The Theological Implications of Hurricane Gustav

I had an interesting conversation tonight with a friend of mine who is a retired judge. He's a partisan of The Mommy Party (D), and we were sitting with a few guys that lean toward The Daddy Party (R).
The judge asked my opinion on the theological implications of Hurrican Gustav.
He may or may not have read my rant about Focus on The Family's Stuart Shepard asking people to pray for torrential rain on the night of Obama's nomination speech in Denver, but he figured I'd be aware of it.
The judge offered up the following, somewhat tongue in cheek:

1. Since God declined to mess up Obama's nomination speech, but sent Gustav to New Orleans during the Republican convention ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF KATRINA, it was a sign that God has turned his face away from the Republicans, and toward the Democrats.

2. I countered with this: Since failing to render aid during two consecutive New Orleans hurricanes would be unbelieveable even for this lame administration, Gustav gives The Daddy Party (R) a perfect excuse to avoid a Bush/Cheney appearance in Minneapolis. Who knows how much planning took place trying to minimize the effect of those two albatrosses at the convention. This gave Bush/Cheney justification to gracefully bail on the event, and deprived the Democrats of some wonderful sound bites.

Therefore God is smiling on the Republicans with the appearance of Hurricane Gustav. A hurricane hitting a major city would do far less damage to the city than Bush would do to the Republicans at this point.

3. God controls the weather, but it's not about politics. He's trying to teach us that we shouldn't build cities below sea level.

4. Here's another possibility. God controls the weather, but it's not all about us. Just because CNN and Fox and MSDNC are obsessed with conventions, that doesn't mean the creator of the universe is. There might be some catfish stranded in a stock tank that need to make their way to the Mississippi River, and Gustav was sent to do the job. Who knows.

4. God set everything in motion at the time of the Big Bang. We've had nothing but cause and effect relationships since then. What happens is what God wants. Do a Google search on "Calvinism". New Orleans is getting the hurricane that God wanted.

5. God set everything in motion at the time of the Big Bang. We've had nothing but cause and effect relationships since then. Whatever happens is inevitable, but not "predestined", since God doesn't care, intervene, or look in on things. Do a Google search on "Existential Theism". New Orleans is getting what was bound to happen, but God didn't cause it.

6. There is no such thing as Divine Intervention. We are on our own. God isn't going to protect us or turn back the storms. Therefore, we shouldn't build cities below sea level since they tend to flood. We shouldn't build cities along the gulf at the mouth of a major river. Those cities tend to flood. They are hurricane magnets, and we'll have to rebuild those cities every couple of decades if we stubbornly continue rebuilding.

But if God really did want to teach us these simple facts, how would he/she do it, short of coming down from heaven and issuing a declaration?

Probably by sending some hurricanes.

Pictures courtsey of here and here and here and here.

Praying For Rain On Obama's Parade

Here's a video from Focus On The Family's Stuart Shepard asking like-minded believers to pray for rain in Denver at Mile-High Stadium on August 28th.

Shepard specifically wants "torrential rain". What my father called a six-inch gully-washer. A chunk floater.

If you don't get the significance, that's when and where Barack Obama is going to be addressing the Democratic Convention.



Shepard claims he's doing this because “I’m still pro-life, and I’m still in favor of marriage being between one man and one woman. And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree.”

This guy wants you to pray for God to send rain at a specific time and place in Denver so Barack Obama's appearance at the Democratic Convention will be cancelled and that will increase the odds of McCain being elected and preserve marriage as between one man and one woman, disregarding the earlier biblical model of marriage as "one man and as many wives as he could afford".

I think I got that right.

Ok, let's stop there for a moment. Let's assume that there is a higher power. We could know this higher power as God, Jesus, Allah, Zeus, Thor, or the little girl on the planet Nekthar whose Grow Your Own Planet Earth Kit we all inhabit.

Take it a little further, and assume that the higher power cares about us.

Let's assume that this higher power cares so much that he/she/it occasionally intervenes in our everyday chain of cause and effect. We're not talking about The Blind Watchmaker of Richard Dawkins. This higher power wakes up in the morning busy, and stays busy.

Take another step. The higher power intervenes in response to prayer. We can influence this higher power if enough of us ask in unison, in the right way, for things the higher power cares about.

And then we have to throw in the assumption that the higher power is benevolent.

If such a scenario were true, would we have to pray for rain to prevent Barack Obama from being President? If a benevolent higher power was going to intervene in the Denver weather, wouldn't he do so because it was the right thing to do, and not because Stuart Shepard and James Dobson's Focus on The Family convinced enough of us to pray?

Or can you imagine Obama getting elected and after two years of horrific one-party government, with a Clinton on the Supreme Court and Al Gore as Energy Czar, and then we ask "God, how could you let this happen?"

And God says "Hey, I coulda made it rain in Denver on 8-28-08. But nobody asked me to."

Ridiculous.