Searching for Moral High Ground While Houston Drowns: A Perspective on the Lakewood Church Controversy
On Saturday, August 26, Lakewood Church issued a statement on Facebook that they were going…
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In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”
The numbers may be low compared to global-scale disasters of recent years, but there is a wrenching poignancy to what is happening in Uttarakhand right now. Many of the forces that frame daily life in South Asia are suddenly on display like a raw wound: the wages of development and globalization, the power of the natural world, divine agency, altruism, self-interest, and the political nature of both government action and religious ritual.
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Tornado Hits the Heartland: Is God Punishing Us?
Many of these weather events actually are a kind of “punishment”—not in the conservative-theological sense of tit-for-tat justice meted out by an Abusive Father on High, but in the more progressive-theological sense of unforeseen consequences of reckless human actions. Climate scientists have said for years that global climate change will lead to increased severe weather events, and now they appear to be here; along with droughts and poor harvests caused by shifting climatic belts. On a planetary basis, we are reaping what we have sown for two hundred years.
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