US star says God sent Hurricane Irma to teach us to repent

Kirk Cameron asked his fans to use his remarks about the hurricanes as a way to answer their childrens' questions about why the storms were sent. Photo / Getty Images

Jennifer Lawrence blamed Mother Nature and Donald Trump for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but Kirk Cameron has his own ideas on who sent them.

The former child star Growing Pains and evangelical Christian spoke out about the disasters, saying the hurricanes are "a spectacular display of God's immense power" and he didn't send them without reason.

"When he puts his power on display, it's never without reason. There's a purpose. And we may not always understand what that purpose is, but we know it's not random and we know that weather is sent to cause us to respond to God in humility, awe and repentance," he said in a video on Facebook.

Phil Wickham, Zach Williams, Mercy Me and Irma!

Posted by Kirk Cameron on Thursday, 7 September 2017

"How should we look at two giant hurricanes coming back-to-back like this?" the 46-year-old said in the clip recorded at the airport in Orlando, Florida. "Do we write them off as coincidence? Do we write it off as a statistical anomaly? Wow! Who would've thought? Is it just Mother Nature in a bad mood? I don't know how you think about it but I think it could be something much more than all of that."

The 46-year-old said the hurricanes should remind us that God "supplies our life, breath and everything else so that you and I reach out to him."

He asked his fans to use his remarks about the hurricanes as a way to answer their childrens' questions about why the storms were sent.

"Remind them that God is the blessed controller of all things," he said. "He is the one who gives us peace, security and strength in the midst of the storm and that he uses this to point us to him and to his care for us."

The video has been viewed more than 620,000 times and attracted more than 4000 comments, some agreeing with his opinion, others dissenting strongly.

"Amazing. He actually thinks a god murders people with weather events, in order to teach them humility. Kirk has an impressively twisted mind," one wrote.

"Tape your mouth shut idiot," another commented.

"God doesn't cause hurricanes Dave," another wrote. "Heat, wind and water do."

The death toll from Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston and dumped several feet of rain on southeast Texas, has risen to at least 70.

Irma has swept through the Caribbean, killing at least 23 people and bringing catastrophic devastation to several islands including Barbuda, Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, the Virgin Islands and Cuba.