Posted on 09/16/2005 6:45:26 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
A few days after Hurricane Katrina clobbered New Orleans, I was sitting in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel in New York City with one of my favorite hedonists, the author Tom Robbins, mourning the destruction of the city we both adore and the suffering of thousands of poor folks who lost what little they had to begin with.
Robbins described New Orleans as "the depository of America's soul."
I hadn't heard anyone put it quite that way. It's a lovely, haunting image, and if you've ever met a real New Orleanian, you know exactly what he means.
Robbins wasn't talking about the famous (and, to some, infamous) French Quarter where unfettered decadence and nonstop music keep tourists entertained. He's talking about the folks who live outside the Quarter -- a third of whom eked out an existence below the poverty line even before Katrina struck.
'A deep state of sin'
"They are part and parcel of the soul factor. That music didn't come from those plantation houses, it came from those poor people in those shanty and shotgun houses. There is a spiritual component to the fact that this is happening to America's soul," Robbins, a spiritually eclectic fellow who is the grandson of two Southern Baptist ministers, told me, adding that he was certain sooner or later, "people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell will say that New Orleans is being punished."
Well, so far, Robertson and Falwell, who were eviscerated four years ago for claiming that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were somehow divine retribution for America's wayward morality, have remained publicly silent on all matters wrathful where Hurricane Katrina is concerned.
Unfortunately, Dr. Wiley Bennett, pastor of Woodland Hills Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas, has not followed their example.
'People took it wrong'
Not long after several thousand evacuees from New Orleans began arriving in Tyler (including two dear friends of mine who moved from Chicago to the Crescent City last year), Bennett spelled out a fire-and-brimstone message on a sign in front of his church: "THE BIG EASY IS THE MODERN DAY SODOM AND GOMORRAH."
It's the kind of thing some people do in the name of Christ that, to borrow a line from Annie Lamott, makes Jesus want to drink gin out of a cat dish.
Sigh.
Even after several evacuees confronted Bennett and asked him to remove the offensive sign, the pastor refused. Earlier this week, after vandals knocked off a few of the letters, Bennett still wouldn't take down his damn(ing) sign.
"Right now it's a crippled sign," Bennett, 74, told me by phone from his church office. "It does not say what it once said, but it is a monument to the fact that the sign was vandalized. The original intent was to point out that the United States of America right now is in a deep state of sin."
Now, it would have been easier -- and arguably more satisfying --to begin yelping at Bennett about how his moral wake-up call was ill-conceived and cruelly timed. I could have chalked him up as nothing more than a redneck fundamentalist who is best ignored.
But I really wanted to know why he would do this. His picture on the church Web site shows that he has a kindly face. He couldn't have meant to hurt people, especially people who had suffered so much, could he?
"What I was trying to do was point out that the wickedness of the city of New Orleans brought a hand of judgment on that city," Bennett said. (He wasn't going to make this easy.) "It was never put up there with the intention of saying there are no good people in the city of New Orleans. That was a misunderstanding. People took it wrong."
He told me about two women -- the evacuees -- who came to see him about removing the sign.
"One of the ladies who came in here is the harshest person I've encountered. She said she had lost everything. Believe me, I can understand the stress and the hurt she was feeling, but on the other hand she would not listen to me," he said.
What was he trying to tell her?
"I'm trying to get as many people to go to heaven as I can," he said. "When I questioned one of them, she said, 'I'm going to heaven because I'm good.' I had to tell her that 'there is not one righteous, no, not one.' But she rejected what I had to say."
Could he blame her?
'Poor people are wicked, also'
I tried to engage Bennett in a discussion of his shoddy theological reasoning (and general insensitivity), but he couldn't see what I was saying, either.
There he was, trying to preach the message of salvation, which he believes happens by grace alone and not by anything we can do ourselves, while rubbing salt in the wounds of the downtrodden. By offering no grace, only blind judgment.
"New Orleans is a wicked city," he repeated. (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Biloxi, Miss., and Tyler are also "wicked cities" according to Bennett.)
Judgment awaits. Katrina was a warning shot.
OK, but is there something wrong with the Almighty's aim? God missed the French Quarter almost entirely.
The Quarter is built on high ground, Bennett tried to argue.
So high that God couldn't reach it?
Why was the Quarter -- the seat of debauchery, the devil's playground -- spared the full force of the hurricane's havoc while poor people had their lives washed away by the ark-worthy floods?
"Regardless of what you believe, poor people are wicked, also," Bennett said. "The French Quarter is not preserved. It may be easier to rebuild . . . but it is not operating right now and is basically shut down."
Of course on Thursday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced that the Quarter will reopen later this month.
So much for divine retribution.
I prefer Robbins' theological explanation to Bennett's.
"I think this demonstrates whose side God may actually be on," Robbins said. "Maybe all of us who like to eat, drink and make merry should relax."
Unfortunately, I see those words around here all the time directed at liberals.
I think this pastor is being disingenuous. He clearly believes NO is a den of iniquity and deserved to be destroyed but it trying to backpedal away from that by saying he meant all of the US. If he believes it, stand up for it.
We had a sermon a couple of weeks ago at my church about those who claim Katrina was God's wrath. I was glad our pastor spoke against that and for God's love and grace.
"So high that God couldn't reach it?"
It was a 'warning' shot!
Dr. Bennett's beliefs are based on scripture as opposed to Falsani's beliefs which appear to exclude a need for salvation through Jesus Christ.
There are things that happen particularly at night in New Orleans which I would not want to see or try to explain to a child but then we aren't really suppose to object to anything no matter how debauched it may be.
"trying to backpedal away from that by saying he meant all of the US."
And yet his sign says: "THE BIG EASY IS THE MODERN DAY SODOM AND GOMORRAH."
Can't be any clearer than that!
But in the article he states that he was trying to point out that America is in sin.
No. It just demonstrates the immense mercy of God towards the sinful. Although it's bittersweet, I'm sure most of the poor souls who perished in this disaster are enjoying Paradise. God's mercy may have spared the decadent if only to give them the wake-up call that can save their souls...
People often ask why God allows these things to occur. I'm not sure anyone will know until we enter His house. But then it doesn't make much sense in our small, human way of thinking that He would become man, then elect to suffer and die on the Cross to pay for my sins...
A lot of people here react violently to the thought that, "wow, God is still in charge and maybe He's trying to tell us something" -- as if we're not worthy of being chastised for 45 million dead babies, but China is.
People like Falsani who claim to be religious experts but out-of-hand discount the possibility that God is trying to speak to us completely ignore a critical component of Judeo-Christianity - and that's JUDGMENT. And sadly, this is just a microcosm of man's attitude towards his own soul. Truly, the only end of the world we have to worry about is our own. If I go out and accidentally step in front of a bus, that's the end of my world. It doesn't do me much good to go through life assuming that God never punishes those He loves. Most people don't care to take stock of their souls. In the larger sense, when things like this happen, our country becomes terrified of taking stock of our nation's soul. And that's folly.
Still, God is truly merciful. As Mother Angelica once said, "the way things are going in this country, God is going to owe Soddom and Gommorah an apology". I don't know that this was a warning from God, but to dismiss it is only the tragic repetition of those who ridiculed Noah for building an ark.
Just my .02...
"But in the article he states that he was trying to point out that America is in sin."
Which I thought my statement addressed!
I think we are in agreement!
:0)
I don't believe God sent the hurricane, though I defend this guy's right to say it.
"I don't believe God sent the hurricane,"
I don't either!
I shouldn't have left off the 'sarcasm' tag!
My sarc meter is out for service, sorry!
Geez, I thought Robbins was dead years ago from drug abuse.
"liberal city dwellers"
Ummm...what could be worse than "liberal city dweller?"
Because if he had WOULD any one pay attention to it then.
Because the truth don't sell.
Wrong..
New York is Sodom... and..
Chicago is Gomorrah..
Amen Very well put.
I don't quite get it. I feel he was singling out NO for it's reputation for sexual openness. When he got called on it, he claimed it was meant to mean all of America.
He thinks NO deserved to be hit. All of us have sinned, even if we are virgins (because the sexual sins seem to get him the most riled up). But the rest of us don't deserve to be destroyed?
"I come from a long line of rednecks."
Might be very long indeed. The term goes all the way back to the Limey Isles.
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