Mona Charen:

Natural disasters bring incomprehensible suffering. In this, they differ from manmade calamities. If you believe in free will, you can at least allow that human beings are capable of inexhaustible evil when they turn away from God, and that innocents suffer as a consequence. Even if God exists, free will makes the Holocaust, Pol Pot and Stalin possible.

But when the plates of the Earth’s crust shift suddenly, plunging whole populations into desperate agony, there are no moral lessons to be drawn. This solid Earth can become a monster, snatching babies from their mothers’ arms and drowning saints and sinners alike. For believers, there is nothing to be said, except perhaps, what Jews say at any death: “Blessed be the True Judge.”

Here, here.

Piper on the Tsunami.

Joe: Thanks for the scintillating analysis. I liked it so much, I took it off the blog and put it in a special place.

Joel’s presence has raised the level of conversation in here. I’m nervous. Where’s the flannelgraph?

Eric: I read an excellent book on Lutheranism: Veith’s The Spirituality of the Cross. It didn’t rescue me from the Lutheran view of the sacraments, and if chooses to not answer many important questions- like church government- but it’s a fine simple introduction to Lutheranism that can be read in a few hours. Highly recommended to the bar.

Now I’m going to read some Dorothy Sayers.

We started getting crank calls at 2 a.m. last night. OBI students thinking of me. How sweet. Probably karmic repayment for my treatment of the JWs. I unplugged the phones.