It was like a plague of locusts

Yesterday a pastor-blogger posted a piece which said that the tornado that just missed the Convention Center but hit the church steeple across the street, as well as numerous homes quite a bit south of there, was evidence of God's judgment regarding the various votes that the ELCA is taking this week. No need to go into detail; those of you who are in the in-crowd on this know what I mean.

I made a comment, not about the issues voted upon, but about the idea that how could anybody possibly know God's mind. And isn't it just possible that we could interpret it as the convention center being spared? And what happens when that pastor's parishioners have storm damage, how does he counsel them? Pastors who claim to understand the mind and intent of God are an irritation to me.

Commenters were all over the place in their views, praising the pastor, condemning the sinners, warning all of us in the US to be wary of God's wrath because of materialism and gluttony, praising God for loving all of mankind, etc. Some posters keyed in on literal interpretations of the Bible, in a particular English version, of course. Others cited verses about God and/or Jesus controlling the weather. Others gave verses about certain things happening to people regardless of whether they are righteous or not. One person even looked into the history of the blogger's church and claimed that it has been hit by a tornado in the past. You get the picture.

I got about 400 comment emails in my in-box. They wouldn't turn off. I repeatedly clicked the unsubscribe. Finally, there was a long comment from another pastor who called the original blogger on the carpet, detailing errors in specific references to scripture, citing science, citing errors in interpretation and inconsistencies, of both scripture references and from the blogger's past writings.

Then the comments stopped. Cold. I checked the blog and it no longer showed a comment box. But this morning, the plague of locusts returned.