God & Katrina

Getreligion has weighed in with some interesting commentary on the religious implications of Katrina, finding one group that is openly exploring the possible relationship between God & Katrina. Somehow I don't think Pat Robertson is going to be jumping in on this one.

Of course no mere mortal can definitively speak for God and know with certainty how He involved himself in Katrina whether unleashing her or preventing her from causing even more destruction. But to head off a wave of media coverage lambasting those who speak as Brian Thomas, one of the storm's victims did, attributing Katrina to divine retribution, it might be helpful to have a quick review of the things we learned in Sunday School:

Verses like this one and this one show God both causing natural disasters as well as protecting people from them since the beginning of time.

Here He even unleashes frogs on the Egyptians who won't let the Jews leave town.

For those who take the Bible seriously there is no getting around this stuff and it's only a matter of time before the conversations happening around church water coolers spill into the public debate. Then again the idea of divine punishment is pretty widely shared even by religions outside of Christianity and Judaism. The Japanese for instance, call it "ten-batsu" or "heavenly punishment."

The conversation about what role He played in this one is probably best led by the victims themselves and is already turning out to be an interesting one.