Hurricane Katrina, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

The following has been cross posted on Theologica.

Since hurricane Katrina there has been much discussion about the judgment of God in the blogosphere and elsewhere.

Mike Russell has written on Theologica that Katrina was not God's judgment.  He has received comments with varying degrees of agreement and disagreement.

On the WorldMagBlog, Zeitgeist, a lengthy discussion on this topic has ensued among far better minds than mine, including David and Tim Bayly, Ed Veith, Joe Carter and Gideon Strauss.  Unfortunately, a good deal of that debate has gone off the front page, so if you want to read some of it I would suggest you start here and move forward.

On this blog I did a little post a day or so after the Hurricane, called First We Lament. I asked us to focus on weeping with those who weep and mourning with those who mourn and encouraged us not to speak of God's judgment in this regard, at least initially. Whether I communicated it well or not, I was thinking along the lines of how we ought to think pastorally in such a situation.

A great debate ensued in the comments on my blog between a few folks wanting to talk about God's judgment and a pastor living near New Orleans who was in the thick of ministry to Katrina victims. Although I won't claim to know what was in the minds of those commenters it seems to me that some were focusing more on interpreting what happened and others were focusing on ministry to those to whom it happened.

Those are two valid and necessary considerations in a matter like this. There is the pastoral concern which asks not only how we care for the suffering, but how do we speak for God to the suffering. And how we speak for God to the suffering necessarily involves theologizing. But it's not just to the sufferin that we speak about this matter, we must also speak to the witnesses of the suffering.

I am a bit fearful of stepping back into this debate because it has already been beat to death, and as I said, by far better minds than mine.

But there is one point I want to bring out that I haven't seen addressed, or if it has been addressed I just missed it.

This point is simple, contra Tony Campolo, this was an act of God, and as such, it was His will. That God acted is certain. How we interpret this act is where the debate comes in.

Much of the debate I have read has been devoted to the question of whether or not this is the judgment of God. This is a valid question to ask, but the point I want to make is that it is not the only question to ask in such a situation.

I'm not saying we're asking the wrong questions, I'm saying we're not asking enough questions.

In the midst of suffering, at different times and places in the Scripture different intepretations are put on suffering. One of the hot items I have seen in debates on the WorldMag blogs and elsewhere is how we apply the insights of Luke 13:1-5 to Katrina. It's not my intention to offer a lengthy exegesis of that passage here, but I will point out that it makes two complimentary points. Jesus forbade His disciples to interpret Pilate's massacre of the Galileans and the collapse of the Tower of Siloam as particular instances of God's judgment on particular people, who were particularly sinful. Yet at the same time, these incidents were reminders of THE judgment to come and were to incite repentance in the hearts of witnesses to these events.

So we can't deny that Jesus had sin and judgment in view in Luke 13,but it was a very nuanced view of sin and judgment that was not to be explained in simple, mechanistic, retributive terms.

On the other hand, the book of Lamentations makes it clear that the destruction of Jerusalem was retributive. So, we can't deny that there is a valid form of retribution theology.

There are other instances of suffering where sin is not in view.  In John 9 we see this:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
The Holy Bible  : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids

Here again we see that the disciples have this mechanistic retribution theology operating where they assume that suffering must be the result of sin. In this case Jesus tells them that neither the man nor his parents sinned, this happened that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

Or, we can call to mind Romans 5:3 where it says that suffering comes to believers to produce perseverance, character and hope. Similarly, James 1:2-4 says that trials of faith come to produce perseverance which in turn produces spiritual maturity.

Now, I may be in error to extrapolate these individual incidents of suffering in John 9, Romans 5 and James 1 outward to apply to large scale disasters like Katrina, but I don't think so.

The point is that there are all kinds of reasons for suffering. We certainly should consider whether or not judgment is in view, but there are other matters we also ought to consider.

We also need to keep in mind that these large scale disasters affect both Christians and non-Christians. While many of those who want to speak of judgment coming on New Orleans because of its sinfulness I am reminded that God always has a particular concern for His own people. One of my best friends in seminary was fond of saying that God does all that He does for the sake of the elect. I think such a statement can be taken too far, but I don't think we are off base if we say that, in all that He does, God has a particular concern for His elect.

In his commentary on the Westminster Confession, Robert Shaw says this of God's specal providence:

his special providence is exercised, in a particular manner, about his Church and people.

I believe these thoughts on the elect and special providence are germane to this discussion in the sense that, most discussions of God's judgment have focused on the actions of the reprobate of New Orleans. In other words, many have focused on the depravity of things like Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence and have interpreted this as a message to the folks who participate in such things.

But, if God's special concern is with His people, ought we not to give equal or greater weight to asking what Hurricane Katrina says to the elect of New Orleans?

And in saying that, I don't mean to say that we must choose to view things like this strictly from one perspective or another. Philippians 1:27-28 says:

27 Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel 28 without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God.
The Holy Bible  : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids

Granted, Paul is not talking about natural disasters here, he is speaking of persecution. But I do think we can find an analogy here in that the same experience of suffering carries different message to the righteous and the reprobate. Persecution was a sign of God's approbation of the righteous in this case, while simultaneously being a sign of destruction to the reprobate.

Could it not be the case that the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina could be sending one message to the righteous and a different one to the reprobate?

And so, I've asked more questions than I have attempted to answer in this post, but I have done so with the purpose of expanding our hermeneutical horizon. Just from the simple survey I have done here of only a few passages of Scripture we see several interpretive options regarding suffering.

1. It may be retributive justice on the reprobate.

2. It may be discipline for the sins of the body of Christ.

3. It may be a precursor to the final eschatological judgment, without particular reference to particular sins of particular people.

4. It may be for the sake perfecting and maturiing believers.

5. It may be for the sake of displaying the work of God.

6. It may be any combination of the above purposes, or many other purposes not mentioned, applied variously to different people or groups of people.

Whether we can know what God had in mind in this or not, we also need to keep the pastoral task in mind.  John Piper reminds Calvinists that we must not only believe in the doctrines of grace but we must teach them in a particular way. Similarly, whatever we think God was doing in and through Hurricane Katrina we can't express that without keeping pastoral concerns in view.

For this post I'll give the last words to my friend Arch Van Devender and to the Apostle Paul. 

In a comment on my blog Arch said this:

Romans 9:19-21 does teach an essential quietude before the awful sovereignty of God. We know that all physical events in this world, including Katrina, have spiritual significance. We know that pain and suffering in this world is evidence of the great and true judgment of God on sinners which will reflect their eternal misery in Hell apart from the salvation of Christ manifest in their lives. We know that God does chasten saints and reprobates alike so that all men are without excuse.

But to call God to account for "why" He chooses to elevate the misery of one set of sinners over another and even more egregiously to seek to speak for Him in such an instance, is to go way beyond our Scriptural warrant. If we know that God has in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets (but) has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, then to assume a summary calling wherein we are able to interpret God's continuing action seems to say that Christ was not sufficient to end the need for such interpretation.

Yes, God acted in and through Hurricane Katrina.  But as to how and why, we just don't know.

And while it may be proper to speak of Hurricane Katrina in terms of judgment or in many other terms, we really ought to keep in mind that God's judgments are past finding out (yes I know I used judgment in two different senses in that sentence, but I think the point is still well taken). Maybe Romans 11:33-36 ought to be our "go-to" passage in seeking to interpret Hurricane Katrina.

33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and a knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

The Holy Bible  : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids