An Australian church has decided that the recent bushfires in Victoria, which I’ll remind you, have killed at least 160 people with the death toll still rising, weren’t the result of arsonists, as the current news reports might have you believe.

No, they were the result of God removing his conditional protection from the State after they decriminalised abortion.

He (Pastor Danny Nalliah) said these bushfires have come as a result of the incendiary abortion laws which decimate life in the womb.

“In my dream I saw fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably. With this I woke up from my dream with the interpretation as the following words came to me in a flash from the Spirit of God.

That His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.”

What God feels about the innocent people who have died in the fires presumably wasn’t revealed to the Pastor.  But there is hope, he reports from the Bible:

“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 I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

So, just bow down and admit you’re wrong and I’ll call off the fire.  Gee thanks.

I rather suspect that relying on the help of the fire and support services is probably a more reliable solution.  Interestingly, the Ministry is offering to distribute collected goods to help the relief effort too, which you’d think would be acting against God’s will in their eyes.  Still, I guess as long as you preach at the same time it’s probably ok.

What I’d find more worrying if I was Australian, is that both the government treasurer, Peter Costello and their PM, John Howard, have previous associations with the pastor, although Peter Costello has distanced himself from the God’s punishment theory.

It’s deeply disturbing to me that leaders of any group should try and use a national disaster such as this to try and gain publicity and support for their cause, whether religious or otherwise.  Hopefully painting their god as some sort of super-villian raining fire on his enemies will only serve to turn people off their organisation.  No-one likes a bully after all.

Incidentally, if you’d like to help the Red Cross disaster relief campaign in Australia, you can submit donations online