As I write this I am deeply troubled by the general response that American Christians have given to Hurricane Katrina. Please don’t misunderstand; our physical response to the disaster has been wonderful. Many Christians have donated their money to the cause, their time to disaster relief, and their prayer to the victims. Our nation, and indeed the world, desperately need to see us reaching out in this manner. They need to see us meeting needs and proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand.
Unfortunately, when it comes to our intellectual or our verbal response to this tragic calamity the results have been far less constructive. An article in the Washington Post pointed out more than a few evangelicals who, of course, “spoke on behalf of God” in letting us know that Katrina was divine retribution. A few examples:
Steve Lefemine, an antiabortion activist, believes he was able to make out an image of an 8-week-old fetus in the color satellite maps of Hurricane Katrina. His belief as to why God “sent” the hurricane?: “In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion.”
Michael Marcavage, a Philadelphia resident, believes that Hurricane Katrina showed up just in time to wipe out homosexuals. “We take no joy in the death of innocent people,” said Marcavage. “But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. . . . We’re calling it an act of God.”
Never mind the fact that America is not Israel; that we’re not a theocracy. Never mind the fact that God’s national judgments in the Bible were always preceded by warnings, and usually an opportunity to repent. The second we can clear God’s name by presenting the sin He was showing His righteous indignation toward, we jump on “pagan” Americans as quickly as possible.
The damage we do is simple to see: we negate our Christian testimony when we help people with our hands and damn them with our mouths.

I just thank God that Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson have had the sense to keep their mouths shut about Hurricane Katrina.
Destroying God’s Character
Other theologians have thankfully resisted trying to ferret out the reason behind this devastating hurricane. However, many have hurt Christianity with what they say about God’s relationship to the storm, even while keeping silent about God’s reasons for the storm.
Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Seminary and a staunch Calvinist, had much to say about God’s providence and relationship to Katrina in an August 31 article on his blog.
Dr. Mohler quotes the lyrics to a well known hymn that says the following: God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines of never-failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs, and works His sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread, are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
This is essentially what strong Calvinism teaches: God controls all things from what I “decide” to eat in the morning to a fly changing the course of his flight pattern from east to west. Dr. Mohler states the case precisely when he says that, “God is sovereign, and His ways are always right. He is in control of every molecule in the cosmos at all times.”
Certainly God could have set the world up in this manner. He could have decided to make us to be nothing more than puppets on a string; Himself, the grand puppeteer. That, however, would not have accomplished His purpose: love. In John 17:20-26, Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane seems to capture the very heart and purpose of God in creating mankind.
“My prayer is not for them alone,” Jesus petitions. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Jesus’ prayer is as beautiful as it is profound. It is a prayer that we would be able to see the love of the father and to accept Christ, that we may be in Him in the same way that the Father is in the Son. In other words, the point of redemption is that we may join into the triune love of God, dancing forever together with Him in His kingdom.
Love, however, must be freely chosen. “Love” that is forced, or “love” that is simply generated through us by God but not from us for God isn’t real love.
Though the thrust of this particular article is not to disprove strong Calvinism, I think it’s important to see that this model of God’s providence cuts at the very core of what God is doing through His redemptive plan. Furthermore, Calvinism would ultimately assert that God is not responsible for evil, even though He ordains it. I believe they hold this view with a certain logical inconsistency, but I understand what they are attempting. The Calvinist’s understanding of God’s sovereignty can truly be defined by two words: meticulous control. They see God as the ultimate King, and rightly so; but they view Him more as a dictator, unwilling to doll out any freedom or power that is not completely under his absolute control. Therefore, God is ultimately responsible for every rape, murder, pornographer, and demonic act.
Albert Mohler, by choosing to accept this model of God’s providence, may have saved his version of God’s power; but he has slammed God’s character.
Katrina and the Smiling Face?
The line from the above hymn that I find to be unbiblical and ultimately painful is this: “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.” It sincerely disturbs me that Albert Mohler sees this as an accurate description of what was happening in the heavens on August 29 of 2005 when hundreds of people were dying in the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina.
Mohler would have us believe that God was in the heavens, grinning down on this catastrophe for some unknown-to-us-feeble-humans reason. Obviously I have a philosophical problem with this, but more than anything I have a biblical problem with it.
Over and over in the Bible God makes it clear that there are things that happen that He neither ordains nor approves of. In Jeremiah 7:31 the Lord proclaims, “They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.”
In Genesis 6:5-6 the sinfulness of man (not the sin that God ordained man to commit) causes such pain for God that He is grieved He ever created them. “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time,” we are told. “The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.”
What’s more is that over and over in the New Testament Jesus is given the opportunity to explain why someone has a particular illness or why someone is demon possessed. He is given the opportunity to explain how it is that God relates to man, and to once and for all show us that everything that happens under the sun is ordained by God’s wisdom. Yet instead of doing that, He does the exact opposite by time and time again pointing to the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan and his legions of demons.
In Luke 13:10-13 we are told, “On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, ‘Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.’ Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.”
What Christ did here is important because instead of proclaiming that this woman’s illness was from the Lord, the opposite is acknowledged. He comes against this evil, and ultimately it is used for the glory of God; but the illness did not come from God.
I do not believe that Katrina is the Lord’s handiwork. The Bible is clear that there are unseen demonic forces in this world that are at work all around us, seeking to destroy that which God sent His son to die for.
God is weeping for those whose lives were destroyed in the hurricane, but He didn’t destroy their lives. God is hurting for those who lost loved ones and family members in the hurricane, but He didn’t kill their loved ones. God will receive glory from this debacle through the hands of Christians that help those in need, but he didn’t cause that need.
Reacting as Christ Reacted
It is no comfort for anyone but ourselves when we allow our self-righteousness to prompt us to point fingers at “sinful” groups of people as being the reason for God “sending the hurricane” when we still have planks of wood in our own eyes. It is no comfort for anyone but ourselves when we point to this disaster and say, “God’s ways are not our ways,” and then talk to people about the comfort they can find in the God that we say is responsible for destroying their lives or killing their family.
We must follow the example of Christ when confronted with evil, whether it be moral or “natural”. This earth is not what God longed for it to be. Creation “has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Romans 8:22).” Creation is complex, and there are many theories as to why it currently looks like a war zone; but most would agree that the presence of the demonic and the fall of man are to be blamed in large part. What Christ didn’t do was blame God. He recognized evil for what it was and He came against it in the name of the Father. For us to do anything less is for us not to resemble Christ.
We are hurting the cause of Christ because we are blaming God for every tragedy that comes about. We must become more biblical in our thinking and less systematic in our theology if we are to present the world with an accurate picture of God-the one who wants to dance with us in His triune love throughout all eternity.

Tags: Calvinism, open theism, Arminianism, hurricane Katrina, Spiritual Warfare, Albert Mohler, Southern Seminary