We've all heard a few of the nation's...

...evangelical ministers make some pretty outlandish claims in recent years.

Take Pat Robertson (above left), who said shortly after an earthquake in Haiti that destroyed the capital and killed tens of thousands of people, "Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. Haitians were originally under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal. Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other."

Thanks, great-great grandpa!

Or Jerry Falwell (right), who said "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals ... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

Wow!

And then, of course, there were the events of 9/11.

Falwell had a veritable laundry list of scapegoats: the American Civil Liberties Union, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters, to name just a few.

And Robertson, for his part, elaborated:

"We have allowed rampant pornography on the Internet, and rampant secularism and the occult, etc. to be broadcast on television. We have permitted somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 million unborn babies to be slaughtered by our society.

"We have a court that has essentially stuck its finger in God's eye and said, 'We are going to legislate You out of the schools and take Your commandments from the courthouses in various states. We are not going to let little children read the commandments of God. We are not going to allow the Bible or prayer in our schools.'

"We have insulted God at the highest level of our government. Then, we say, 'Why does this happen?' It is happening because God Almighty is lifting His protection from us..."

But it seems that God may be lowering His sights a little.

An article in the Times this morning, "History Buff Sets a Course for the Right," reports that David Barton (above), a former school principal and an ordained minister from Texas (my emphasis):

...burst onto the conservative scene in 1988, when he published a study that blamed a decline in SAT scores and other social ills, like violent crime and unwed births, on the Supreme Court decisions in 1962 and 1963 that banned prayer in public schools.

“The nation walked away from God,” he said, and the consequences came swiftly.

What? No AIDS, no earthquake, no 9/11? The nation "walked away from God" and all He did was lower our SAT scores a little? That's it?

What's next? Will God cause a traffic jam at five o'clock in the afternoon? Make my TV picture a little fuzzy? I'd better repent -- fast! -- before He makes these scrambled eggs get cold.