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    'He Has A Reason': How Natural Disasters Test The Faithful

    Spiritual leaders have long offered such counsel in times of human suffering. Theologians even have a term for efforts to explain why God and evil can coexist: theodicy.
    by Tom Gjelten Sep 04, 2017 3 minutes
    Mark Scott, chair of the department of religious studies at Thorneloe University in Sudbury, Ontario, says evil is a "universally recognized" threat to faith. "People in the midst of suffering often feel abandoned by God," he says.

    In churches across Houston on Sunday, pastors struggled to tell their parishioners why a God they believed to be good might have allowed a storm of Biblical proportion to flood their city.

    "God causes it to happen, but He has a reason," Pastor Gary Smith told the worshippers at Fifth Ward Church of Christ in northeast Houston. "We don't comprehend what God has planned for us."

    Spiritual leaders have long offered such counsel in times of human suffering. For people who

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