Program Particulars
*Times indicated refer to web version of audio

(01:38–03:27) Music
"The Multiples of One" from Awakening, performed by Joseph Curiale

Map showing epicenter of the earthquake the struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra on March 28, 2005.

In Indonesia, aftershocks have been a daily occurrence since December's deadly earthquake and tsunami. Today was different; today's quake was huge. It registered a magnitude 8.7 — that compares with a 9.0 that hit the day after Christmas. The epicenter was, again, off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a little more than a hundred miles south of December's quake.

(02:03) "Natural Evil"
Theologians typically believe that there are two types of evil in the world: moral evil and natural evil. The former are those evils that are freely inflicted upon humankind by humankind. With moral evil, a sense of free agency and personal choice is involved. The latter are those evils that occur as a result of natural processes. This includes events such as earthquakes, forest fires, tsunamis, disease, birth defects, and so on. Often, natural evil is attributed to an external, outside force in which humankind asks why God allows these catastrophes to happen.

In Speaking of Faith's post-9/11 program, "The Problem of Evil," listen to biologist Robert Pollack explain the concepts of both "natural evil" and "moral evil" and discuss how these might apply to violence in the contemporary world.

Krista cites William Safire's editorial "Where Was God?" in the January 10, 2005 edition of The New York Times, which begins:

In the aftermath of a cataclysm, with pictures of parents sobbing over dead infants driven into human consciousness around the globe, faith-shaking questions arise: Where was God? Why does a good and all-powerful deity permit such evil and grief to fall on so many thousands of innocents? What did these people do to deserve such suffering?

By describing not only the immediate physical effects of earthquakes but also their long-term aftereffects, we demonstrate the inherent connections that exist between the earth sciences and the humanities. Some earthquakes have had philosophical repercussions, some have influenced religions, and some have affected entire societies and cultures, and yes, even history.

Earthquakes are manifestations of a living earth. If we think of an earthquake as the plucking of a long, tight-stretched string representing time, the string will vibrate. During the quake itself, at the point of origin where a great deal of seismic energy is being released, the vibrations will have high amplitudes and short wavelengths. They will be powerful, but each will last only a moment. Farther along on the string, with the passage of time, the amplitudes will decrease and the wavelengths increase. That is to say, the aftereffects will become less intense and they will last longer.

(03:54) Belt of Volcanoes
The circum-Pacific Belt — one of two major seismic belts encircling the Earth — surrounds the Pacific Ocean and is responsible for approximately 80 percent of all recorded earthquakes. Because of it's volatile activity, it's commonly referred to as the Ring of Fire. The other seismic belt is the Alpide Belt, which stretches from a group of volcanic islands off the coast of Portugal, the Azores, through the Mediterranean and Middle East to northern India, Sumatra, and Indonesia, where it joins the Circum-Pacific Belt.

(04:19–05:20) Music
"Nasib Muara Kuang" from Music of Indonesia, Vol. 20: Indonesian Guitars, performed by Shahilin and Siti Rohamah

Schematic view of principal faults that form the Dead Sea rift. Black arrows illustrate northward movement of the Arabian platelet relative to the Palestinian platelet. The open arrow southeast of Haifa indicates the tectonic corridor along which water from the Mediterranean Sea infiltrated into the rift from about 9 million to 5 million years ago. Courtesy of Jelle de Boer/Princeton University Press)

(06:55) Temblors in England
Although no cities in the British Isles have been decimated by an earthquake, over 500 hundred temblors, or earthquakes, have been detected since the 10th century. The British Isles are not situated near the edge of tectonic plates where quakes most often originate but are located squarely on the Eurasian plate. Britain's earthquakes are caused by fractures in the Earth's crust.

Oftentimes, British clergy believed temblors were a manifest sign of God's displeasure. A 1382 tribunal in London was coined the "earthquake council" because a temblor — originating in the Artois Fault in the English Channel — interrupted the heresy trial of theologian John Wycliffe. The archbishop of Canterbury used the event as a symbol to condemn Wycliffe:

Know you not that the noxious vapours which catch fire in the bosom of the earth and give rise to these phenomena which alarm you, lose all their force when burst forth? In like manner, by rejecting the wicked from our community we shall put an end to the convulsions of the Church.

Epicenters of earthquakes with known or estimated magnitudes of 2 to 6 have shaken the British Isles. Courtesy of Jelle de Boer/Princeton University Press)

But perhaps, some fine headed fellowes will wrest (by naturall argumentes) God['s] doing and works, to a worldly or earthly operation, proceeding from a hidden cause in the body and bowels of [the] earth. … Yet those that feare God … will take the Earthquake to be of a nother kinde of Nature: And beholding [the] myraculous manner of the same, with open armes, and humble heart, will embrace God['s] visitation, & worthily welcome the messenger he sendeth.

(07:44) Earthquakes in Shakespeare
Jelle de Boer notes that William Shakespeare used the phenomena of earthquakes in plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV, and Macbeth. In Henry IV, Shakespeare used earthquakes to signal the birth of of the Welsh prince Glendower:

Glendower: At my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward.

Hotspur: Why, so it would have done at the same season if your mother's cat had but kittened, though you yourself had never been born.

Glendower: I say the earth did shake when I was born.

Hotspur: And I say the earth was not of my mind
If you suppose as fearing you it shook.

Glendower: The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

Hotspur: Oh, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam earth and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

(08:13) Citation from John Wesley
John and Charles Wesley are known for founding Methodism, a religious movement advocating that an individual should live a life of personal holiness and fellowship as laid out in the Bible. In response to minor quake whose epicenter was located directly beneath London, John Wesley wrote in his journal:

It was about quarter after twelve, that the earthquake began … in the southeast, went through Southwark, under the river, and then from one end of London to the other. … There were three distinct shakes, or wavings to and fro, attended with an hoarse, rumbling noise, like thunder. How gently does God deal with this nation! O that our repentance may prevent heavier marks of his displeasure!

To-day God gave the people of London a second warning; of which my brother Charles wrote as follows:

"This morning, a quarter after five, we had another shock of an earthquake, far more violent than that of February 8. … it shook the Foundery so violently, that we all expected it to fall upon our heads. … I immediately cried out, 'Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be moved, and the hills be carried into the midst of the sea: for the Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.' He filled my heart with faith, and my mouth with words, shaking their souls as well as their bodies."

The earth moved westward, then east, then westward again, through all London and Westminster. It was a strong and jarring motion, attended with a rumbling noise, like that of distant thunder. Many houses were much shaken, and some chimneys thrown down, but without any farther hurt.

Covetousness, ambition, various injustice, luxury and falshood in every kind, have infected every rank and denomination of people. … God … is not well pleased with this. … How many thousands … hath the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up? Numbers sunk at Port-Royal, and rose no more. …

And what shall we say of the late accounts from Portugal? That some thousand houses, and many thousand persons are no more! That a fair city is now in ruinous heaps. Is there indeed a God that judges the world? …

It has been the opinion of many, that even this nation has not been without some marks of God's displeasure. … And although the earth does not yet open in England or Ireland, has it not shook, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man? And that not in one or two places only, but almost from one end of the kingdom to the other? …

Alas! why should we not be convinced … that it is not chance which governs the world? Why should we not now, before London is Lisbon … acknowledge the hand of the Almighty, arising to maintain his own cause? Why, we have a general answer always ready, to screen us from any such conviction: "All these things purely natural and accidental; the result of natural causes." But there are two objections to this answer: first, it is untrue; secondly, it is uncomfortable. …

Nay, what is nature itself but the art of God? Or God's method of acting in the material world?

(09:56–12:14) Music
"Andante in E flat" from Organ Music of S.S. Wesley, performed by Paul Morgan

(10:07) Hymns of John Wesley
The Wesley brothers wrote hymns that often use metaphors of nature's destruction and earth's trembling when the final judgment of God prevails upon sinners. The following Hymn Number 62 appears in John Wesley's Collection of Hymns:

Woe to the men on earth who dwell,
Nor dread th' Almighty's frown;
When God doth all his wrath reveal,
And shower his judgments down.

---

Lo! from their seats the mountains leap,
The mountains are not found,
Transported far into the deep,
And in the ocean drowned.

Who then shall live and face the throne,
And face the judge severe?
When heaven and earth are fled and gone,
O where shall I appear?

Now, only now, against that hour,
We may a place provide;
Beyond the grave, beyond the power
Of hell our spirits hide.

Firm in the all-destroying shock
May view the final scene;
For lo! the everlasting Rock
Is cleft to take us in.

(12:54) Quote from de Boer's Book
Considered the most catastrophic earthquake in European history, the Lisbon quake struck on November 1, 1755 — All Saints Day — while the churches were filled with worshippers. The devastation challenged many Europeans' belief in God, and certainly the idea of a benevolent God.

Boundary between the Eurasian and African plates. Both plates are moving eastward, but the African plate is also rotating counterclockwise around a point a short distance west of the coast of Africa. As a result, there is a crustal extension, hence fracturing and volcanism, in the Azores Islands. Offshore from Lisbon, compression of the crust has led to uplifting of the ocean floor in places. Courtesy of Jelle de Boer/Princeton University Press)

In 1755 a catastrophic earthquake destroyed Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Most of the city's buildings, constructed of unreinforced masonry, collapsed, and a series of enormous quake-induced ocean waves, or tsunamis, devastated the harbor area. As many as sixty thousand people died. The damage to Portugal's economy was incalculable. In the ensuing chaos, government and church leaders vied for control. The Marques de Pombal rose to power and became a virtual dictator; as a result, the Roman Catholic Jesuit Order lost much of its influence in Portugal. Voltaire, in his Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne and his satirical work Candide, contradicted the then-current philosophy of optimism, that God had created a perfect world. And in both Europe and America the disaster sparked the search for a scientific understanding of natural phenomena, a search that has been unceasing. Recent geological research has focused on the offshore origin of the earthquake, and on what might happen to Lisbon if there should be a similar quake in the future. Lisbon's string vibrates to this day.

(13:17) Fado Music
Fado, translated as "fate," is a melancholic traditional form of music originating in Portugal. The fadista Mariza describes fado music as "an emotional kind of music full of passion, sorrow, jealousy, grief, and often satire." Listen to fado songs by various artists compiled by Speaking of Faith producer Mitch Hanley.

(13:21–14:11) Music
"Paixöes Diagonais" from Paixöes Diagonais, performed by Misia

(14:50) Tremors in Missouri
A series of massive earthquakes struck the central United States in 1811 and 1812; the first quake's epicenter located near New Madrid, Missouri. Naturalist James J. Audubon described his experience in Kentucky as the second surge of quakes took place in January 1812:

I heard what I imagined to be the distant rumbling of a violent tornado, on which I spurred my steed, with a wish to gallop as fast as possible to a place of shelter; but it would not do, the animal knew better than I what was forthcoming, and instead of going faster, so nearly stopped that I remarked he placed one foot after another on the ground, with as much precaution as if walking on a smooth sheet of ice. I thought he had … foundered, and … was on the point of dismounting and leading him, when he all of a sudden fell a-groaning piteously, hung his head, spread out his four legs, as if to save himself from falling, and stood stock still, continuing to groan … at very roots, the ground rose and fell in successive furrows, like the ruffled waters of a lake, and I became bewildered … as I too plainly discovered that all this awful commotion in nature was the result of an earthquake.

(18:37–19:19) Music
"Book Of Ways 1" from Book Of Ways, performed by Keith Jarrett

(19:40) Structure of Tsunamis
To learn more about how a tsunami is formed, its global wave propagations, and historical visualizations of significant tsunamis, see Carleton College's tsunami visualizations page.

(21:26) De Boer Quoted in New York Times
Krista cites the January 11, 2005 article "Deadly and Yet Necessary, Quakes Renew the Planet" (reprint) by William J Broad for The New York Times.

(25:17–27:14) Music
"Valsa" from Guitarra Portuguesa, performed by Carlos Paredes

Ruins of The Cathedral and the Basilica de Santa Maria, Lisbon. Simplified copy of Le Bas engraving. (Wood engraving, Germany, 1836) Lisbon, Portugal

Oh wretched man, earth-fated to be cursed;
Abyss of plagues, and miseries the worst!
Horrors on horrors, griefs on griefs must show,
That man's the victim of unceasing woe,
And lamentations which inspire my strain,
Prove that philosophy is false and vain.
Approach in crowds, and meditate awhile
Yon shattered walls, and view each ruined pile,
Women and children heaped up mountain high,
Limbs crushed which under ponderous marble lie;
Wretches unnumbered in the pangs of death,
Who mangled, torn, and panting for their breath,
Buried beneath their sinking roofs expire,
And end their wretched lives in torments dire.

---

Whilst you these facts replete with horror view,
Will you maintain death to their crimes was due?
And can you then impute a sinful deed
To babes who on their mothers' bosoms bleed?
Was then more vice in fallen Lisbon found,
Than Paris, where voluptuous joys abound?
Was less debauchery in London known,
Where opulence luxurious holds her throne?

---

Look round this sublunary world, you'll find
That nature to destruction is consigned.

(27:12) Concept of Theodicy
The term theodicy derives from two Greek words, théos and diké, meaning "the justice of God." The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz coined the word in 1710 to demonstrate God's goodness and justice despite the existence of evil in the world.

In the Speaking of Faith program, "Quarks and Creation," quantum physicist John Polkinghorne offers both a scientific and theological view of the question.

(28:20) A Catfish in Tsugami Bay
Jelle de Boer alludes to an ancient Japanese legend that says that earthquakes come from the writhings of a giant catfish living in the mud beneath the earth. By using a huge rock with magical powers, the god Kashima would pin and control the catfish to keep the earth still. However, according to some legends, when Kashima lets his guard down or goes away (typically in October), the fish thrashes about and causes the earth to shake and tremble.

Many ancient cultures have created common myths or stories to explain the movement of the earth and the natural events that affect their lives. Read more of these folkloric tales.

(29:32–30:28) Music
"First Impressions" from Appalachia Waltz, performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor

(30:16) Reading from Ulin's Book
In The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line between Reason and Faith, author David L. Ulin reflects on the art of predicting earthquakes and the dilemma of living on moving tectonic plates:

I believe in order, in other words, but in an order that eludes me, that exists a little bit beyond my reach. This is what compels me about California, the idea that here, even the most basic assumptions contain their own uncertainty. But it is also one of the most powerful solaces that earthquakes offer, a profound and lasting sense of mystery.

Of course, in order to enter such a landscape, we need to walk away from many things. We need to walk away from control, from the idea that order is something we can see. We need to walk away from ourselves, from our narrow view of time, of geology. To live with earthquakes is to have one foot in the present and the other in the deepest reaches of the past. It is to find a balance, to understand that everything is always up for grabs.

(31:38–33:56) Music
"African Queen" from Hollow Bamboo, performed by Jon Hassell, Ry Cooder, and Ronu Majumbar

(34:39–36:08) Music
"Agnus Dei I" from The Mystery of Santo Domingo de Silos: Gregorian Chant from Spain, performed by the Chorus of Monks of the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos

(35:22) Reading from Goodenough's Book
The following passage was excerpted from Ursula Goodenough's book, The Sacred Depths of Nature:

The realization that I needn't have answers to the Big Questions, needn't seek answers to the Big Questions, has served as an epiphany. I lie on my back under the stars and the unseen galaxies and I let their enormity wash over me. I assimilate the vastness of the distances, the impermanence, the fact of it all. I go all the way out and then I go all the way down, to the fact of photons without mass and gauge bosons that become massless at high temperatures. I take in the abstractions about forces and symmetries and they caress me, like Gregorian chants, the meaning of the words not mattering because the words are so haunting.

(36:48) Evangelicals and Global Warming
The National Association of Evangelicals issued "For the Health of a Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility" (PDF), declaring global warming a national threat and a Christian issue.

(38:56) Idea of "Assent"
Krista cites a passage from Ursula Goodenough's The Sacred Depths of Nature. The following passage is a fuller version of Goodenough's concept of "assent":

William James: "At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe."

The manner of our acceptance. It can be disappointed and resentful; it can be passive and acquiescent; or it can be the active response we call assent. When my awe at how life works gives way to self-pity because it doesn't work the way I would like, I call on assent—the age-old religious response to self-pity, as in "Why, Lord? Why This? Why ME?" and then, "Thy Will Be Done."

As a religious naturalist I say "What Is, Is" with the same bowing of the head, the same bending of the knee. Which then allows me to say "Blessed Be to What Is" with thanksgiving. To give assent is to understand, incorporate, and then let go. With the letting go comes that deep sigh we call relief, and relief allows the joy-of-being-alive-at-all to come tumbling forth again.

Assent is a dignified word. Once it is freely given, one can move fluidly within it.

(41:30) A Covenant with Mystery
Referring to herself as a religious naturalist, Ursula Goodenough writes in The Sacred Depths of Nature that explanations such as the Anthropic Principle — the idea that any valid theory explaining the universe must have human beings as a core part of the equation — often leaves her "theologically unsatisfied" — and, in the end, benevolent or catastrophic events come down to chance:

And so I once again revert to my covenant with Mystery, and respond to the emergence of Life not with a search for its Design or Purpose but instead with outrageous celebration that it occurred at all. I take the concept of a miracle and use it not as a manifestation of divine intervention but as the astonishing property of emergence. Life does generate something-more-from-nothing-but, over and over again, and each emergence, even though fully explainable by chemistry, is nonetheless miraculous.

The celebration of supernatural miracles has been central to traditional religions throughout the millennia. The religious naturalist is provisioned with tales of natural emergence that are, to my mind, far more magical than traditional miracles. Emergence is inherent in everything that is alive, allowing our yearning for supernatural miracles to be subsumed by our joy in the countless miracles that surround us.

(41:55–42:58) Music
"(Ask the) Sphinx" from Air and Ground, performed by Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ)

(43:25) Vertical and Horizontal Transcendence
In the March 2001 edition of the journal Polygon, Ursula Goodenough published the essay "Vertical and Horizontal Transcendence." She explores this idea of beauty and hierarchy from two perspectives: the traditional concept wherein the origination of the sacred is "out there" being vertical and the alternate concept wherein the sacred originates "here" — all around us — being horizontal. Both forms of transcendence, Goodenough says, are essential to the full religious life.

(45:15) Indigenous People Avoiding Tsunami Disaster
Over 300,000 people are currently estimated to be dead or missing after the December 2004 tsunami. The Moken people, who live on the Adaman Sea (about two hours off the coast of Thailand) where the tsunami hit with full force, survived even though their villages were completely destroyed. In "Sea Gypsies See Signs in the Waves," a March 20, 2005 segment on 60 Minutes (March 20, 2005), a Moken elder said of the tsunami: "The wave is created by the spirit of the sea. The Big Wave had not eaten anyone for a long time, and it wanted to taste them again."

(46:40) Reference to the Crucifixion
To learn more about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the Christian concept of the Passion story, listen to the Speaking of Faith program "The Jewish Roots of the Christian Story."

(46:49–47:39) Music
"Ave Donna Santissima" from Soir, dit elle: Words of the Angel, performed by Trio Mediaeval

(47:19) Second Reading from The Sacred Depths of Nature
In this passage from The Sacred Depths of Nature, Ursula Goodenough writes about the inherent mystery of the natural world:

Mystery generates wonder, and wonder generates awe. The gasp can terrify or the gasp can emancipate. As I allow myself to experience cosmic and quantum Mystery, I join the saints and the visionaries in their experience of what they called the Divine, and I pulse with the spirit, if not the words, of my favorite hymn:

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.
Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might,
Thy justice like mountains high soaring above
Thy clouds which ar fountains of goodness and love.
To all, life thou givest, to both great and small;
In all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish, but naught changeth thee.
Thou reignest in glory; thou dwellest in light;
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
'Tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.

– Walter Chalmers Smith, 1867

(49:12–50:50) Music
"First Impressions" from Appalachia Waltz, performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor

(50:06) Third Reading from The Sacred Depths of Nature
Ursula Goodenough uses the poem "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver illustrate the sanctity of nature:

I walk through the Missouri woods and the organisms are everywhere, seen and unseen, flying about or pushing through the soil or rummaging under the leaves, adapting and reproducing. I open my senses to them and we connect. I no longer need to anthropomorphize them, to value them because they are beautiful or amusing or important for my survival. I see them as they are; I understand how they work. I think about their genes switching on and off, their cells dividing and differentiating in pace with my own, homologous to my own. I take in the sycamore by the river and I think about its story, the ancient algae and mosses and ferns that came before, the tiny first progenitor that gave rise to it and to me. I try to guess why it looks the way it does—why the leaves are so serrated and the bark so white—and imagine all sorts of answers, all manner of selections and unintended consequences that have yielded this tree to existence and hence to my experience.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver, 1986

(50:45–52:55) Music
"Paixöes Diagonais" from Paixöes Diagonais, performed by Misia