God and the Weather

God and the weather.

Various conservative pundits and preachers boldly announce that the latest weather catastrophe (whatever it might be at the moment) is of God, and likely related to God's displeasure and subsequent punishment. From hurricanes to drought, God is in the weather business.

Reading in Deuteronomy the last few mornings, weather was clearly a part of the god-story, vital to an agrarian society. Moses makes clear: love and serve God faithfully and the climate will be good for crops, with adequate rainfall, early and late, just right.

And should the people fail to honor God, then God will shut up the heavens and the crops will fail for want of rain.

Tit for tat ...

So when Rev. So-and-So decries the sins of some city, or nation, as the reason for the hurricane or flood or drought or earthquake, the Rev. is simply echoing what's in the Sacred Text: Morality and faith, or the lack thereof, are directly linked to the weather.

Hence, the denial of human-influenced global warning, and the affirmation that "only God can change the weather."

What do I do with this?

First off, the easy association of human behavior and God's manipulation of the weather is just "too easy." We know that the earth revolves around the sun, and the world isn't flat. We know that vast weather patterns and earthquakes are the result of a living planet and eco-systems. Dead planets neither shake nor have weather, either the pleasant kind or destructive.

So, simply to say, "the sin or New Orleans brought the hurricane," or the flooding in Texas the result of "witchcraft and sodomy" is simply a manipulative device to frighten people, even as it encourages spiritual smugness on the part of those "safe in the LORD."

What we know scientifically (God be praised) makes such simple and simplistic associations untenable.

Yet, in spite of themselves, conservatives have a point (contrary to their assertions): Human activity does influence the weather!

While their love of capitalism and money keeps them from seeing just how deeply influential on the environment is human activity, as in fracking and the use of fossil fuels, they've managed to hoist themselves on their own petard (sort of like the sermon illustration of finger-pointing - there may well be one finger pointing at someone else, but there are three pointing back at us). Indeed, Moses was right, not quite in the way Moses might have thought, but in the reminder to the people that human activity has a bearing on the weather and the earth.

What we know about our living planet and its vast weather systems no longer allows what I call a simple "punishment model." But the text does remind us, as scientists are telling us, that human behavior is connected to the weather and now we know to earthquakes, too.

Connected, not quite in the moralistic way that Moses might be suggesting, but in a way deeper and more profound and a whole lot more dangerous.