Broken Hearts, Shattered Faith

“THERE were bodies everywhere, and we could not recognize where our house used to be,” said a Sri Lankan man after a tsunami destroyed his village in December 2004. In an article on the disaster, a religion editor said that he sometimes finds himself “praying through clenched teeth.”

Many view natural disasters as divine punishment. One columnist described a devastating hurricane as “the fist of God.” In the United States, some religious leaders described events like Hurricane Katrina as “God’s wrath” on “sin cities.” In Sri Lanka, militant Buddhists blamed Christians for the tsunami, deepening the religious divide. The trustee of a Hindu temple felt that the god Shiva was angry because people were not living the right way. A Buddhist religious leader in the United States said concerning natural disasters: “We don’t know why these things happen. We don’t even know why we’re here.”

When you see images of wrecked homes, lost lives, and broken hearts, do you sometimes wonder, ‘Why does God permit so much suffering?’ Or do you think, ‘God must have good reasons for allowing such things to happen but has not disclosed those reasons’? The following articles examine this issue. They also discuss some practical steps that people can take to reduce the risk of injury and death should a natural disaster threaten or occur.

[Picture on page 3]

Many religious leaders do not know why God permits natural disasters