Love Not Fear

I read yesterday that during the chaos after the hurricane, a number of people, hungry, thirsty, and dying at the New Orleans Convention Center, tried to cross the Crescent City Connection (bridge) to the high-and-dry West Bank, where they hoped to find food, water, and, perhaps, help. They were met by Gretna Police who halted them with bullhorns and gun shots over their heads. It wasn't about race, or cruelty, according to the police. It was about law and order, since there were probably looters among the crowd. It was about Gretna not having the resources to support this huge mass of people. "If you wasn't there," said the police chief from Gretna's neighbor Westwego, "shut your mouth, because you don't know." A while back, I remember that a West Bank church tried to install a large lighted sign saying "JESUS". The church neglected to check the city ordinances, however. As it turned out, the display was much larger than the allowed sign s

Well, it looks like all our youth are safe and more-or-less OK. Thanks to God. There are a couple of things I'd like to mention, because goofy theology always seem to come up whenever anything terrible like this happened. The first stupid idea is that the people who suffered these kinds of calamities do so because God wanted to prove some point, or punish somebody. God doesn't work that way. God never works that way. People who start saying that Katrina, or 9/11, or AIDS or what have you is God visiting judgment on the victims usually don't know any of those victims. If they did, they wouldn't say such stupid things. You, the Northminster youth, know people who have lost their homes (though thankfully not their lives) and you know what nonsense this "God got them" theology is. For a biblical reference, see, e.g., John chapter 9, where Jesus heals a man who is born blind. Before doing this, however, he dismisses as nonsense a question about who's fault the

If any members of Northminster Presbyterian Church in Slidell/Pearl River read this, please add a comment below or e-mail me at this address (I'm not sure when I can reach my other e-mail addresses.) Our family is fine. We're in Greenville, MS staying with relatives. We're praying for all of you. I've opened the site up for anyone to post comments, at least for now.