(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
| Franklin Graham recently said at Liberty University, "God used Hurricane Katrina to bring about a spiritual revival in New Orleans, a place where there has been "satanic worship" and "sexual perversion."
Implied in Graham's words is the belief that New Orleans and the Mississippi Coast were devastated because of their immoral behavior, i.e., the partying and the gambling. To say we have a little judgement here is an understatement.
I believe that God has a plan. However, he doesn't talk to me directly like he does Franklin Graham, the President, and most of these right-wing loudmouths who have a direct line to the Pearly Gates. I'm sure that a fair number of the brethren are talking about proof of the Second Coming: Katrina, Rita, the earthquake in Pakistan, and mud slides in Guatemala.
When I was in seminary, one of my buddies had charts, graphs, everything, telling exactly how the Second Coming was going to take place. To him, it was imminent, within a year or so. This was almost forty years ago.
Most of us; however, cannot ascertain, either before or after catastrophic events, on how those events are part of the plan if at all. I think that it is simply nature. All of us, of course, wrestle with the meaning, but I doubt that we want to say that God is zapping New Orleans because the city was a combination of Sodom and Gomorra, second behind San Francisco, of course.
Personally, I think that Graham who does lots of good work with his Samaritan's Purse Charity should concentrate on that work and less on being a self-proclaimed interpreter of God. Graham may be inspired by James Dobson of Focus On The Family who has made abortion the main stay of his efforts or so it seems to me. Dobson has gotten so important that Karl Rove calls him. Rove may be talking directly to a god also.
Graham was a little outdone by an Alabama legislator, Hank Erwin, who said the "wickedness" along the Gulf Coast "is the kind of behavior that ultimately brings the judgment of God." I'm sure that all the Church folks on the Gulf Coast will be glad to hear that they are without homes, livelihoods, adinfinitum because of God's judgment. Serves them right, according to Franklin and Erwin.
But, think of this, much of the region is devoutly Christian and socially conservative. Both Mississippi and Lousiana are states that voted overwhelmingly for the President. And, of course Franklin gave the Prez, a big thumbs up and said he was doing a "heckuva job." The President probably appreciates it, but I doubt all the folks of New Orleans would. I don't know what Bro Franklin would say about this gal whose picture was in the NY Times yesterday wearing a t-shirt that said, "The only Bush I trust is my own."
|
