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Comments Posted By Chris Thron
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Was Katrina God-sent judgment?
Was Katrina God’s judgement upon a depraved city? Was New Orleans a modern-day Sodom? If so, then why is it that the poor suffered most, while the gambling magnates and porn merchants escaped?
Most of us think the Bible teaches that Sodom was destroyed because its inhabitants were sinful. But this is not quite true! Had there been only ten righteous men in the city, it would not have been destroyed. Indeed, Sodom was not destroyed because of the wickedness of the sinful majority, but rather because of the failings of the righteous minority.
Again and again in the Bible, nations are saved by the action of a single righteous individual (e.g. Joseph, Moses, Esther, David, Elijah, etc.). Consider in particular Joseph saving Egypt from famine. Joseph did not prevent the seven years of catastrophic harvests. However, through his spiritual foresight he saved millions from starvation.
So why was there no Joseph for New Orleans? As the Holy Spirit said through the prophet Ezekiel: “I sought for a man among them who should wall up a wall for the land, and stand in the break before me, that I should not destroy it. But I did not find one” (Ezekiel 22:30). New Orleans was a catastrophe because no one stepped up to the plate. But who could have done so? Politicians point their fingers at each other, but they were only puppets in the grand scheme of things. Nay — the “one man” who failed was not an individual human being, but rather the Church.
“But the Church is not one man,” one might protest. Indeed, that is the crux of the problem! Long before Katrina, downtown New Orleans was a disaster area with blocks upon blocks of run-down, booze-, drug- and urine-soaked slums. In the midst of this squalor where was the Church, which is God’s instrument for spiritual and social renewal? In fact, New Orleans was full of churches — so many churches, and so focused on their own separate agendas, that they were not even beginning to address the flood tide of social ills which engulfed their communities. The Church indeed was not doing its job. Not that churches weren’t trying — but they were disunited, uncoordinated, and hence ultimately ineffective.
Long before Katrina, the poor of New Orleans were living in a perpetual state of quiet desperation. Which is worse – a flood of water which suddenly obliterates possessions, homes, and lives — or an insidiously invisible tide of unending poverty, which submerges its victims in hopeless futility? Churches were doing virtually nothing to alleviate the latter; neither were they ready when the former came upon them .
It is wonderful that many churches across the country are now stepping up to help the afflicted. It’s too bad that it took such a horrible disaster to prod us to actions we should have taken long ago.
“Do you think that they were sinners above all other men? I tell you, No. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4-5). Here is Jesus’ warning for the Church in our communities. Are we really doing our job? Or is our message and influence as fragmented and incoherent as that of the Church of New Orleans?
Comment Posted By Chris Thron On 06.10.2005 @ 09:41
