Katrina and Intelligent Design

I've been watching a lot of the CNN nonstop coverage of Hurricane Katrina that is currently devistating New Orleans. I normally don't watch the news but when there are 'big' stories my mom leaves the TV on one of the news channels all day and I can't help but become interested. I mean, they show the same clips over and over but for some reason I just sit and stare at the TV waiting for something to happen. But that is beside the point.

There is also currently in our society a debate about Darwinism and Intelligent Design. What should be taught? What is really a theory? Is Intelligent Design just relgion (Christianity, to be specific) in disguise sneaking its way into our schools? I don't know the answers to these questions(although I have some ideas that I won't share with you), but I'm more concerned with our pursute of truth--Truth.

Is it all just chance--this planet, this solar system, this galaxy, this universe? Did it all come together through 'randomness' and the laws of physics? If so, Katrina makes sense in this system of non-sense. If there really was a designer he or she didn't do a good job apparently because bad things are STILL happening to good people, innocent people are dying because they lived in the wrong place, people are losing their homes because the randomness of creation--if you can still call it that--that is being revealed to us in the form of a category 5 hurricane. If there is no designer--let's just call him God for ease--If there is no God, then I can be OK with this hurricane. I can say, 'yes, this is just the way things are,' and go back to my own life of randomness and hope that it doesn't happen to me.

What is the alternative? A pseudo-intelligent designer? Deism? Pantheism? As a Christian, I hold to the idea that God is the Creator of the world, separate and distinct from His creation (not pantheism), yet closer to it than is knowable. He is not a far away God that flipped a coin or made a clock (not Deism). He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of Moses and the Prophets. He is the God who makes his climactic revelation throught Jesus. What does this tell us about the Judeo-Christian God and how he works? That he is close to us and suffers with us, that he does not stand above us and say, "DO WHAT I WANT OR ELSE", that he cares about his children. So what about hurricanes? Couldn't he have stopped it? Maybe that is the wrong question. If we ask this question we aren't taking into account the Fall. Not just the Fall of Man, but the Fall of everything. This allows me to say, "No, this isn't right. Things aren't the way they are supposed to be."

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Romans 8:18-21

When the storm is over what are we to do? Not just this hurricane, but all the other storms in our lives that remind us of how things just don't seem right. Do we appeal to randomness like most of our commercialized and secularized society? Or do we appeal to a God that is both the Creator and the Sufferer? How do we look for Heaven on Earth in the midst of Hell?

The rain ceases, and a bird's clear song suddenly announces the difference between Heaven and Hell.
- Thomas Merton

It won't come through a textbook. We won't see it through Darwinism or Intelligent design. We must seek the Truth in the midst and aftermath of death and suffering. The peace of God that is indescribable with words or thought, that can only be revealed to us through the song of a bird proclaiming hope will be our answer. But we must look for it--always--and never cease. When the storm is over, we must listen for the Word of God. Maybe it takes a storm to silence us, to put away the things of the world that seem to consume us (although we think we are consuming them), and put us in a position to hear God.

The story of Elijah may help us here.

The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?

It is the gentle whisper of God that will be our salvation. Pray that we can hear it.