9 Responses to “Natural Disasters”

1. Dr. Michael L. Brown
   May 24th, 2008 @ 9:22 pm

   Over the last few weeks, there have been a number of terrible disasters, most notably the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China, affecting millions of people. And just this week, the news came of the tragic death of Steven Curtis Chapman’s five year-old daughter.

   How do we respond to natural disasters and personal tragedies? What is God doing? What is Satan doing? And what is our role?

   Let me know your thoughts after listening to today’s show.

2. Marcus French
   May 31st, 2008 @ 12:40 am

   I’d like to submit this to the discussion. This is an excerpt from an article written by Reggie Kelly after the Tsunami Tragedy of a few years ago. I was amazed at his insight and bravery in broaching the subject. I was particularly taken aback by the last two lines. (full article here: http://www.zionchristianpress.org/reggiekelly/Articles/Tsunami_disaster_and_the_Issue_of_Prophecy_TEXT.html)

   “For many who have anguished over this question, the apparent absence of moral distinction in the seemingly random irruptions of nature, so far from being an evidence of divine judgment, is regarded as the greatest possible evidence against the existence of a God of unlimited power and goodness. The ready explanations of modern geological science seem more plausible than the biblical view of nature as an agent of moral judgment under an unlimited divine sovereignty. After all, it is well known that seismic activity of this kind is a commonplace in the greater history of the planet, and is especially predictable in the area around the Pacific Rim known as ‘the ring of fire’. So is the recent tsunami disaster of the Indian Ocean simply another instance of blind brute nature ‘acting up’ according to well known natural laws? Such naturalistic explanation may appear to exonerate God from implication in the seemingly undistinguishing carnage of ‘nature’s fury’; but it would be a loss far greater than the tsunami disaster if the world-view of ‘scientific naturalism’ should prevail to rob the modern world, and particularly the church, of the significance and impact of such a costly judgment and prophetic statement of greater judgments to come.

   For those who think deeply or have suffered profoundly, there can be no greater loss than the loss of meaning. To sideline God as helpless spectator in the face of so-called ‘natural disaster’ is to rob humanity of critical divine pleading and instruction; but worse, it is to rob God of the glory of His covenant rule over creation and history.”

3. Daniel C.
   June 3rd, 2008 @ 1:06 pm

   I live in Louisiana I was here in 2005 for both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I was listening to a local pastor on the radio and he was blaming the devil for the devastation. He even misquoted scriptures by saying it had to be the devil because he is the one who comes to steal and to kill and destroy. I remember thinking immediately, “but who does the Bible show to have power of nature” I thought of the scene where the storm comes upon Jesus and the disciples and He speaks “peace be stilled” to the winds. The disciples even marveled that the winds and waves obeyed this man. To be honest I don’t know for sure if God deliberately sent those storms, I personally believe it was His judgment. I do no know one thing whether he sent them or not is besides the point because if He did not want them to hit, then just like in the Bible He could have spoken peace be stilled and they never would have made it near the shores of Louisiana. Here is a scripture from Isaiah:

   Isaiah 26:9 (NASB)
   9 At night my soul longs for You, Indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently; For when the earth experiences Your judgments The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

   It says that when the earth experiences His judgments then His righteousness is revealed. Judgment struck my life at the end of my addiction to drugs. I was faced with spending 5 years in prison it was at that point of judgment in my life that God’s righteousness was revealed to me and I was saved. After Katrina I went and ministered to some of the victims from New Orleans staying in the shelter here in Lafayette, LA. We were able to minister Jesus Christ and I have never seen people more receptive to spiritual things then after this judgment had passed over them. It is as if a new perspective of life caused them to really want to hear about this God of mercy and Grace who had just moved over them in judgment. It sounds strange and I can’t explain it, but just like Isaiah said in judgment his righteousness will be revealed some may harden their heart, but some inevitably come to the end of themselves and die to this life and find eternal life.

   -

4. Ryan Dube
   June 20th, 2008 @ 1:03 pm

   I believe that all this crazy weather is going to desensitize us as a people. Ok we had a Tsunami, Ok now 2 Hurricanes, ok now a major earthquake, ok now a dam is breeched and there is flooding, ok now there are hundreds of tornados, ok now levees are breeched and there is more flooding. Soon we will just get use to hearing and seeing major tragedies.

   The question I pose to you Michael, I have a friend that donates to these tragedies; good for him, I applaud him, but when you hear about how Fima during the Katrina/Rita incident how they have a lot of donated items that did not get to the needy, how can you donate toward these people if your efforts are not being used for said tragedy?

5. Dr. Michael L. Brown
   June 20th, 2008 @ 10:12 pm

   Ryan, the best thing to do is to donate to prove Christian ministries who will be good stewards of the funds and demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to those who are suffering. And if there is a proven, local ministry in the midst of the calamity that can use the funds in a practical way, all the better.

6. Daniel C.
   June 23rd, 2008 @ 9:50 pm

   Gospel for Asia is a good ministry to give to. I know that doesn’t cover any of the disasters here in the states, but for Asia it is the best I know of.

   I think that there should be a ministry that looks after the needs of widows and orphans in times of disaster….well at all times, but especially during times of disaster.

7. Fearless
   August 11th, 2008 @ 1:57 am

   Let’s say that a powerful tornado rips through a mobile home park in Iowa. If no one is killed by the storm, then the news headline will be “All Residents Miraculously Survive Tornado.” Witnesses will say that, “God wrapped his protective arms around our Christian community.” But since everyone survived the twister some townspeople may reason that “the storm wasn’t that bad.”
   If a few residents are killed, the tornado is then appropriately viewed as having been quite ominous. The majority who survived the ordeal will believe thereafter that only through supernatural intervention could their lives have been spared throughout the deadly storm. Some will claim to have seen “angels of mercy” shielding their homes and families from destruction.
   If by contrast, the tornado kills most of the residents of the mobile home park, then the news media focus intently on the few “Miracle Survivors” and rhetorically ask “Why were these few spared when so many died?” The implication, of course, is that God (for reasons unknown) chose to save these few, while the majority perished. If, in particular, there is only one survivor of the storm – or of an airplane crash – then the news media reverentially characterize this lone individual as the veritable personification of the miraculous. His, or her photo will be published worldwide, along with a tear-jerking story of “God’s deliverance.”
   So regardless of how many – or how few – die in the incident God has always performed a miracle. The more deadly the disaster, the more credit God is given for sparing the survivors. When, however, everyone dies in a catastrophe, such as a jumbo jet crash, the newspaper headline never reads: “Jehovah Out to Lunch During Doomed Flight.” This accident is realistically seen as having occurred for natural or man made reasons. This is what is known as “selective observation.”
   One common factor common to all “medical miracles” is ambiguity. Just how sick really was this person in the first place? Would he have recovered without prayer? The answers to the questions are always nebulous. Why are God’s “miracles” never clear-cut? Why couldn’t a man who had had no legs whatever for twenty years suddenly wake-up one day with a brand new pair? Is this feat impossible for God to achieve? If God has the power to miraculously cure others (though invariably in a vague and uncertain way), why doesn’t God ever help amputees?
   During John Glenn’s second trip into space – aboard the space shuttle – he looked down at earth and said that the beauty he witnessed proved God’s existence. “There must truly be a Creator,” said Glenn, as he gazed out the window at the blue cloud-covered planet below. I recall vividly that, at that very moment Glenn uttered his oft-repeated words about a Creator, the shuttle was flying over Central America, where Hurricane Mitch had just destroyed the infrastructures of five entire nations. Thousands of people had just been killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless. Government officials calculated it would take thirty years to rebuild. Here again, Glenn’s “vision of God” was based on selective observation. If Glenn’s family had just been wiped out by the storm, I doubt that he would have voiced such an idyllic view of nature. So whenever Christians point out to me that many intelligent people believe in God, I agree wholeheartedly. But I, in turn, point out that the empirical observations made by these intelligent individuals, though usually accurate, are frequently selectively employed.
   Whenever human knowledge is incomplete, God is hastily recruited to fill the vacuum. We crave a deeper and more philosophical reason for someone’s death then merely that “a tree fell on her head” or that “he had a car wreck.” These appear to be such flippant and shallow excuses to account for such heart wrenching losses. A piece to the puzzle seems to be missing. Likewise, when our circumstances are unexpectedly favorable, we seek a more substantive explanation then simply that “we were lucky” or that “we were in the right place at the right time.” That’s just too much of a coincidence to accept. We search for a “higher purpose.” But what is that “higher purpose”? The answer is ever elusive. So we invent, within our minds, a God of the Gaps to fill the void in our cause-effect understanding of a universe indifferent to human preference.

8. Marcus French
   August 11th, 2008 @ 9:25 am

   Fearless,

   With regard to severing God’s role in natural disasters, see my May 31, 2008 at 12:40 am post.

9. Fearless
   August 11th, 2008 @ 10:11 am

   Marcus,
   “[A letter to a U.K. newspaper] says ‘science provides an explanation of the mechanism of the [December 2004 Asian] tsunami but it cannot say why this occurred any more than religion can.’ There, in one sentence, we have the religious mind displayed before us in all its absurdity. In what sense of the word ‘why’, does plate tectonics not provide the answer? Not only does science know why the tsunami happened, it can give precious hours of warning. If a small fraction of the tax breaks handed out to churches, mosques synagogues had been diverted into an early warning system, tens of thousands of people, now dead, would have been moved to safety. Let’s get up off our knees, stop cringing before bogeymen and virtual fathers, face reality, and help science do something constructive about human suffering.” – Richard Dawkins

   Your post inspired me to post mine. We are all used to the tendency of the ignorant to “explain” the inexplicable, extraordinary and awful by invoking God. Epidemics, for instance, are often seen as God’s handiwork, retribution for our evil. Only a nature crippled by dogma could regard with satisfaction suffering and deaths of thousands. Christianity embraces this dogma.

   “Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?” – Euripides (c. 480-406).

   I am reminded of Pat Robertson’s claim that the Katrina disaster and Falwell’s that the 9-11 disaster were God’s retribution for the United States embracing things like homosexuality. Robertson even warned the citizens of Dover Pennsylvania that God would punish them for rejecting the Intelligent Design hoax and not teaching Christian religious dogma as science in science classes there. No one teaches this ludicrous nonsense nor will they ever, it’s been totally refuted scientifically. What’s God going to do about that I wonder?

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