Whenever a natural disaster comes crashing down on America, destroying homes and lives with the unleashed wrath of nature’s fury, you can rest assured that someone will be along in a minute to explain how it’s all part of God’s plan for his wet, homeless children. Sometimes these holy victim blamers will cite some specific “sin” God is trying to flood out—feel free to continue to rest in hell, Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps—but more often than not, they’ll just sort of point to the Noah bits in Genesis and give a smugly knowing, “Well, he warned you.”
Case in point: Our old pal Kirk Cameron, who broke a blessedly long shutting-up streak this week to suggest that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma were messages from God, although he refused to elaborate on what those messages might specifically be. (And isn’t it just like God to go on a vaguebooking spree?) “This is a spectacular display of God’s immense power,” Cameron said on a Facebook video this week. “When he puts his power on display, it’s never without reason. There’s a purpose. And we may not always understand what that purpose is, but we know it’s not random, and we know that weather is sent to cause us to respond to God in humility, awe and repentance.”
And while relatively few meteorologists subscribe to Cameron’s “weather is God’s Twitter” theory of storm creation, there are a number of concerns that this recent spate of storms is being influenced and strengthened by an outside factor. (It’s just that it’s probably climate change, not a temper tantrum from on-high.) Either way, Kirk’s really just doing this for the children, noting that, “Maybe share that with your kids when they ask why this is happening.” (You’re going to have to spend some time teaching them who or what Kirk Cameron is, first, of course; don’t forget the porn-addicted firefighter movie!)