Did God Cause Katrina?

Like so many other Americans I have found myself glued to the television screen watching the reporters predictably standing in front of levees, seawalls, beaches just before, during or after hurricanes Katrina and Rita have struck. I watched also with horror the many unforgetable scenes coming out of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina: looting, people left behind, the terrible conditions in the Dome. My daughter is a graduate of Tulane University in public health and so I have felt how the personal story of our family somehow intersects with the story of New Orleans.

My most enduring emotion was a mixture of sorrow for the loss of so many thousands of people--their lives in some cases but also property, employment, social and living space--and outright anger at the tepid response of government at all levels to what was certainly a predictable occurrance. No need to write more about this here. It has been covered remarkably well by the media.

One of the biggest surprises to me during these last days has been a theological undercurrent that has not really gotten broad coverage in our nation's press. I became aware of it when one of my colleagues at work reported that her pastor at an evangelical community church here in Indianapolis stated in his weekly sermon that Katrina was God's punishment for the evil of "that part of the country." I didn't ask what constitutes that evil but I can guess: Mardi Gras, drinking, the French Quarter, Anne Rice vampire yarns, tolerance of gays and other sexual minorities. . . . . . . . . My surprise was compounded when, during my weekly telephone call with my mother she shared more or less approvingly that one of the television preachers that she sometimes watches on Sundays also interpreted Katrina as a sign of God's wrath.

Of course, I should have not been surprised. Hello, Dan Hoffman! This is a country where one of the bestselling fiction series is the Left Behind series in which God is (fictionally?) portrayed as bringing about the so-called rapture and is concluding history through warfare, pestilence, etc. [If you are interested in exporing this kind of theology and its political and social implications, a critical study by Barbara R. Rossing entitled The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation is very much recommended. I should have known also that America has become more and more fundamentalist in its approach to all things and that the discourse of Katrina-as-God's-punshiment would be inevitable.

I am a Christian, though not a far-right fundamentalist. I am active in the Episcopal Church, one of the more tolerant and progressive denominations in this country. I am not expecting to hear about God's punishment of New Orleans' sinners in that church. Rather, it is my expectation that I will hear calls to care for those who have had their lives and webs of relationship tragically interrupted. I hope to hear challenges to dig into our pockets and do more than feel media-induced pity.

For myself, I renounce strongly the language of God's punishment. We see the truth on car stickers all the time: Shit happens. This is just the condition of living in a finite world in which we do not have control of all forces. It happens not because God wills it but simply because it is wired into the condition of life itself. In the Old Testament Job learned this. In the New Testament, Jesus succumbed to conditions that he could not control but I believe that he was victorious in the end. Just because something happens or does not happen does not mean that God is either rewarding or punishing our behavior. Things happen. The real issue, as it was for Job or Jesus, is how do we deal with it.

The idea that Katrina wiped out New Orleans because of its sinfulness reflects, in my mind, a misunderstanding of sinfulness. How can anyone in Indianapolis, one of America's major urban centers where everything goes on, even if we don't see it, claim that New Orleans is more sinful. As far as I can tell, all persons are alienated from moral truth and behavior. If it were a matter of punishing sinfulness, who would be spared, ever?

Here are a few of the sins that I think we should consider if we are going to point fingers:

--The constant denial of the Bush administration that there is such a thing as global warming, even though we may now be seeing some of the first catastrophic consequences of it.

--The shipment of our military forces at all levels to a tragic war, based on lies to the American public, in Iraq and the consequent absence of these forces to assist in the aftermath of Katrina.

--The inability of this nation generally to envision energy sources or lives apart from petroleum resulting in disruption when refineries and pipelines are effected, as in Katrina and Rita.

--The "Left Behind" of the poorest and most vulnerable of New Orleans' residents, most of whom were persons of color.

God does not destroy God's creation. But we are challenged by Katrina to figure out how to respond morally and ethically for the greatest good when disaster strikes, as it inevitably will.

At the end of the day, I somehow believe that the generosity and the community spirit of Americans will overcome the rantings of far right Christians.