tsunami

St JOHN NEUMANN is not quite the Saint of the Day today, but his feast and my birthday coincide, so I'm remembering him today. Happy Epiphany all.

DEC: You can donate money towards tsunami relief here.

P.O.E: There has been a lot of talk about whether the tsunami(s) raised a version of the problem of evil for believers in an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God. Brian Weatherson's post at Crooked Timber, and at his own blog, is the best consideration of the issues I've seen yet.

UPDATE: You've really got to read 'The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience' here. Amongst other very interesting titbits:

In 1989 George Gallup Jr. and James Castelli published the results of a survey to determine which groups in the U.S. were least and most likely to object to having black neighbors—surely a good measure of racism. Catholics and nonevangelical Christians ranked least likely to object to black neighbors; 11 percent objected. Mainline Protestants came next at 16 percent. At 17 percent, Baptists and evangelicals were among the most likely groups to object to black neighbors, and 20 percent of Southern Baptists objected to black neighbors.