The Waters Recede

Phew. Evangelist Franklin Graham, who gave the invocation in Bush's first innauguration and who plans, still, to go to Iraq and convert those sorry Muslims to Christianity just as soon as this pesky war finishes [they'll welcome him with rose petals as well, I'm sure], has the practical solution to solving all of New Orleans' problems: God takes pity on sinners.

"I'm not saying that God used this storm as a judgment," Graham said.

But he said the city's Mardi Gras revelry and ties to voodoo were adverse to Christian beliefs.

"New Orleans has been known for years as a party town," Graham said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his office in Boone, North Carolina. "It is a city that has strong ties to the gay and lesbian movement, and these types of things."

On Monday, Graham delivered a similar message in an appearance in Lynchburg: "There's been satanic worship. There's been sexual perversion. God is going to use that storm to bring revival. God has a plan. God has a purpose."

Of course everybody's aware that Graham has no interest in engaging in the social or practical reconstruction of the broken-down, impoverished inner city of New Orleans beyond perhaps establishing an outpost for his outreach. Graham isn't offering to solve Ray Nagin's sad announcement today that nearly half of the City's employees will have to be laid off because New Orleans has been both destroyed and financially bankrupted.

But Graham is willing to participate in the empty, victims' rhetoric that sanctions both what happened in New Orleans and the way that Americans were treated following the failures of the levees. By denouncing the culture of a city you elevate yourself above that culture, you falsify their needs. You placate the political opportunity of Dismissal and Unaccountability. During such a catastrophe, this is shameful, unmerciful behaviour by anybody, much less a preacher of God's word.

Like Santorum, Graham's language seeks not to solve the problem. In fact, that's what the AntiC takes issue with: Graham, in inflaming anti-gay, anti-"sin" language to invove the "revival" of the city offers no participation in rebuilding it or in offering solace to it. Graham, then, is solely seeking spiritual profit off of it to build his power base politically and supposedly-spiritually. While other good Christian souls seek to aid New Orleans and those directly affected by it, Graham and his ministry seek, apparently, just to offer it the cold hand of the most judgemental Christianity.

Thanks for your help, buddy. The Ninth Ward is pleased that they have something to look forward to.