Exegeting Katrina

Floods in New England, Mudslides in Guatemala, Hurricanes galore…



Particularly since Katrina there has been a lot of fuss over how to interpret God as God is related to natural disasters. Does God cause them? Does God simply choose not to prevent them? Either way, why?

Many of us have heard how Katrina is the result of our society’s sins. Environmentalists say if we were better stewards of our world then the ocean wouldn’t be warming, water levels wouldn’t be rising, and hurricanes wouldn’t be as increasingly frequent or intense as they are becoming.

Some say Katrina was in effect a result of our own actions, our own free will to engage in activities that end up modifying ways this planet works. The unique vulnerability of the poor to the disaster is also our societal sin, for which part of our community is being punished (though not by God). That view is echoed by Wes Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America, in an article here.

Or maybe, because the satellite images were shaped like a fetus, we’re being punished for abortion. Or maybe Louisiana was being punished for Mardi Gras or for hosting an event for homosexuals. Maybe God Hates F… well, you know. Interpretations are coming from people with their own agendas all around the world.

Walter Brueggeman, whose book Prophetic Imagination is required reading for all seminary students, affirms the blame-your-sin-of-choice tradition from a Biblical perspective, but also notes three other models by which Biblical authors interpreted natural disasters. His article in this month’s Christian Century magazine is a great read.

His summary:

There is no one teaching on this subject in the Bible. Taking a biblical view of a natural disaster means:

• attending to a dimension of moral judgment,
• noticing where the power of chaos continues untamed,
• accepting that such a wave of destruction may be an exhibit of God's greatness, and
• trusting that God prevails over chaos in order to sustain life and keep it safe.

When we have such texts in hand, the remainder of the work is imaginative, faithful interpretation.

This bugs me personally because it seems my take, which is more in line with Granberg-Michaelson’s, that God is not the author of evil but many of the worst impacts of Katrina were things we could have, should have, and did see coming but did not as a society act upon, may not be Biblical.

If environmental scientists are right and these things do keep getting worse, we’ll need to develop an effective line on disasters. Read Brueggeman and react.