Tsunamis and Theodicy, Katrina and Karma: Christian and Buddhist Responses to Natural Disasters
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
In the wake of natural disasters, religious practitioners inevitably grapple with why they occurred, and all-too-often we hear the response that it is “God’s retribution” or “karmic retribution." This paper reflects on the tsunami that recently hit Japan by exploring religious responses to the Southeast Asian tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While the former struck a largely Buddhist region and the latter a predominantly Christian one, this lecture draws comparisons between theodicies of divine retribution and theories of karmic retribution, and it explores alternative attempts to make sense of such suffering. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, black theodicy is an alternative approach that acknowledges suffering head-on, without trying to explain it away as God's justice or divine plane. In the case of the Southeast tsunami, an understanding of karma as organic and obscure mitigates against the conclusion that tsunami victims were simply reaping the fruit of previous bad karma.
