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Jerry Falwell and the Meaning of Disaster

Remember Rev. Jerry Falwell in your prayers. This bigger-that-life religious leader did much good for American society during his 73 years on earth, and deserves honor and thanks for his courage, enthusiasm and love for this country.

Falwell and the Meaning of Disaster

Falwell is being mightily mocked by liberals because he was not hesitant to point out their sins and they don’t think there is such thing as sin. In his left-handed tribute to Falwell, for instance, Chicago’s master cynic, Neil Steinberg, published a statement Falwell made after the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, in which Falwell says some of the reason for this catastrophe is the sins of this nation.

People like Steinberg who don’t believe in sin naturally think retribution makes no sense, and while nobody knows precisely which retribution is for which sins, people of faith realize God is not mocked and know that those who defy the natural law, the divine positive law, and the laws of Christ’s Church, will eventually pay a price for this defiance.

So a nation that condones and promotes and legalizes immorality such as pornography, fornication, adultery, sodomy, abortion, and injustice, has some big time punishment in store. Rev. Falwell’s suggestion that America’s immorality was in part responsible for 911 may make people like Steinberg furious, but the average believer can well see it as part of the punishment for our sins.

Even the cynics have at least heard about punishment for sin—a great flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, the destruction of Jerusalem, prophesies throughout the Bible threatening disasters as punishment for sin. But while the concept is nothing new for believers, those who have no faith have only contempt for those who believe God punishes evil.

We like to point out that many sins carry their own punishment with them: sexual promiscuity carries fifty infectious diseases, drunks ruin their livers, sodomites get AIDS, gluttons get gout. As the old saying goes, you can’t fool mother nature, and we might add, nor Nature’s God.

In any event, here’s what Falwell said that got Neil into such a lather:

“God allows our enemies to give us what we deserve and the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this. When we destroy 40 million little innocent babies we make God mad. I believe the abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU , People for the American Way and all who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.'”

So what’s so wrong with Falwell’s observation? It sounds OK to me. Neil sarcastically calls Falwell’s observation “A message of healing and comfort.” Yet maybe Neil hit it right on the head, without intending to.

Maybe Falwell’s statement is exactly right. It would give meaning to this terrible disaster. If 911 didn’t expiate some of our national sins, and the victims’ personal sins, then it’s a total waste. What a terrible disaster it would be if all that terror and suffering and loss had absolutely no value, no purpose.

The poor Neil’s of this world have totally missed it. When they get a bad toothache they just have to suffer. We use it, but they probably don’t even know the meaning of the wonderful phrase, “Offer it up.” Wouldn’t that be awful?

Rudy’s Flip-Flops on Abortion

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is getting himself deeper and deeper into the abortion stew. His comments would be really funny if they weren’t a commentary on his own hopelessly confused conscience. He claims to hate abortion and wishes nobody ever had one, but he is perfectly willing to keep it the law of the land and help pay for it. He likes Supreme Court Justices who don’t create laws like Roe v. Wade, but might keep Roe v. Wade as “precedent”.

In other words, Rudy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And we don’t know what he’s talking about, either. His flip-flopping is even attracting the cartoonists. Higgins has one where Rudy is pregnant with abortion and all the doctor can hear with his stethoscope is “flip flop flip flop.” A Planned Parenthood figure enters the cartoon to “take care of it.”

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