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As the swaying tremors of an earthquake rattled up the East Coast yesterday so too did split-second explanations for the jolts that shook the nation’s capital. Was it a terrorist attack? A sign of the apocalypse? A wake-up call from God?

While most of these fears dissipated as quickly as the shaking of the buildings, conservative blogger Joseph Farah insisted the quake was more than a naturally-occurring tectonic shift. The WorldNetDaily publisher wrote that instead, the 5.8 magnitude earthquake was a sign from God that D.C. politics must change, a sign amplified by the one-two punch of the earthquake and the approaching hurricane Irene.

“Occasionally God really does shake things up as a sign to us of the consequences of disobedience and indifference to our Creator,” Farah wrote in his op-ed.

Farah went on to warn that “there will be a bigger one coming” because “Washington, D.C., deserves more than the wallop it got today. It needs a much bigger shaking up than it got,” he wrote.

But Farah’s “sign from God” comments are nothing new to the discussion of natural disasters.

Conservative commentator Glen Beck said this year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan that killed more than 14,000 people was a “message” from God.

"I'm not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes," he said on his radio show in March. But Beck added that he's "not not saying that either."

Other natural disasters that have been blamed on the wrath of the almighty include the Haiti earthquake, which Christian televangelist Pat Robertson blamed on the country being “cursed” because it made a “pact to the devil,” and Hurricane Katrina, which Texas mega-church pastor John Hagee said was the “curse of God” for the “sinful conduct” in New Orleans. http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/08/conservatives-see-hand-of-god
-in-quake-retribution-for-dc-politics.html

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