Is God behind the earthquake in Haiti?

I will not soon forget the image on the news last night. Arms desperately waving for help from between huge chunks of concrete. I thought with a shudder about the people inside, trapped, covered by several tons of rubble. How many would be saved, and how many more would die?

Then as the world stood on in shocked horror, along came Pat Robertson and declared the unthinkable: the earthquake was in part the fault of the Haitian people. Why? Because, according to Robertson, the nation of Haiti apparently made a Faustian pact with the devil two centuries ago. As Robertson declared, "They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

(The clip is available here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/01/14/jb.robertson.haiti.cnn?iref=allsearch)

And so, according to Robertson, the inevitable result: yes Haitians were liberated from the French, but they have faced one crisis after another ever since.

Has Haiti been cursed with natural disasters? Or have Christian conservatives merely been cursed with Pat Robertson?

As inept as Robertson's comment may have been theologically, historically, ethically, and pastorally, he does raise an important question: what hand does God have in disasters such as this?

There is an understandable desire to treat disasters like the Haitian earthquake as outside of God's control altogether, as if he did not know it would happen or he had no power to stop it. But the perspective of the biblical writers is markedly different: God does have full knowledge of and control over all events in creation. For instance, in Job God declares that he guides the path of the storm (38:25) and the trajectory of the terrifying bolt of lightning (38:35). Do we want to say his providence extends to the weather but not to the motion of tectonic plates?

This pushes us back to the agonizing question: why does God allow such things? Surely not for the absurd reason Pat Robertson suggests. But if not for that reason then why? Where is God in such moments as this?

As important as this question may be, there is an even more important question to be asked: where is the church? Let us remember Haiti in our prayers and financial donations in the days and weeks to come.