By James Wilson
The Wall Street Journal notes California has just experienced the driest January since the Gold Rush of 1849. A fourth straight disastrous year of drought is forecast, along with the admission California farmers have received less than a tenth of their normal water allowances for surface water. To address the deficit trillions of gallons of water have been pumped from California’s enormous aquifer since 2012. That source too is running out, even as many fields lie fallow in an effort to conserve. But the worst news is the high pressure ridge that hovered over the state deflecting rain and snow for more than sixteen months is back. At this time it is off shore but still managing to divert storms headed our way to the north and south of the state.
The Huffington Post – and other sanctuaries from which secular pundits pontificate – tries to explain the situation in terms of global warming with spectacular absurdity. California has seen monster storms since November 2014 despite the driest January on record. We have also had spectacular lack of rain and only 25% of normal snowfall. The Post offers statistics about the abnormally high temperatures in the Sierra Nevada but remains silent on the abnormal chill conditions in much of the rest of the nation. Their writers make the astounding claim that the super storms are fruit of warming – because they say warming causes more water vapor that becomes more falling rain – but they also blame warming for the lack of rain because it has all dried up. They cite the evidence for more vapor and blithely assume – without presenting any evidence – that climate change causes warmth in California and a freeze from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Great Plains – northern and southern. Nice going, guys!
There is another explanation, a biblical explanation. This will – of course – arouse scorn from those who worship the religion of scientism, as opposed to respecting authentic science. But if a thing looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck it might be worth considering that it could actually be a duck.
In the biblical book of 2 Chronicles God tells King Solomon that whenever He holds back normal rainfall it is because of persistent and serious sin in the land. This is not His punishment – He is not that kind of God – but it is His way of demanding attention before righting the wrongs. The wrongs He decries are generally in four categories – covenant breaking, shedding of innocent blood, sexual sin, and idol worship. He goes on to name the remedy – but later for that. How does California rate in the persistent and serious sin department?
Her elected government – with elected being the operant word – highjacked “loans” from her school system and persuaded Californians to tax themselves so those loans could be repaid. Although school funding has increased no loans have been repaid. In other forays into this arena the state is attempting to force churches and their affiliates to purchase abortion coverage in defiance of the First Amendment, state and federal law, and recent Supreme Court decisions. These are called covenant breaking.
Speaking of abortions, California leads the nation in numbers and out of all proportion to our share of the national population. Thirty thousand of these are paid for with tax dollars and this is not kept secret from the voters. On top of this are the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans slaughtered and enslaved in the early days of California – a slaughter that peaked during the aforementioned Gold Rush. Some of these, such as the butchery of the Shasta Tribe near Etna in 1851, are still denied by government to this day. God has a problem with lying too, but file this one under the shedding of innocent blood.
Under sexual sin we can notice almost ninety per cent of the pornography made in the United States is created in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. Add to that the encouragement we give ourselves by patronizing films and television that glorify sexual relations without the commitment of marriage. Add on top of that the glory we give to early Californians like Peter Lassen who enslaved Native women to gratify his appetites. Finish it off with the reality that California is one of the prime locations for the modern sex trafficking industries and the point is made on this one.
Last but not least is idol worship. Reality is we worship policy and product makers from our can-do governor to the lords of Silicon Valley and social media tyros to entertainment industry stars from Lady Gaga to Kanye West. And if esoteric idolatry is not enough for us, we worship actual idols of wood and stone and sand. We worship Buddhist and Hindu idols in churches from Grace Cathedral and Trinity Cathedral – in San Francisco and Sacramento – to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the old City Hall in Redding, where I live. We even sport a rendering of the Roman goddess Minerva in our State Capitol’s rotunda.
Lest anyone beg off with a weak statement that “I don’t worship those things,” let’s remember they are paid for with our (sales and other) taxes, our donations, and our visits to marvel at their artistic qualities. This is California’s problem, not the problem of some group of people the rest of us designate as bad. That goes for all four categories. If we reap benefits from – say – confiscated Indian lands we also bear the responsibilities.
Likewise, if there is no credible meteorological explanation for this persistent and recurrent high pressure ridge then only a foolish mind would refuse to look at a more esoteric line of reasoning. High pressure ridges come and go, restraining rainfall where they are present, for days and even weeks at a time. But months and then more than a year over one state? And after some blessedly torrential rainfall for two months the ridge hovers over us once again? That does not occur in nature or from natural causation. What the Word of God says – on the other hand – looks, quacks, and waddles pretty much as though it were a duck. So what does that same Word offer as a remedy?
2 Chronicles 7:14 is the verse that follows God’s warning to King Solomon that a lack of normal rainfall is attributable to human sin coupled with His determination to get His people’s attention before He forgives and rescues them. “If my people, who are called by my Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land,” is what it says. So we are left with a choice to make.
The disciples of climate change imagine human behavior causes catastrophic warming. Christians acknowledge that climate changes; we know from science that the planet has endured many cycles of heating and cooling since time began. We are astounded that anyone thinks mankind has the chops to cause it in the complete absence of causal evidence. We do imagine we can – through prayer and repentance – move the heart of God; He can and does impact climate. We imagine such things because we have observed this phenomenon time and again. It is called miracle; it is also called dynamic mercy and grace.
The choice is simple. Believe the absurd notion that human caused global warming accounts for both catastrophic rains and catastrophic dry spells as the clergy of climate scientism would have us convinced. Or believe and act in the realization that Californians have offended God and injured one another over a long and catastrophic period of time and offer prayer and repentance to the God who says that is all He wants from us. Which of these alternatives looks, quacks, and walks like the truth it claims to reveal?
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at
praynorthstate@charter.net
