John Chane, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, was among the panelists of whom the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” column asked this question:”

“A question as we commemorate the anniversaries of Katrina and 9/11: Why would a merciful God allow disasters–natural or manmade–to happen?”

Chane’s response is…weird:

 

The question raises the very essence of the nature of God.

Given the botched syntax, I’m not exactly sure what he means by that. Anyway…

The belief that God is the causal agent in natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the religious fanaticism of 9/11 and acts as a grand puppeteer is just plain bad theology. It is a severely flawed theology which lends itself to the belief that human beings are mere actors on the stage of life, with God sharing the roles of both producer and director.

Katrina was a natural disaster and not a punishing act of God. 9/11 was the act of a few people who chose to interpret their flawed theology by acts of violence which were clearly a contradiction of the teachings of the Great Prophet.

Yep, there’s nothing about violence in the Koran. Muhammad wasn’t a military leader, and Islam didn’t conquer much of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain in the 7th and 8th centuries, wiping out or subjugating vast Christian populations in the process. The oppressive practice of turning non-Muslims into dhimmis has nothing to do with Islam, and neither does Wahabism. All of these statement are true, in the parallel dimension that John Chane lives in. (And no, I’m not suggesting that most Muslims are violent.)

Human beings have no control over such devastation…unless there is proof that they have, by their irresponsibility, contributed to Global Warming by abuses of the natural environment through overuse of fossil fuels and by the by-product environmental pollution of industrialization through Globalization.

But of course there isn’t the slightest bit of proof that human actions have had any effect whatsoever on hurricane intensity (though New Orleans was a man-made disaster to the extent that lousy engineering contributed mightily to the flooding). So we can safely attribute most of this paragraph to an uncontrollable spasm of leftist ecobabble that just slipped out of Chane’s word processor. He probably didn’t even notice it–just hit the F7 key by mistake, and that’s what came out.

God was present in New York through the hundreds of rescue workers who risked and gave their lives following acts of terrorism that were fueled by bad theology and self righteous abuses of religions Holy Texts.

Certified as such by Imam Bishop Chane, arbiter of what constitutes “bad theology” in Islam as well as Christianity. (By contrast, I would say that the Wahabism is evil theology, theology based on a false and immoral view of God and His relationship with humanity. “Bad theology” is what you call theology that distorts a religion, and I’m in no position to judge whether that’s the case or not. Certainly there are a lot of Muslims–throughout Saudi Arabia, for instance–who would take umbrage at the idea that they are perpetrating bad Islamic theology.)

God is present even now following Katrina and 9/11 and still is active in and through the hands, the compassionate hearts, minds and hard work of the thousands of people who continue the rebuilding and healing process in New Orleans and Mississippi and continue to work in finding true pathways for peace that are the cornerstone of the ancient Holy Books of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

God lives within each of us…not outside of us!

And thus does the Episcopal Bishop of Washington repudiate the transcendence of God, which is also one of the cornerstone teachings of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. So much for seeking interfaith understanding.