“I don’t believe in instant Karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas. Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesnt (sic) care about them.” Thus tweeted sociology professor Ken Storey shortly after Hurricane Harvey had ravaged Texas. This raises the question, just what were the sins of Texas that called for such dreadful punishment? Apparently, it was the voters of Texas’ decision to support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Shortly after his unfortunate tweet, Storey was fired from his teaching position at the University of Tampa.
As a Christian, I reject the mechanistic concept of Karma. But I do find it supremely ironic that, even as I write this post, Hurricane Irma is ravaging the gulf coast of Florida, the very region where the city of Tampa is located and, presumably, where Ken Storey makes his home. But unlike the good professor, I take no delight in his suffering or that of other people of Florida. May God grant them safety while the storm lasts and a quick recovery thereafter.
But professor Storey wasn’t alone in blaming hurricanes on the deplorables. Actress Jennifer Lawrence also got in on the act, opining that the storms were “Mother Nature’s rage and wrath,” in response to climate change deniers’ refusal to confess, as it were, their environmental sins. This led one person on Twitter to raise the question about the current wildfires raging in Los Angeles. If Mother Nature is angry with Texans and Floridians for dismissing the sacred doctrine of man-made climate change, why is she angry at reliably environmentalist LA? Or what about the terrible drought that California suffered for several years? Or the earthquakes? Maybe Mother Nature is confused. Maybe she has multiple personality disorder. Maybe the wrath of Mother Nature is a figment of Lawrence’s imagination.
Houston flooding in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
In all fairness, it’s not just liberal professors and Hollywood types who make prophetic pronouncements without any sound basis. In the aftermath of 911, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson found themselves in hot water for suggesting that God permitted 911 to take place because of America’s support for abortion and homosexuality. Just how Falwell and Robertson knew American support for homosexuality caused God to strike the US, they did not say.
In the Bible we find examples of people making the same type of error as professor Storey, Jennifer Lawrence, Falwell and Robertson. For instance, In John chapter 9, the disciples, referring to a man who was blind from birth, asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” They assumed that the man’s blindness was the result of some specific sin, but their assumption was misguided. Jesus responded to their question by stating, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”
Job’s friends made the same mistake, attributing Job sufferings, without warrant, to some secret sin on his part, which they demanded time and time again that he confess.
Lux Lucet 