Karma and the Christian Right: Will Gustav delay the GOP convention?

I wonder how many of these "Christians" will now pray that God not punish the people of the Gulf Coast too harshly for Focus on the Family's (and their own) foolishness?

It was good to hear on the radio this morning that the mayor of New Orleans, the governor of Louisiana, the FEMA head and the Homeland Security secretary are all on the scene making sure that resources are in place ahead of the storm, and that people are making preparations for the worst. Perhaps we are capable of learning lessons about weather.

David, David, David ....

What a disappointing post. I thought Stuart Shepherd (who I never heard of before) was some kind of nut-job flake when he did that gimmick a few weeks ago about asking people to pray for rain in Denver last night. It was cheap and tasteless.

Et tu, David? I can't believe you would stoop to this guy's level with this tit-for-tat commentary. Besides, what's a Catholic writer doing talking about "karma" ? David, this is not your best work. You're better than this.

Cheers!

David Gibson you and Sharon Stone have one thing in common: neither of you understand the concept of karma and both of you blithely make statements about it that tend to be hurtful to victims of natural disasters.

"So, God is punishing the people of New Orleans because of stupid, vindictive statements by some conservative evangelicals? Please. I agree with Elmo - David Gibson gets the Sharon Stone award for completely misunderstanding the concept of Karma."

Had God unleashed rains of Biblical proportions on Denver, what would you be saying today, Alicia? Think about it...flash flooding in downtown Denver, maybe even loss of life? After all, rains of Biblical proportions invoke images of the great flood. Is that what the evangelical Christians were asking for, that the entire population of Denver be flooded just to keep Obama from speaking?

If the account in the Bible is accurate, then God certainly does punish innocents for the actions of criminals. How many times were the Israelites ordered to kill women, children and even babes in womb in their conquest of the Promised Land?

I'm sorry if you can't understand this possibility, but it could well be that God has decided to ratchet up his response to the stupidity of his followers. When the evangelical Christians prayed for him to remove some of the more liberal justices from the Supreme Court, he instead took Chief Justice Rehnquist and then, not too much later, took the lives of D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell, two instigators of the "pray for the Court" movement.

Apparently the evangelicals did not learn, for they instead decided to call down a flood upon the people of Denver to attack the Democrats. Instead, God is sending a hurricane to New Orleans to remind us about the GOP and their response to Katrina.

Karmic justice? Perhaps not in the strictest sense of the word. But certainly, if you buy the idea of God as a father figure, the actions of a parent who is trying to teach their rebellious, argumentative child a lesson about being careful what you ask for.

The weather was perfect in Denver last night, but there was a massive and frightening thunderstorm in Phoenix. HAH! HAH! HAH!

Paul, from what I've heard, the GOP is considering postponing their convention if Gustav hits New Orleans. The last thing McCain and the Republicans would want is to be celebrating their "Grand Old Party" while New Orleans floods again, reminding Americans of why they don't want to elect another Republican President in 2008.

"You're better than this."

Actually, Reaganite, this is worth exploring. If, as many conservative Christians believe, God answers prayers, then there is also the possibility that he answers prayers in the negative. Certainly we have read of such instances in the bible.

For evangelical Christians, who believe that theirs is the ONLY path pleasing to God, the issue of God answering prayer has to be quite important. So also does the issue of God chastising his children, much as he did the nation of Israel according to the OT accounts.

When one of their members prays very publicly for a hurricane to move away from his town, and then it "miraculously" does, this is proclaimed as a miracle of God.

Here we have a group who prayed for rain "of biblical proportions" on their political opponents. We see instead a storm of potentially biblical proportions heading towards New Orleans, a town that several evangelical Christian leaders said was deserving of Katrina for their sin.

The question of whether or not God is using Gustav to teach his children a lesson is every bit as interesting and appropriate to look at as any other alleged act of God. Why is it that when God fails to do the bidding of the evangelicals, they insist that the results have nothing to do with their actions, but when God "answers" their prayers it is trumpeted from the highest hills?

If God exists, he could well be giving his people a lesson in using his name in vain, couldn't he? Or does God only bless evangelicals and never punish them?

Greetings,

Without either applauding or decrying some of the above posts, I would just weigh in with this: I believe, if Christians want to pray about the upcoming election, from the president on down, then they should pray that everyone - that includes evangelicals - gets his or her backside off the couch and away from the boob-tude long enough to get to the voting booth on election day, and vote his or her conscience.

Just my two cents worth...