Seeing God's deeds in tornadoes' wake
As students and faculty at a Southern Baptist university clean up, they also ponder what the event means in a theological sense.
By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 8, 2008

JACKSON, Tenn. -- God is not an abstraction at Union University. Here, business classes might begin with a prayer. Biology students are encouraged to take creationism as seriously as they do evolution.

So what does it say about the nature of God that the campus was shredded this week by a barrage of tornadoes? What does it say that no lives were lost, despite $40 million in damage?

Greg Thornbury is relishing the opportunity to explore those questions when his students return to this Southern Baptist campus, perhaps in the next few weeks. Thornbury, dean of Union's school of Christian studies, said he plans to make the disaster -- and the response to it -- a catalyst for student discussions about responding through faith, and the opaque and sometimes baffling motives of God. the rest