But there has been enough speculation that Focus on the Family, psychologist James Dobson's Colorado-based Christian ministry, has been promoting media appearances by its director of "teen apologetics," the Rev. Alex McFarland.
McFarland said in a telephone interview that theologians had debated for centuries how a good, wise and all-powerful God could allow so much evil and suffering.
"When someone asks 'Why do innocent people suffer?' I will gently remind them that we are not really innocent," he said. "God did create a perfect world. But we humans introduced moral evil, sin, rebellion and disobedience. And after God judged human sin in Noah's flood, the weather patterns that we know today developed."
Rather than blaming the hurricane on any particular sin or sinners, however, McFarland wanted to impart a positive message.
"As a Christian, I would say that God didn't cause this but God did allow it, and we believe that God will bring a greater good out of this," he said. "For God's love, power and wisdom to remain uncompromised, he will have to bring more good than pain from it, ultimately."
Ted Steinberg, a professor of history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, argues in his 2000 book, "Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America," that Americans have often seen divine will in earthquakes, floods and droughts whose consequences have been worsened by improper planning.
In his opinion "as an atheist," he said, Katrina "was an unnatural disaster if ever there was one." By building levees along the Mississippi and draining marshland, he said, the Army Corps of Engineers and local officials hastened the sinking of New Orleans below sea level and destroyed the barrier islands that protected the Gulf Coast.
"Blaming God," he said, "is moral hand-washing."
That view was echoed this week by environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, which said the Bush administration bore some responsibility because it had "worked tirelessly to derail international agreement on climate change and sought to put narrow U.S. economic interests above global climatic stability."
McFarland of Focus on the Family said "it's sad that people would take the opportunity to spin this into some kind of political sound bite" and blame the government.
"Are we taking the opportunity to make this into a religious sound bite? I suppose so," he said. "But that is only at the prompting of people's questions. Human suffering, and the longing for answers, and the desire to process this spiritually and emotionally -- that's a defensible reality. Whereas George W. Bush creating global warming, and consequently Katrina, is speculative at best."
