Natural Disasters as Moral Lessons
Nazianzus and New Orleans
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v6i1.56Keywords:
natural disaster, theological reflection, Pat Robertson, Gregory Nazianzus, Anthony Pinn, Hurricane KatrinaAbstract
In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus argued that cattle plague, drought, hailstorms, and crop loss in Nazianzus were caused by the unrighteous activity of the city’s residents. In 2005, evangelical leader Pat Robertson raised the possibility that the disaster of Hurricane Katrina was a direct result of the fact that ‘we have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America’. One year later, African American humanist Anthony Pinn wrote that the aftermath of Katrina was a moral indictment of the oppressive structures inherent in U.S. society. Though separated by time and ideology, these three claims share the assumption that religious and moral lessons can be learned from natural disasters. We analyze these responses in order to demonstrate how religious interpretations of disasters can move from a common assumption to widely diverse moral arguments, and to urge that scholars provide more historical and theological context when analyzing religious claims about natural disasters.
References
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Bullard, Robert, and Beverley Wright (eds.). 2009. Race, Place, and Environmental Justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuilt, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).
Chester, David K. 1998. ‘The Theodicy of Natural Disasters’, Scottish Journal of Theology 51.4: 485-505. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600056866.
———. 2005. ‘Theology and Disaster Studies: The Need for Dialogue’, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 146: 319-28. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2005.03.004.
Chester, David K., and Angus M. Duncan. 2010. ‘Responding to Disasters within the Christian Tradition, with Reference to Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes’, Religion 40: 85-95. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.religion.2009.12.005.
Colten, Craig. 2006. ‘Vulnerability and Place: Flat Land and Uneven Risk in New Orleans’, American Anthropologist 108.4: 731-34. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2006.108.4.731.
Cooperman, Alan. 2005. ‘Where Most See a Weather System, Some See Divine Retribution’, The Washington Post, September 4.
Daley, Brian. 1999. ‘Building a New City: The Cappadocian Fathers and the Rhetoric of Philanthropy’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 7.3: 431-61. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/earl.1999.0055.
———. 2002. The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic).
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Foss, Clive. 1977. ‘Late Antique and Byzantine Ankara’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31: 27-82. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1291403.
Gaillard, Jean-Christophe, and Pauline Texier. 2010. ‘Religions, Natural Hazards, and Disasters: An Introduction’, Religion 40: 81-84. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.religion.2009.12.001.
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Grandjean, Didier, Anne-Caroline Rendu, Terence MacNamee, and Klaus R. Sherer. 2008. ‘The Wrath of the Gods: Appraising the Meaning of Disaster’, Social Science Information 47: 187-204. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0539018408089078.
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———. 2003. ’Oration 16: On his Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail, PG 35.933-64’, in St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations (trans. Martha Vinson; The Fathers of the Church series, 107; Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press): 247-54.
Grig, Lucy. 2006. ‘Throwing Parties for the Poor: Poverty and Splendor in the Late Antique Church’, in Atkins and Osborne 2006: 145-61.
Holman, Susan R. 2000. ‘The Entitled Poor: Human Rights Language in the Cappadocians’, Pro Ecclesia 9.4: 476-88.
———. 2001. The Hungry Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New York: Oxford University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0195139127.001.0001.
Ihssen, Brenda Llewellyn. 2011. ‘ “That which has been wrung from tears”: Usury, the Greek Patristics and Catholic Social Teaching’, in Johan Leemans, Brian Matz, and Johan Verstraeten (eds.), Reading Patristic Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for 21st Century Christian Social Thought (Washington, DC: CUA Press): 124-60.
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Johnson, Walter. 1999. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Kelman, Ari. 2007. ‘Boundary Issues: Clarifying New Orleans’s Murky Edges’, Journal of American History 94: 695-703. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/25095130.
Logan, John R. 2009. ‘Unnatural Disaster: Social Impacts and Policy Choices after Katrina’, in Bullard and Wright 2009: 249-64.
McGuckin, John. 2001. St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press).
Merli, Claudia. 2010. ‘Context-Bound Islamic Theodicies: The Tsunami as Supernatural Retribution vs. Natural Catastrophe in Southern Thailand’, Religion 40: 104-11. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.religion.2009.12.003.
Pamphile, Leon D. 2001. Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of Tragedy and Hope (Gainesville: University Press of Florida).
‘Pat Robertson Says Haiti Paying for “Pact to the Devil”’. 2010. Cnn.com. January 13. Online: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html.
Pinn, Anthony B. 1995. Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (New York: Continuum).
———. 2004. African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking like the Children of Nimrod (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
———. 2006. ‘Shouting at an Angry Sky: Thoughts on Natural Disaster as Theological Challenge’, in Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan (ed.), The Sky is Crying: Race, Class, and Natural Disaster (Nashville, TN: Abingdon): 98-104.
‘Religious Conservatives Claim Katrina Was God's Omen, Punishment for the United States’. 2005. Media Matters for America, September 13. Online: http://mediamatters.org/research/200509130004.
Robertson, Pat. n.d. ‘Why There is Suffering in the World’, CBN.com. Online: http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/BibleStudyAndTheology/Perspectives/Why_There_is_Suffering_in_the_World.aspx.
———. 1977. My Prayer for You (Chicago: F.H. Revell).
———. 1984. The Secret Kingdom (New York: Bantam Books).
———. 2009. ‘Teaching on Revival and Repentance’, PatRobertson.com. Online: http://www.patrobertson.com/teaching/TeachingonRevival.asp.
Sanyika, Mtangulizi. 2009. ‘Katrina and the Condition of Black New Orleans: The Struggle for Jutice, Equity, and Democracy’, in Bullard and Wright 2009: 87-113.
Smith, William (ed.). 2006. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, vol. 1 (New York: I.B. Taurus).
Steinberg, Ted. 2006. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn).
Sterk, Andrea. 2004. Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Stern, Gary. 2007. Can God Intervene? How Religion Explains Natural Disasters (Westport, CT: Praeger).
Thomas, Lynell. 2008. ‘“The City I Used To…Visit”: Tourist New Orleans and the Racialized Response to Hurricane Katrina’, in M. Marable and K. Clarke (eds.), Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race, and Public Policy Reader (New York: Palgrave MacMillan): 255-70.
Trimiew, Darryl. 2006. ‘Natural Disasters, Unnatural Neglect: “It Be’s That Way Sometimes”’, in Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan (ed.), The Sky is Crying: Race, Class, and Natural Disaster (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press): 182-87.
Winslow, Donald F. 1965. ‘Gregory of Nazianzus and Love for the Poor’, Anglican Theological Review 47: 348-59.
Alfeyev, Hilarion. 2003. ‘Stewardship as a Way towards Deification: Some Moral and Social Issues in St. Gregory Nazianzen’, in A. Scott (ed.), Good and Faithful Servant: Stewardship in the Orthodox Church (New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press): 71-86.
Allen, Pauline. 2011. ‘Challenges in Approaching Patristic Texts from the Perspective of Contemporary Catholic Social Teaching’, in J. Leemans, B.J. Matz, and J. Verstraeten (eds.), Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for Twenty-First Century Christian Social Thought (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press): 30-42.
Atkins, Margaret, and Robin Osborne (eds.). 2006. Poverty in the Roman World (New York: Cambridge University Press).
Barrows, John O. 1884. On Horseback in Cappadocia: Or, a Missionary Tour. Together with Some Things which They Saw Who Made it (Boston: Congregational Sunday-School & Publishing Society).
Beeley, Christopher A. 2008. Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We See Light (New York: Oxford University Press).
Bernardi, Jean. 1968. La predication des peres cappadociens: Le predicateur et son auditoire (Paris: Presses universitaires de France).
Bullard, Robert. 2008. ‘Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters’, Social Research 75.3: 753-84.
Bullard, Robert, and Beverley Wright (eds.). 2009. Race, Place, and Environmental Justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuilt, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).
Chester, David K. 1998. ‘The Theodicy of Natural Disasters’, Scottish Journal of Theology 51.4: 485-505. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600056866.
———. 2005. ‘Theology and Disaster Studies: The Need for Dialogue’, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 146: 319-28. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2005.03.004.
Chester, David K., and Angus M. Duncan. 2010. ‘Responding to Disasters within the Christian Tradition, with Reference to Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes’, Religion 40: 85-95. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.religion.2009.12.005.
Colten, Craig. 2006. ‘Vulnerability and Place: Flat Land and Uneven Risk in New Orleans’, American Anthropologist 108.4: 731-34. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2006.108.4.731.
Cooperman, Alan. 2005. ‘Where Most See a Weather System, Some See Divine Retribution’, The Washington Post, September 4.
Daley, Brian. 1999. ‘Building a New City: The Cappadocian Fathers and the Rhetoric of Philanthropy’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 7.3: 431-61. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/earl.1999.0055.
———. 2002. The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic).
De Vienne, Michaell J. 1995. ‘The Advocacy of Empty Bellies: Episcopal Representation of the Poor in the Late Empire’ (PhD diss., Stanford University).
Finn, Richard. 2006. ‘Portraying the Poor: Description of Poverty in Christian Texts from the Late Roman Empire’, in Atkins and Osborne 2006: 130-44.
Foss, Clive. 1977. ‘Late Antique and Byzantine Ankara’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31: 27-82. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1291403.
Gaillard, Jean-Christophe, and Pauline Texier. 2010. ‘Religions, Natural Hazards, and Disasters: An Introduction’, Religion 40: 81-84. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.religion.2009.12.001.
Gonzalez, Justo L. 1990. Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance and Use of Money (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock).
Grandjean, Didier, Anne-Caroline Rendu, Terence MacNamee, and Klaus R. Sherer. 2008. ‘The Wrath of the Gods: Appraising the Meaning of Disaster’, Social Science Information 47: 187-204. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0539018408089078.
Gregory Nazianzen. 1963. ‘Oration 14: On the Love of the Poor and Those Afflicted with Leprosy, PG 35.857-909’, in St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations (trans. Martha Vinson; The Fathers of the Church series, 107; Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press).
———. 2003. ’Oration 16: On his Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail, PG 35.933-64’, in St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations (trans. Martha Vinson; The Fathers of the Church series, 107; Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press): 247-54.
Grig, Lucy. 2006. ‘Throwing Parties for the Poor: Poverty and Splendor in the Late Antique Church’, in Atkins and Osborne 2006: 145-61.
Holman, Susan R. 2000. ‘The Entitled Poor: Human Rights Language in the Cappadocians’, Pro Ecclesia 9.4: 476-88.
———. 2001. The Hungry Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New York: Oxford University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0195139127.001.0001.
Ihssen, Brenda Llewellyn. 2011. ‘ “That which has been wrung from tears”: Usury, the Greek Patristics and Catholic Social Teaching’, in Johan Leemans, Brian Matz, and Johan Verstraeten (eds.), Reading Patristic Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for 21st Century Christian Social Thought (Washington, DC: CUA Press): 124-60.
‘John Hagee’s McCain Endorsement Sparks Uproar’. 2008. The Huffington Post, March 21. Online: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/29/john-hagees-mccainendors_n_89189.html.
Johnson, Walter. 1999. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Kelman, Ari. 2007. ‘Boundary Issues: Clarifying New Orleans’s Murky Edges’, Journal of American History 94: 695-703. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/25095130.
Logan, John R. 2009. ‘Unnatural Disaster: Social Impacts and Policy Choices after Katrina’, in Bullard and Wright 2009: 249-64.
McGuckin, John. 2001. St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press).
Merli, Claudia. 2010. ‘Context-Bound Islamic Theodicies: The Tsunami as Supernatural Retribution vs. Natural Catastrophe in Southern Thailand’, Religion 40: 104-11. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.religion.2009.12.003.
Pamphile, Leon D. 2001. Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of Tragedy and Hope (Gainesville: University Press of Florida).
‘Pat Robertson Says Haiti Paying for “Pact to the Devil”’. 2010. Cnn.com. January 13. Online: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html.
Pinn, Anthony B. 1995. Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (New York: Continuum).
———. 2004. African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking like the Children of Nimrod (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
———. 2006. ‘Shouting at an Angry Sky: Thoughts on Natural Disaster as Theological Challenge’, in Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan (ed.), The Sky is Crying: Race, Class, and Natural Disaster (Nashville, TN: Abingdon): 98-104.
‘Religious Conservatives Claim Katrina Was God's Omen, Punishment for the United States’. 2005. Media Matters for America, September 13. Online: http://mediamatters.org/research/200509130004.
Robertson, Pat. n.d. ‘Why There is Suffering in the World’, CBN.com. Online: http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/BibleStudyAndTheology/Perspectives/Why_There_is_Suffering_in_the_World.aspx.
———. 1977. My Prayer for You (Chicago: F.H. Revell).
———. 1984. The Secret Kingdom (New York: Bantam Books).
———. 2009. ‘Teaching on Revival and Repentance’, PatRobertson.com. Online: http://www.patrobertson.com/teaching/TeachingonRevival.asp.
Sanyika, Mtangulizi. 2009. ‘Katrina and the Condition of Black New Orleans: The Struggle for Jutice, Equity, and Democracy’, in Bullard and Wright 2009: 87-113.
Smith, William (ed.). 2006. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, vol. 1 (New York: I.B. Taurus).
Steinberg, Ted. 2006. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn).
Sterk, Andrea. 2004. Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Stern, Gary. 2007. Can God Intervene? How Religion Explains Natural Disasters (Westport, CT: Praeger).
Thomas, Lynell. 2008. ‘“The City I Used To…Visit”: Tourist New Orleans and the Racialized Response to Hurricane Katrina’, in M. Marable and K. Clarke (eds.), Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race, and Public Policy Reader (New York: Palgrave MacMillan): 255-70.
Trimiew, Darryl. 2006. ‘Natural Disasters, Unnatural Neglect: “It Be’s That Way Sometimes”’, in Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan (ed.), The Sky is Crying: Race, Class, and Natural Disaster (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press): 182-87.
Winslow, Donald F. 1965. ‘Gregory of Nazianzus and Love for the Poor’, Anglican Theological Review 47: 348-59.
Published
2012-04-11
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Duke, A., Ihssen, B. L., & O'Brien, K. J. (2012). Natural Disasters as Moral Lessons: Nazianzus and New Orleans. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 6(1), 56-70. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v6i1.56
