As we approcah the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the television is filled with docudramas and stories about the infamous story. I find the point-of-view of these stories a fascinating example of perspective and human nature.

One's interpretation of these events largely depends on one's pre-conceived perception of right and wrong. The Bush-hating Left tends to portray the people of New Orleans as helpless victims betrayed by FEMA and Bush. They virtually ignore the responsibility of the citizens, the city (particularly Mayor Ray Nagin) or the state of Louisiana for their own well being and view it as an exclusively government (federal) responsibility. The Bush-loving Right tends to portray the people of New Orleans and lazy fools who knew the storm was coming but refused to evacuate. They virtually ignore FEMA's poor response and blame everything on the incompetent Nagin and Mary Landreau, who seemed to not realize the hurrican was coming until the levees had broken.

As usual, the truth probably is in the middle. I am interested less by this particular truth than our tendency to emphasize those facts that bolster our case and ignore those that contradict our bias. This happens a great deal in theology. Take women for example. If taken on purely literal-historical value, Scripture offers contradictory notions of the proper role of women in church. Paul admonishes women not only to be silent but also to preach with their heads covered. Hmmm. This is where one has to be comfortable with mystery and context.

This also happens in politics. Take the SBC Takeover - if your conservative - or Resurgence - if you're a fundamentalist. The former views the events as an orchestrated power struggle launched by a few shunned fundamentalists who hoodwinked a denomination and captured a small following who knew who would win the war. The latter views the events as an organic return of the fundamental, orthodox theology to a denomination that had lost its way to liberalism.

Like Katrina, the SBC conflict involves ad hominem attacks and code words. In Katrina, there are racists and bigots, in the SBC there are liberals and fundamentalists.

I guess, after righting this I realize there is no real point other than the observation ...