The View From "The Mount"

By Lee Russ

Monday, September 05, 2005 at 10:54 AM

[apologies for the blank entry before this one--never hit the ENTER button by mistake]

Seems God has little else to do but throw down modern versions of thunderbolts at the spinning earth, all with the goal of furthering the earthly work of his chosen ones.  Of course, there's a whole lot of dispute over exactly who the chosen ones are.  It seems that everybody wants the chosen ones to be them, and wants the unchosen ones to be everybody else. Odd how that works.

In any case, the earthly representatives of God have commenced issuing their messages, and providing their responses, in the wake of the worst natural disaster to hit the US in some time, maybe ever.  Seems that "natural" disaster means "God-caused" disaster to a lot of folks.  And those same folks know exactly why God caused that disaster:

1. The hurricane & its aftermath have been described on al Qaeda-linked Web sites as evidence of the "wrath of God" striking America,"--New Orleans collects dead as officials dodge blame
Sun Sep 4, 2005 Rueters: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=globalNews&storyID=2005-09-04T162316Z_01_H
O481242_RTRUKOC_0_US-WEATHER-KATRINA-WRAP.xml

2.  But some American fundamentalists have a remarkably similar view, that differs only as to the behavior that ticked off the lofty one:
    "Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From `Girls Gone Wild' to `Southern Decadence', New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same," he continued.
    New Orleans is also known for its Mardi Gras parties where thousands of drunken men revel in the streets to exchange plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts. This annual event sparked the creation of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series.
    "Let us pray for and help those ravaged by this disaster. However, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," Marcavage said. "May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," Marcavage concluded.
http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2005/08/religious_right.html
Repent America's web site is

3.  Or maybe the whole thing was just an opportunity to get a lot of people miserable enough to be receptive to God in the form of his earthly representatives.  And Americans are not a people to let opportunity slip away:
    "God is at work, and we are called by Him to Serve His Will. There was a purpose for Katrina, let us not fail to fulfill our duties."--Posted on Free Republic, 09/02/2005, in comment announcing that the Gideons were sending 40,000 "Personal Witnessing Testaments (New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs) to be distributed at the Astrodome and other relief centers in Houston."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1475667/posts