Some blowhards with pulpits insist on attributing acts of God to the sins of the victims, but recent days have provided awful reminders that natural disasters don't discriminate. A cyclone killed 50,000 in Burma; an earthquake killed 15,000 in China; a tornado killed seven in Picher, Okla. The only generalization that can be made about all the victims is that they were unfortunate. As it says in the Book of Matthew, "God sendeth rain on the just and the unjust."
But natural disasters still reveal a lot about the societies they strike. Hurricane Katrina didn't expose the wickedness of New Orleans,...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
