18 ©~e Ul ru; hington tl)ost WEEKLY BOOKS SUND AY, JULY 26, 2020 In storms, seeingthe handof God ...,!:ra, _IJ;j'I . -~ I I: I 1 I ',, . . TORNADO GOD Amer ican Religion and Violent Weather By Peter J. Thuesen Oxfo rd. 293 pp. $29.95 N ONFICTI ON • REVIEWED BY RANDALL J. S TEPHENS 0 n May 22, 2011, a super- cell thunderstorm from southeast Kansas devel- oped into an EF-5 torna- do, with violent winds rushing at 200 miles per hour. When the mile-wide storm reached Joplin , Mo., a city of roughly 50,000, it obliterated almost everything in its path, demolishing homes and churches, downing power lines, turning trees into deadly mis- siles, and piling crushed cars on top of each other. The death toll was about 160. Among the thousands left homeless was my cousin . Her belongings were scattered and mixed with debris. Many of Jop- lin's residents asked themselves why there was so little warning . Even with all the advances in radar technology and forecast- ing , this storm was the fourth- deadliest tornado in U.S. history . Some wondered if God still spoke out of the whirlwind, as in the Old Testament Book of Job. And , if so, what kind of God was that? Peter J. Thuesen 's insightful and deeply researched "Tornado God: American Religion and Vio- lent Weather " reveals the many ways severe weather has prompt- ed theological and moral reflec- tion as well as action . Thuesen , a professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue Uni- versity Indianapolis, explores the relationship between natural dis- asters and human responsibility , and the ethical question s posed by climate change . His focus on extreme weather and the sublime is particularly interesting given that American s are far more religious than their counterparts in other wealthy nations. Tornadoes are also much more common in the United States than in other parts of the world , and they occur more fre- quently in the Bible Belt, the locus of American evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. For Ameri- cans, observes Thuesen , a ''whole nexus of religious questions CHARLIE RIEDEL/ASSOCIATED PRESS Phillip Bailey helps salvage belongings from a friend 's devastated house in Joplin, Mo., in May 2011 , after an EF-5 tornado tore through the city. After a destructive event , some may wonder if it was a sign from God. comes together in the whirlwind. " From the days of the earliest English settlements, Puritan di- vines recorded the frightening wonders of the natural world and speculated about whether violent thunderstorms, floods and hurri- canes portended God's judgment. They could be surprisingly nu- anced, Thuesen explains. In 1694 Cotton Mather , America 's emi- nent Puritan theologian, minister and author , was preaching when word arrived that his house had been badly damaged by light- ning. Though such phenomena were accident s, they were still , in his words, "under the Conduct of God, the High Thunderer ." In the 19th century , as Ameri- cans pushed farther West , settlers experienced the capriciousness of weather in new and powerful ways. The two deadliest torna- does of the century - the Great Natchez Tornado of 1840 and the St. Louis Tornado of 1896 - led Americans to theological reflec- t ion and soul-searching . After the Natchez storm , one churchman wrote, "The Lord seem s to have been speaking to our country , and rebuking our sins of late in the most solemn manner. " Calvinistic visions of judgment and doom later gave way to a wider array of religious and non- religious interpretation s. Popular ministers like Henry Ward Beech- er preached a softer brand of evangelicalism . In his telling , God reigned with hope and love, rather than force and fear . Other optimistic Protestant s even looked on destructive tornadoe s as a positi ve force . After all, so went the logic, God could use such calamities to tum hearts hea venward. There was one truth about severe weather th at was impossi - ble to deflect or hide. Each devas- tating storm reve aled the pro- found inequalities that plagued the nation . The poor and minori- ties suffered disproportionally, a cold fact that was abundantly clear in the afterm ath of torna- does in rural town s on the plains, floods along the banks of the Mississippi or hurricanes along the Gulf Coast . Fittingly, Thuesen concludes that storms have "exposed Ameri- cans ' chronic moral failings : in- difference to racial and economic inequalities in disaster response, and, more recently, refu sal to acknowledge human-induced cli- mate change as a contributing factor in severe weather ." In the coming decades, disrupti ve, vio- lent weather is likely to become more frequent and more severe . How America 's millions of believ- ers respond and act will be more important than Ste phens is a professor of American and Britis h studies at t he University of Oslo. His most recent book is "The Devil"s Music: How Christia ns Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll."