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September 02, 2005

Can You Feel God's Love Tonight?

Hearing that New Orleans is in the dark due to a lack of electricity, the cockroaches are out in force:

Two Christian leaders in New Orleans are testifying to God's mercy in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One suggests that the death toll could have been much higher had it not been for God's mercy -- and the other that God may have used the hurricane to purge wickedness from the city.

Oh brother, here we go.

"It's a terrible tragedy," Kelley [New Orleans Bapitist Theological Seminary] says of the devastation in and around New Orleans, "and we still don't know the scope of it -- but the evidences of God's mercy are there. We rejoice in the fact that He has got the whole world in His hands, including the city of New Orleans and [the seminary]."

No, you idiot, a sign of mercy would have been to not let thousands of people die; to not let old people and infants wither away in hospitals deprived of electricity and food and water; to not let thieving thugs kill innocent people and attack those who would rescue the needy.

Tell me, Mr. Kelley, how many people have to die before you will say that God could have done a better job? I don't think you can answer it. If fifty-thousand die, you'll say it could have been one hundred thousand. If ten, you'll say fifty.

Many, many people are berating the President, FEMA, state and local governments for their response, yet somehow God the Almighty, a being who (so rumor has it) could have stopped all of this from happening, gets off with a "oh, it's not so bad." Irrationality at its finest!

Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

Yup, and to do it he only drowned and brought great suffering to poor blacks, traditionally the most devout Christians in the South, those who go beyond the "dress up so our friends see us on Sunday" Christianty of many Southern Protestants to truly see their faith as a means of hope for something better. Hooray for God!

Might I recommend some target practice? He seems to have pretty crap aim.

Look around, folks - see who is doing all the good works? That's right, your fellow humans - be they black or white or yellow or red, believer or secularist infidel, Democrat or Republican or independent. We, the people, have come to the rescue of our fellow humans, and the various gods have apparently decided to hide their faces, probably in shame for their complete impotence.

(found via Radley Balko)