QUICK - Let's Pray!

I was listening to NPR's coverage of the devastation of Greensburg, Kansas. In one story Michele Norris interviewed Dennis McKinney, who happens to be a state representative from the community and barely survived by jumping into a bathtub in his basement with his 14-year-old daughter. He is very articulate and tells an incredible story. It seems he was expecting a neighbor and her one-year-old infant to join them, but the storm came on so quickly that they couldn't get out of their house in time. Fortunately all four of these people survived and apparently the child, although covered in rubble, was completely unharmed.

The audio from this interview can be found on NRP's website here.

The thing that struck me about this story is what Mr. McKenney said near the beginning when he bolted into the basement and told his daughter the neighbors, who didn't have a basement, weren't going to be able to join them. He reported his daughter responded by saying, "Quick, let's pray for them!"

Yeah, that's sure going to save them! What makes people think this way? By uttering some words while closing your eyes tightly the tornado is going to bypass these people and spare them the death that came to so many others? Wait, what about those people who died? Why didn't you pray for them and save them too? But, I'm confused, if God is in control of this tornado, why did he send it to destroy Greensburg anyway? Did somebody there do something bad, like worship some other god or something?

Quick - let's pray. She may as well have said, "Quick, let's make frog noises!" It would have had the same effect. And as far as I'm concerned, wouldn't have been any less ridiculous.