Disasters do bring the whackos out of the woodwork. I've already cited a few of them, but how about these guys? I can't get my head wrapped around this kind of reasoning. Here's the first one:
Chuck Kelley is president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, with facilities located near the southern banks of Lake Pontchartrain and in Chalmette, east of the city. Baptist Press reports that Kelley now finds himself homeless and with only a few personal belongings following Hurricane Katrina's devastating blow to the New Orleans area. But the seminary leader says he is able to discern God's hand in the situation.
"Imagine what would have happened if [New Orleans] had taken a direct hit," he tells BP. "The levee did not break until after the storm was clear and the winds had died down and the rescue workers were able to get out." Had the levee given way during the hurricane, he says, "untold thousands of people" would have been killed.
"It's a terrible tragedy," Kelley says of the devastation in and around New Orleans, "and we still don't know the scope of it -- but the evidences of God's mercy are there. We rejoice in the fact that He has got the whole world in His hands, including the city of New Orleans and [the seminary]."
This reminds me of my sister's reaction after I was involved in a car accident that was my fault about 15 years ago. I wasn't drunk or tired, but I was daydreaming and ran through a red light. I got t-boned by a car coming the other way. I sustained a concussion, a badly cut ear and a few bumps and bruises; the driver of the other car had a broken leg and worse injuries than I did. When my sister got to the hospital the first thing she said was, "Someone up there was looking out for you." I said, "Really? Then why didn't that 'someone' slap me upside the head and tell me I was about to run a red light to prevent it?"
This pastor is using the same sort of bizarre reasoning that Pat Robertson used when he claims to have prayed a hurricane away from Virginia. He's rejoicing that the storm turned away from New Orleans a bit, but the result of that was death and suffering increasing in the area it turned toward. I bet the folks in Mississippi don't view that sudden turn east as a sign of God's providence. The second guy is even more clueless:
Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.
The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.
"New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."
The New Orleans pastor is adamant. Christians, he says, need to confront sin. "It's time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won't have to deal with that wickedness," he says.
Believers, he says, are God's "authorized representatives on the face of the Earth" and should say they "don't want unrighteous men in office," for example. In addition, he says Christians should not hesitate to voice their opinions about such things as abortion, prayer, and homosexual marriage. "We don't want a Supreme Court that is going to say it's all right to kill little boys and girls, ... it's all right to take prayer out of schools, and it's all right to legalize sodomy, opening the door for same-sex marriage and all of that."
The funny thing to me is that these same people who believe in this bizarre and horrific conception of God will look at the ancient Aztecs and their human sacrifices and say, "Oh my god, how evil!" Their conception of God is every bit as barbaric and primitive; they're just too stupid to recognize it.
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Some days ago... Friday I think... watching storm coverage [after living 31 years in S. Louisiana, I have a lot of friends, colleagues and one son in storm area and so watched by the hour] I saw them helping an oldish black woman onto an evacuation bus. After five days at the N.O. Convention Center Her one comment to the reporter was "Praise Jesus for saving me!" Incredible. Gives a whole new dimension to "blind faith."
I really love all the reports saying that god was punishing the sinners in New Orleans, you know, like homosexuals, abortionists, gamblers and other terrible people. But then I see all these reports about looters and murderers and rapists still occupying the city. Why didn't he get them too?
It's also interesting to note that perhaps the most decadent sections of New Orleans were largely spared.
That's just sick. They're far more selfish than me, and I'd consider myself fairly selfish. It's like they don't see the larger picture. "At least the hurricane hurt and killed those other people and not me!" How could you be happy saying that? It's disgusting. Christians, my ass. More like selfish egocentric knuckleheads.
I wonder what Shanks thinks of Fred Phelps? I wonder if he's spoken out about the mean-mindedness of Phelps as so many Christians are wont to do? And if so, does he not recognize that what he says here is no less offensive or meaningful as what Phelps has to say?
A punch in the eye is still a punch in the eye, even if you recite poetry while you're doing it.
I wonder if anyone has noticed that, for all intents and purposes, New Orleans is now Christian-free?