{"id":35,"date":"2008-09-02T17:45:56","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T17:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/ireland-wants-to-know-the-theo.html"},"modified":"2008-09-02T17:45:56","modified_gmt":"2008-09-02T17:45:56","slug":"ireland-wants-to-know-the-theo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/ireland-wants-to-know-the-theo.html","title":{"rendered":"Ireland Wants To Know: The Theology of Hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sure we’ll debate evolution and intelligent design a great deal more as this blog continues. \u00a0I met a guy over in the “Emerald Isle” who posed a question more theological than legal, but I told him I’d blog in search of answers.<\/p>\n

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I see that many of the right of center blogs are still apoplectic about former DNC chair Don Fowler’s overheard conversation which included the line in response to the arrival of Hurricane Gustav: “That just demonstrates that God is on our side.” \u00a0This neatly layers with filmmaker Michael Moore’s earlier comment: “I was just thinking that this Gustav is proof that there is a God in Heaven…that it would actually be on the way to New Orleans on Day One of the Republican Convention…”.<\/div>\n
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This is not exactly high-grade comedy; many would find it at least as foolish as Pat Robertson “praying away” a hurricane from Virginia Beach (which later hit parts of New York state) or Jerry Falwell’s claim that the existence of feminists and the ACLU caused God to lift a curtain of protection from the US on September 11. (Ann Coulter said that Senator Edward Kennedy and yours truly were to blame.) \u00a0But there actually is a difference. \u00a0See, Fowler and Moore have never demonstrated any belief that God tracks hurricanes or uses them to “prove” anything. \u00a0But Pat, the late Dr. Falwell and Ann do believe these interventions are true; they even often have some Biblical injunctions to try to prove it.<\/div>\n
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But this Irish fellow made another observation. \u00a0Wasn’t George Bush the fellow who told a couple of his cabinet members that he believed he was chosen by God to lead at this time in history. \u00a0Indeed, Bush did. \u00a0Now, wait, if God picked George Bush, then God must have been responsible for the Bush Administration’s failures with Katrina. \u00a0Right? \u00a0God picked “hell of a job, Brownie” and made sure that Michael Chertoff was flying off to a bird flu conference instead of flying to a drowning New Orleans. \u00a0This doesn’t seem right. \u00a0But now, did God send Gustav close to New Orleans to disrupt the Republicans in St. Paul? \u00a0But did God send Gustav only close, so that George Bush could go to Texas and tape the kind of stuff he should have said pre-Katrina? \u00a0Did God think that this would ultimately help the Republican ticket which could spend the first day of the convention asking for hurricane aid funds instead of McCain contributions?<\/div>\n
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Why do Irish people ask this kind of stuff? \u00a0And, let’s put everything on the table. \u00a0Didn’t Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tell us weeks ago that God had picked Obama to lead us at this time? What role did Gustav play in his campaign?<\/div>\n
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Christians like myself are not Biblical literalists–you’ve probably figured that out already. \u00a0I also have a reluctance to seriously believe that God manipulates elections (although bad election machines might) and is therefore responsible for all the misdeeds, mistakes, or miscalculations successful politicians make. Maybe this is just one more reason pols should go easy on the God talk.\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m sure we’ll debate evolution and intelligent design a great deal more as this blog continues. \u00a0I met a guy over in the “Emerald Isle” who posed a question more theological than legal, but I told him I’d blog in search of answers. I see that many of the right of center blogs are still…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-politicking"],"yoast_head":"\nIreland Wants To Know: The Theology of Hurricanes - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/ireland-wants-to-know-the-theo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ireland Wants To Know: The Theology of Hurricanes - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m sure we’ll debate evolution and intelligent design a great deal more as this blog continues. \u00a0I met a guy over in the “Emerald Isle” who posed a question more theological than legal, but I told him I’d blog in search of answers. 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An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}