c. 2005 Religoion News Service

(UNDATED) The woman, not young, stood at a cash register in a local bookstore Wednesday and pointed at the front page of the newspaper she was buying.

“I’m worried about this,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s terrible,” the clerk said, meaning everything in New Orleans.

“Well,” the woman said, paying for her paper and books, “I don’t feel so bad about not having money to send down there, because I know the healing salvation delivered through the power of prayer is stronger than any material donation.”

The clerk, a young guy, blinked a few times, which kept his eyes from popping out.

“I guess something’s better than nothing,” he said.

The woman looked like she might burst a blood vessel. She said, “PRAYER is better than ANYTHING, young man!”

At least she seemed positive, I told the clerk later. She didn’t say the victims had it coming and that the catastrophe was an act of divine will and punishment.

Some people did. One group of a peculiar faith announced, “It is a sin NOT to rejoice when God executes his wrath and vengeance upon America.” (They were not “Islamic extremists,” by the way, although some al-Qaida sympathizers greeted the disaster as a “divine sign against the corrupt crusading America.”)

A Philadelphia group, Repent America, said an “act of God destroyed a wicked city.” A “Christians for Life” group said the hurricane was divine wrath for abortion and that the storm’s satellite image resembled a fetus. There were suggestions that Katrina was “God’s way of telling us that we should get out of Iraq,” or was punishment for the U.S. role in removing Israeli settlements from Gaza.

So much to interpret. It made me think of Benjamin Franklin, of all people.

Franklin is mainly known today as a Founding Father who dabbled in science. In his day, however, Franklin was considered a scientist first. His work is the subject of a new book by Philip Dray, “Stealing God’s Thunder,” which focuses on Franklin’s invention of the lightning rod.

Lightning was one of the world’s great mysteries. Explaining it and channeling it made Franklin the center of scientific and religious controversy.

He was accused of playing God and condemned for interfering with divine balances between the heavens and earth. The science adviser to the king of France said it was “as impious to ward off heaven’s lightnings as for a child to ward off the chastening rod of its father.”

Franklin wasn’t bothered. He thought God gave humans reason and expected them to use it.

“Surely,” he wrote, “the thunder of heaven is no more supernatural than the rain, hail or sunshine of heaven, against the inconvenience of which we guard by roofs and shades.”

Most of us would say amen to that. Most.

Televangelist Pat Robertson _ recently in the news for his fatwa against Venezuela’s president _ warned as Katrina bore down that it was God’s revenge for homosexuality. Faith-based meteorology _ it’s nothing new. Robertson warned Orlando, Fla., of divine punishment by hurricane after the city held “gay day” in 1998. He said his prayers had steered hurricanes away from his Virginia Beach, Va., headquarters 20 years ago and again a decade later.

It wouldn’t matter unless you went to the Web site of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency _ the budget-slashed arm of Homeland Security in which the faith of many was misplaced. There, and in news releases, FEMA suggested charities to which you can send money to help storm victims.

Below the American Red Cross was “Operation Blessing,” a “faith-based” group that has received millions from the federal government. Its founder and chairman is Pat Robertson.

His prayer can move mountains and steer storms. When it doesn’t, send cash. These things work in mysterious ways.

MO/JL END FERAN

(Tom Feran is a columnist for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.)