, where most of this “wickedness” would have taken place, survived largely intact, it seems that the god of this line of thinking is rather imprecise in his judgement.
Furthermore, even if we assume that God still judges us on this scale (an assumption which is somewhat shaky, given the way Jesus exhorted his disciples not to call fire down on cities which rejected him, but rather simply to walk away, and of course the fact that rather than turn us all into cinders, he died on the cross for us sinners instead), I suspect that he would do a better job of TELLING us that he was behind it so that repentence could come.
But as far as I can tell, there wasn’t much of a warning beforehand.
Instead of using Katrina as an excuse to lob insults at our ideological “enemies,” wouldn’t it be better to use it as an opportunity to love and care for those impacted (which, by the way, is what most Americans have done)?
Sometimes I am perplexed by the fact that so many Christians seem to react gleefully to the idea of an impending judgement of the world, but are much less excited about the tasks Jesus really called us to - loving the poor, loving our enemies, turning the other cheek.
