Is God trying to send people a message through disasters?

WASHINGTON (RNS)—What do homosexuality, health care reform and British advertising standards all have in common? They’re all things that have angered God, some religious leaders say, and he vented his frustration with the angry fires of Iceland’s Eyjafjalla-jokull volcano.

Moscow’s Interfax newswire reported the Association of (Russian) Orthodox Experts blamed the eruption—whose gigantic cloud of ash grounded transatlantic flights more than a week—on gay rights in Europe and Iceland’s tolerance of neo-paganism.

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, said God was angry over health care reform. San Antonio megachurch pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, said God was unleashing his wrath on Britain for deciding Israeli tourism ads actually featured parts of the disputed Palestinian territories, not Israel.

The eruption marked the latest in a long line of natural events to which some religious leaders attribute divine judgment. In short, God is using nature to channel his displeasure with human behavior—both the sinners and those who tolerate them—and that we had better shape up.

It’s an impulse that goes back thousands of years and still thrives in some religious quarters:

• Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi recently told his Shiite Muslim followers that immodestly dressed and promiscuous women are to blame for earthquakes.

• In February, Rabbi Yehuda Levin of the Rabbinical Alliance of America warned allowing gays in the military could cause natural disasters to strike America. “The practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes,” he said.

• Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson blamed the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti on a pact Haitians rebelling against French rule in the 18th century allegedly made with the devil.

• Both Robertson and Hagee blamed Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans’ debauchery and immorality.

So, what is it about nature’s fury that attracts theological interpretation? For many religious leaders, scholars say, it’s an opportunity to win new believers.

“Natural disasters are disruptive. When there’s a disruption, people’s worldviews are shaken and need to be repaired,” said Steven Friesen, a biblical studies professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “Natural disasters are a prime time to repair people’s worldviews. … It’s a long-running theme in American culture that God works to bring people into changing their worldview.”

Who accepts these proclamations and who doesn’t often depend on how a believer views God—benevolent, wrathful, active, passive or maybe something less defined, like a cosmic force.

“This stuff attracts people with a strong authoritarian image of God, and who believe that he—it’s almost always a he—does in fact punish people who do not follow his rules,” said Wade Clark Roof, professor of American religion at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

People who link disaster to divine judgment also tend to consider disasters as confirmation of already-held beliefs.

“They already think God is working in certain ways, and disasters become an example of that,” said Friesen, pointing to Hagee as an example. “There’s no logical connection (between Britain’s ad policy and the volcano), but because he is already convinced that God works to protect Israel, he believes that God made the volcano erupt to punish Britain.”

People who make such pronouncements also are claiming special power or authority, experts said. “They are claiming special knowledge of how God works in the world, and why he does what he’s doing,” Friesen said.

But many religious leaders reject linking disaster to divine judgment.

“It’s faulty theology. People take the personal consequences of sin, which are real, and project them onto natural disaster. That’s where things break down,” said Joel Hunter, a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals and a megachurch pastor in suburban Orlando, Fla.

“Speculating that disaster happens because sin has reached a certain level puts God in a really bad light.”