RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Yesterday marked the first Sunday since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, and religious leaders took the opportunity to address the disaster. It was an emotional day, especially for those churches in the South that are watching the suffering firsthand. At the Broadmoor Baptist Church in Madison, Mississippi, just north of Jackson, more than 150 hurricane survivors are sleeping on the church campus. Pastor Rob Futral spoke to a packed audience of more than 800 people. He began his sermon by trying to lighten the mood.
(Soundbite of sermon)
Pastor ROB FUTRAL (Broadmoor Baptist Church): By the way, I understand that there's a connection between how you are living and how long it took your lights to come back on. If you're living right, you didn't ever lose your electricity. Does anybody still have their lights and power off?
(Soundbite of laughing)
Pastor FUTRAL: No, I'm kidding, but it's been frustrating. But you know what's been even more frustrating is to watch--is convention center in New Orleans or the Superdome--see scores of people and to want to help and to feel so helpless.
MONTAGNE: Over at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church, a small, mostly African-American church also in Jackson, more than 40 evacuees have been taking refuge. Pastor Dwayne Pickett called for a commitment from the religious community to help rebuild the lives of these survivors by taking their children into the schools tuition-free and helping them find more permanent housing and jobs.
(Soundbite of sermon)
Pastor DWAYNE PICKETT (New Jerusalem Baptist Church): We're blaming the government for something that wasn't their responsibility in the first place. It's the church's responsibility to take care of those that are going through.
MONTAGNE: Dwayne Pickett's sermon was based on Psalm 23, `The Lord is my shepherd.'
(Soundbite of sermon)
Pastor PICKETT: Each one of us has been commissioned to be shepherds. You and I have a responsibility to protect those that are going through misfortune, those who are in poverty, those who are struggling in life. We have a responsibility as children of God to step up to the plate like we never have before and now become shepherds. And regardless of where you find yourself, whether you here or there or the other, everybody got a responsibility to protect.
MONTAGNE: The minister also reminded hurricane victims that displacement was a fact of life, not something brought on by personal actions.
(Soundbite of sermon)
Pastor PICKETT: David was displaced from regular life. Things were not the same: He was on the run, he was going through things, maybe held up in a cave somewhere, we're not sure. But the word he said was, `The Lord is my shepherd.' Now I understand David didn't always did everything right.
Unidentified People: (In unison) Right. You're right.
Pastor PICKETT: See, some folk want to say, `Well, certain people are suffering because they wasn't doing right.' If that's the case all of us deserve to suffer.
MONTAGNE: And in Houston, Texas, the 25,000 hurricane victims that spent their Sunday in the Astrodome had the option of listening to a rabbi, an imam or a pastor. Most people continued to sleep, play football, eat breakfast, receive medical attention or read from the many green plastic Bibles that were passed out. A handful of people did sit by and listen to the speakers, whose words washed over the crowd through the public address system. Joseph Fiorenza, the Catholic archbishop of Galveston and Houston.
(Soundbite of sermon)
Archbishop JOSEPH FIORENZA (Houston, Texas): What will separate us from the love of God? Will it be anguish or peril or suffering or hunger or thirst or persecution? Or will it will be Hurricane Katrina? No, none of these things can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ because we are strong people of faith, and I know you are. You will conquer all of these things.
MONTAGNE: Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza was among religious leaders addressing the evacuees at Houston's Astrodome on the first Sunday after the hurricane.
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