hurricanes

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Plug-In: 'Faith-based FEMA' -- religious groups rush to help others after Hurricane Ian

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Plug-In: 'Faith-based FEMA' -- religious groups rush to help others after Hurricane Ian

Over the years, I’ve covered the faith-based response to quite a few hurricanes.

I traveled to New Orleans after Katrina, Houston after Harvey, the Florida Panhandle after Michael and Puerto Rico after Irma and Maria. No doubt I’m forgetting a few.

Inevitably, those watching the disturbing images on television or social media want to help immediately. But typically, assessing the needs requires a bit of time.

That leads us to Hurricane Ian, the megastorm setting its sights on South Carolina’s coast after causing catastrophic damage in Florida.

“The best way to help after Hurricane Ian is to give financially to established organizations responding to the disaster,” said Jamie Aten, co-founder of Spiritual First Aid and co-director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College in Illinois.

“Reach out to those you know who have been impacted to ask how you might help,” Aten added. “Our research shows that providing spiritual support and attending to basic needs helps reduce distress in the face of disasters.”

At Christianity Today, Aten and Kent Annan provide a “free spiritual and emotional toolkit for Hurricane Ian.”

President Joe Biden on Thursday praised Federal Emergency Management Agency workers mobilizing to help. The federal government’s response is, of course, crucial after a natural disaster.

But so is that of the “faith-based FEMA” — from Mennonite chainsaw crews to Southern Baptist feeding teams to Seventh-day Adventist warehousing experts adept at collecting, organizing and logging relief supplies, as I’ve written previously.


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Lies, damned lies, statistics: Shifts in religious voting were crucial for Joe Biden — maybe

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In the 2020 election, what happened with the religious vote that was seen as so crucial to President Donald Trump’s upset win four years ago?

Take your pick:

* Not much changed, according to Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron.

* A small decline in Trump support among White Catholics represented a slight but significant change, NPR’s Tom Gjelten proposed.

* President-elect Joe Biden “swung the religious vote” just enough to defeat Trump, Politico’s Gabby Orr reported.

* White evangelicals “stuck by” Trump and, despite Biden’s win, “still took heart in their strong presence at the polls and the GOP’s success in down-ballot races,” according to The Associated Press’ Elana Schor and David Crary.

* Biden closed the gap among White evangelicals to the tune of “well over four million votes nationally,” Biden supporter Michael Wear proclaimed in a New York Times op-ed.

Wait, what?

“I think there's been a bit of, ‘I'm going to read whichever exit polls make my efforts seem fruitful,’ among a certain group of people in the post-election time period,” said Ryan Burge, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S.

The problem, according to Burge, is that exit polling “is very unreliable.” He pointed to a USA Today column by Robert Griffin making the case that more time is needed for reliable analysis.

“The only data that I am trusting right now comes from the CCES. Which is not an exit poll but is the gold standard for political science now,” Burge said, referring to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.


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Wait a minute: Catholics have a special 'version' of St. Mary who handles hurricanes?

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I thought I had seen just about everything, in terms of strange news-media takes on ancient-church teachings on prayer and the saints. Apparently not.

Just the other day, I wrote a post praising a news report on this topic, in part because of a short, clear, explanation of the term “venerate,” as opposed to “worship,” when dealing with a relic of a Catholic saint. See this: “Facing the heart of Jean Vianney: Reporters should be careful when covering saints and prayer.”

Now we have this “Oh, no!” headline at CNN.com: “As hurricane season starts, coastal Catholics call on this holy go-between for protection from devastating storms.”

Let’s start with the basics: Do Catholics believe there is some form of divinity, other than the Holy Trinity — God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — who hears prayers and performs miracles?

In this headline the “holy go-between” is clearly St. Mary, the mother of Jesus. The term “go-between” is a bit brash, but does hint at the early church belief that is is proper to ask saints to join their prayers to God for a miracle or an answer to some other request. Are these believers claiming that the saint — St. Mary in this case — has the power to protect them or is that a God thing?

Truth be told, I have heard Catholics say things like “I prayed to St. Name Here and this or that happened.” In most cases, if you ask, “So you’re saying the saint performed this miracle?”, they will pause and acknowledge that it is God who hears prayers and responds, in one form or another.

So we need to see if this CNN.com report gets that right. But that isn’t the main reason a Catholic journalist sent me this CNN link. Check out this overture and see if you can spot the heresy in this news story:

(CNN) As Hurricane Matthew whipped up Florida's Atlantic coast in 2016, Beth Williby got scared.

"That hurricane, in particular, just got my back up," the Jacksonville mom of four recalled. "So, I did what any modern woman would do, and I Googled: Who do you pray to for protection from hurricanes?"


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Religion News Service offers readers one half of the 'Why did God smite Houston?' story

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I got a telephone call yesterday from an Anglican who has had lots of experience dealing with mainstream reporters in the past decade or two. He may or may not call himself an "evangelical," because he's an intellectual who uses theological terms with great precision.

This priest had an interesting question, one linked to press coverage of Donald Trump, but actually quite bigger than that. The question: Are American journalists intentionally trying to avoid discussions of the complex divisions inside evangelical Protestantism?

Yes, what punched his frustration button was the "80-plus percent of white evangelicals just love Trump" mantra in press coverage. That ignores the painful four-way split among evangelicals caused by the Hillary Clinton vs. The Donald showdown. That would be (1) evangelicals who do love Trump no matter what, (2) those who cast agonizing votes for him as a last resort, (3) those who went third party and (4) those on the left who voted for Clinton.

Now, he said, there is another option between (2) and (3). There are evangelicals who voted for Trump and now regret it. Call them the President Pence in 2017 camp.

However, when one looks at elite media coverage, it seems that no one (other than a few Godbeat pros) realize that the evangelical world is not a monolith.

Want to see another example of this syndrome? Check out the Religion News Service story with this headline: "Where are the condemnations of Harvey as God’s punishment?" Here is the overture:

(RNS) When Superstorm Sandy hit the New York metropolitan area in 2012, the floodwaters in Lower Manhattan were still rising when some pastors pointed out what, to them, was obvious.
“God is systematically destroying America,” the Rev. John McTernan, a conservative Christian pastor who runs a ministry called USA Prophecy, said in a post-Sandy blog entry that has since been removed. The reason God was so peeved, he claimed, was “the homosexual agenda.”
McTernan belongs to a subset of religious conservatives -- including some well-known names -- who see wrath and retribution in natural disasters. Usually, their logic revolves around LGBT themes. ...

Yes, friends and neighbors, we are headed into Pat Robertson territory again.


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