I watch television. I see families in Chimanimani and Western Mozambique whose houses are in the path of cyclones. I see wives in Mhangura whose husbands are trapped in a mine.

If they believe they are escaping death and destruction, these people pray and praise God for a miracle. When the wind changes or they learn their loved ones are dead, some scream and curse God. But most weep quietly, and say “It must be God’s Will, God did this for a reason” … a reason only He knows.

To believe in a personal God with “reasons”, they give up their own! What kind of God kills miners and starts tropical-marine cyclones the? Ordains Presidents and makes your stocks go up, or down? Sends cancer, or teases you with remission?

To say nothing of the thousand petty and harmless actions that the righteous denounce as sins: sins that will bar the “sinner” from heaven. Well, if the arbitrary tyrant these people think is running the earth is in charge of Heaven– it will be Hell!