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Who is to blame for the Central Texas floods? · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Thursday, July the Tenth, twenty twenty five, greetings, and welcome to Denison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm near-rater Chris Elkins, voicing today's Daily Article, authored by Cultural Theologian Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Last Friday morning, several storm sales merged and then stalled over Kirk County in central Texas.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: As a result, an entire summer's worth of rain fell in some areas, a one in one hundred year rainfall event for the region.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Guadalupe River, which runs alongside several summer camps, rose from about three feet to thirty feet.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: A flash flood emergency was issued at four o'clock AM, but the darkness of the night made it difficult to see rising water levels.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said the area floods frequently, but officials, quote, had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what happened here.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: None whatsoever.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, then the less critics are implicating the Trump administration, Texas state officials, local officials, and the national weather service in the disaster.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: When tragedy strikes, it's never long before people begin to look for someone to blame.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why is this?
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: One positive reason is to prevent future tragedies.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If storm detection technology and early warning systems can be improved, lives might be saved when future floods strike.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, we should always strive to get better at protecting ourselves from natural disasters.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: A second element is that politics are now a constant factor in nearly every dimension of American society.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many in our post-Christian culture have replaced consensual morality with political, quote-unquote, solutions.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: They advocate through partisan tribalism.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: If floods strike in red states or wildfires in blue states, we can expect partisan politicians and media to leverage them for political purposes.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: A third factor is our innate desire to control the future.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: If we convince ourselves that people could have prevented the July fourth floods, we can convince ourselves that people can prevent future floods.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have known parents who lost children and blamed themselves for years afterwards.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their reaction is not just grief.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If they admit that they could not have prevented their child's death, they are tacitly admitting that they cannot prevent the deaths of their other children.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Religion is often used for this purpose.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: The many alters I have seen in Ephesus and Athens attest to the transactional religion of their culture.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sacrifice to the God of War, so he will protect you in battle and so on.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Christians are by no means immune.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: When our oldest son was diagnosed with cancer, I was surprised at the subliminal anger I felt toward the Lord.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had prayed for my son's welfare from the moment we knew he had been conceived.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: My theology taught me that such prayers are no guarantee, but that
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the world you will have tribulation, according to John sixteen thirty three.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nonetheless, I realized that I had felt I had done my part for my son, but God had not done his.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the face of an unpredictable and uncontrollable future, we have three options.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: When obvious response is to double down on ourselves to try even harder to exert more control over our lives and the world.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Find a link in today's podcast episode notes to my latest Dennison forum website article.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I note David Brooks argument that we need quote an education in morals that involves the formation of the heart and the will as much as the formation of the rational mind.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, his appeal is commendable, but I responded in the words of the famed psychiatrist Carl Mininger, what became of sin?
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: As I often note,
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fallen humans cannot transform human hearts, which is why the gospel is so vital to our flourishing.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nor can education control the future, which is why we must trust our omniscient and omnipotent father.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: A second response is to abandon hope, choosing nihilism and chaotic existentialism in its place.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, as researchers continue to demonstrate hope is crucial for mental health, resilience, and meaningful lives.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thus, thirdly, our best way to face a perilous future is to work as God works.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we submit to His empowering and follow His leading as taught in Ephesians five verse eighteen, we join Him as He advances His providential kingdom in our fallen world.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scripture underscores this response.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: When the priest stepped into the flooded Jordan River, its waters were completely cut off, and the entire nation crossed into their promise land, evidence in Joshua III versus fourteen through sixteen.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: David testified in Psalm eighteen versus thirty seven and thirty nine.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I pursued my enemies and overtook them because God equipped me with a strength for the battle.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul could say of himself in second Thessalonians chapter three verse eight, with toil and labor we work night and day, but he knew that he worked with all God's energy that he powerfully works within me, as noted in Colossians one verse twenty nine.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: In each case, as they worked, God worked.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So our best response to our Father's grace is to pay it forward.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: As G.K.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Chesterton noted, the way to pay for the priceless is to live lives worthy of the gift, in quote.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then God avoids those he appoints and equips those he calls.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: As Martin Luther observed, good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works in quote.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ask God how he wants you to join him in responding to suffering in the present and fears for the future.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: With regard to the central Texas floods, be especially mindful of people you know who have previously lost children as my wife wrote in her blog yesterday, they are reliving their tragedy once again in these tragic days.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And remember that our ultimate purpose in life is not to be happy or healthy, but to experience personally the God who made us.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Brother David Fryhoff of the Society of St.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: John the Evangelist in Boston is right.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: The one purpose worth living for is the end for which we were created, namely, to know God, to love God, and to serve God.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: To this end, let's close with a reflection by Frederick Beatener, who speaks honestly to our questions and pain, but then offers a word of transcended hope, preaching at the two hundredth anniversary of the Congregational Church in Rupert Vermont.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Beatener quoted Psalm twenty three and commented,
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I shall not want," the song says.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is that true?
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are lots of things we go on wanting, go on lacking, whether we believe in God or not.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are not just material things like a new roof or a better paying job, but things like good health, things like happiness for our children, things like being understood and appreciated.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like relief from pain, like some measure of inner peace, not just for ourselves, but for the people we love and for whom we pray.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Believers and unbelievers alike go on wanting our whole lives through.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We long for what never seems to come.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: We pray for what never seems to be clearly given.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bigger continues.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when the song says, I shall not want.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's speaking the utter truth anyhow.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it means that if we keep our eyes open, if we keep our hearts and lives open, we will at least never be in want of the one thing we want more than anything else.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it means that whatever else is withheld, the shepherd never withholds himself.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he is what we want more than anything else, in quote.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: What or whom do you want more than anything else today?