There’s good news where the Lord is concerned and bad news these days. According to the American Family Foundation of Kentucky, a right-wing Christian group, the United States has been going to hell since prayer was removed from the schools. Now, as part of a petition drive to put religious observation back in the classrooms where they believe it belongs, the Foundation has warned:

“Prayer was in our schools for over 200 years before the anti-God forces took it out in 1962. After prayer was removed from our schools, teen pregnancy went up 500%, STD’s went up 226%, violent crime went up 500% and SAT scores went down for 18 years in a row, opening the door for the AIDS epidemic and the drug culture.”

The good news—especially for America’s teachers? Since problems in education are apparently related to removal of prayer from our schools the states can stop wasting $1.7 billion per year ($65 per pupil annually), giving standardized tests.

God is messing with His children.

Then again, that may be more good news if you think about it, because according to right-wing thinkers the Lord is always testy. And He could do worse! What happens, for example, when we accept gays? Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Michele Bachmann all say the 9/11 attack was a direct result of our nation’s insidious pursuit of tolerance and understanding.

What about Hurricane Katrina? Yep, God was all bent out of shape. According to Alabama State Senator Hank Erwin that was just what the Gulf Coast deserved for allowing “gambling, sin and wickedness.”

You can start surfing the net and find all kinds of nuts, explaining how God is screwing with America. Remember when Governor Mike Huckabee commented after the bloody massacre at Sandy Hook:

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be surprised that schools would become places of carnage?”

And you thought it had something to do with a society awash in guns!

Really, take your pick. You have the whole Westboro Baptist thing. The bombing in Boston? Yes, God is pissed. What about snow on the roads? Reverend Robertson has said it was God’s way of punishing people who “were planning to drive to do something gay.” Yet another concerned Christian posited this question in a Yahoo forum last fall: “Is God punishing us by giving us Obama as President?” A second responded in the affirmative, adding, “All my Christian friends say so.” Woodrow Short agreed in a letter to the Augusta Chronicle after the 2012 election, saying that those who elected President Obama had brought down punishment on our heads in the form of “floods, fires, earthquakes, Sandy, etc.”

Short might have been interested to know that Muslim clerics made the same point—only insisting that Allah was pummeling America when he sent Sandy smashing ashore. And why was Allah upset?

Apparently, Allah is a movie critic—and He was upset because the movie, Innocence of Muslims, mocked the Prophet Muhammed.

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore says the Lord is mad about abortion. Now God “has a controversy with the inhabitants of this land, and until we reject those evils, we shall suffer accordingly.”

Joseph Farrah says the Almighty is more than a little miffed because the U. S. Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act and because the Boy Scouts agreed to allow gays in their ranks.

Whatever you choose to believe, I think we can we all agree, liberals and conservatives and crazy people alike, that Almighty God is kind of scraping the bottom of His divine Barrel of Wrath when he messes with SAT scores.

Maybe high school seniors can work this into their essays next fall as they try to find places at elite universities:

Dear Princeton Admissions Director: My SAT scores in math, reading and writing expression should have been higher. But a Higher Power, God in His infinite wisdom, lowered them because I have gay friends.

I think that could work.

But let’s go back to Mr. Short’s letter a moment. It’s that ‘etc.’ that should trouble us all. If this punishment trend continues we’re going to have to start asking ourselves if God is angry with us in the morning whenever we burn our toast.