Disasters of epic proportions tend eventually to the omnipotence and benevolence of God. There is hardly a natural or man-made disaster that does not bring out the basest elements of fundamentalist theology; a belief that God shows preferential treatment of one set of people over another. The devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew in parts of the Caribbean and the United States brought these concepts into focus. What was interesting were the varying viewpoints adopted by people to explain God’s action or inaction as the hurricane tore into land and people without discrimination.

I have always found it difficult to accept the reasonings of Christians with a more fundamentalist orientation to religion. As people who take the

Bible literally, they believe that the sovereignty of God allows him to preside over nature and human lives as he wills. I even heard one caller to Cliff Hughes’ programme onNationwide saying that the storms and other events in nature are emissaries from God and that they serve the purposes of God. So, if an earthquake or hurricane should devastate an area, killing several people, then God was in control and his sovereign will should not be questioned whatever the outcome of the particular event.

This is indeed strange thinking. By this logic the people of Haiti had it coming to them. God is going to “blow his nose” wherever he wants and pity the poor suckers who get caught up in the downdraft of his nostrils. God’s ’emissary’ has done its work and the sovereign control of God over nature has been firmly established.

No doubt the atheists rail against this kind of religious imbecility. No doubt many people would not want to have anything to do with a god this capricious.

Even more strange and downright cruel is the kind of prayers that are offered by fundamentalists in times of natural disasters. Like his predecessor Hurricane Ivan, many Christians in Jamaica believe that it is prayer that turned Matthew away from Jamaica. They prayed night and day, and God heard them.

I wonder if the Christians in Haiti prayed. And, if they did, why were they not spared as Jamaica was? Is it that their mixing voodoo with Christianity dampened the efficacy of their prayers and they had to be punished for this religious syncretism? Is it that they were not fervent enough?

I too prayed, but I did not pray for the storm to bypass Jamaica or even for Jamaica to be spared. I have more respect for God’s time and intelligence to have gone to him with that request being mindful of the logical outcome of what I would be asking. To bypass Jamaica meant that it would have had to go somewhere else, perhaps to some other land mass where people dwelt. In this case it would have been the poor, unfortunate battered country of Haiti. How could I, with even a smidgen of compassion, ask the God of the universe to turn away the storm from us knowing well that it would end up over Haiti? What devilish intention would have attended such praying?

As a priest who cares very deeply for people, my prayer was simple: “Lord, you created nature and you know the power of the forces locked up in it. This hurricane is bearing down upon us and other countries. I therefore ask that you dismantle it since we can’t. I further ask that if for some reason it is not dismantled or sent out back to open sea, that there will be minimum damage to life and property over areas that it may pass. Amen.”

I did not ask for us to be spared. As it turned out, we were, but Jamaica was no more spared by the will of God than Haiti was devastated by that same will. Any rational approach to prayer would understand this. It is true that we must rejoice and give thanks that we were spared the worst of the hurricane. Gratitude is the appropriate sentiment to be expressed.

Why was Jamaica not spared the ravages of Gilbert in 1988? I am sure that there were well-intentioned Christians praying at that time. Yet, Gilbert came straight to us and never wavered in its path. Were we less righteous then than we are today? The answer to that question is obvious, for if God was teaching us a lesson in 1988 by visiting Gilbert upon a wicked nation, are we not today more qualified to be taught a lesson, given our corruption and rampant criminality and obvious lack of love and care for each other exemplified in so many areas of our lives?

We must be very careful what we attribute to God. God’s name is invoked in every instance of human conduct which demands accountability from humans for such conduct. His name is appended to events as in the game of pinning the tail on the donkey. A fundamentalist orientation to prayer that sees God in everything is a recipe for disaster. Furthermore, such prayers are often an insult to the intelligence of the God to whom they are offered. They make God’s intelligence a hostage to human ignorance. They run the risk of pitting people against each other by a kind of super religiosity that looks down in scorn on those deemed to be less spiritual. This is the ultimate danger of fundamentalism in religion which is why it ought to be stoutly resisted.

A rational approach to prayer admits that often we do not know how to pray as we ought, as Paul enjoined us in Romans chapter eight. That is why the essential character of rational prayer is deeply rooted in the humility of the one who prays. If we are humble enough we may yet say to the Lord as the disciples did: “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Send comments to the Observer orstead6655@aol.com.