Cowboys and Hurricanes

Last Sunday, I tuned in to an internet church based in Texas. (Eagle Mountain International Church) The pastor is a fervent Dallas Cowboy fan and spices his sermons liberally with Texas Ranger Baseball and Dallas Cowboy allusions. His enthusiasm is infection – even for an old Pittsburgh Steeler fan.
Just before the service began, the pastor’s wife – a co-pastor – announced there was business to attend to and took over the pulpit.
Hurricane Gustav was bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Cities and a political convention were about to be affected. New Orleans was emptying out. She stood on the pulpit and she cursed that Hurricane in the name of Jesus. She commanded it to fall apart and do no significant damage. There was real anger in her eyes as she gave Gustav its orders in what she called the “name that is above every name, including that of Hurricane”.
I listened to her, and then I watched Gustav. It came on shore as a tropical storm and quickly dropped to the status of tropical depression.
You’re welcome to all the scientific debate you wish to have about how much effect prayer has on hurricanes or anything else.
But she believed. You could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. She was talking to that storm just as I might yell at a stray dog.
Interesting. In a thoroughly modern, scientific age, she believes in the “supernatural”. She believes she can touch it. She believes she can call upon it to impact the natural – some might even say, real world.
In short she believes in a deity who does things. Who acts. Who shows an interest in human affairs. Who intervenes.
The Greeks, original scientists, would have laughed at her. Huxley – of the1860 London Conference which canonized Darwin – would have sneered, as he did. Psychiatrists might spend a moment identifying the delusion under which she suffers.
Nonetheless she raises an interesting issue. What is the point of getting up, getting dressed, driving to a church building, listening for an hour and dropping five bucks in the plate – all for a lay about deity who never does anything and shows no interest in human affairs? None that I can see.
And most churches I have attended recently absolutely deny or sidestep the question of an active or acting deity. Maybe that’s why the Christian Church is losing members. Maybe that’s a valid reason for scientists to reject the notion of intelligent design when so many Christians insist “He” made the universe but hasn’t done anything significant since.
Maybe the big problem with American Christianity is that so few believe anything anymore. Maybe a few of them should check out Hurricane Gustav. And an angry lady in Texas.