Before the Church excommunicates me for heresy, let me be clear: I have nothing against religion. In fact, I’ve seen faith move mountains, sometimes literally, when church groups build houses for the poor after a typhoon, or when priests use the pulpit against climate injustice. But when we begin to equate faith with passivity, when we start saying “leave it all to God” in the face of clear and present danger, then we have a problem.
What if a local priest refuses to hold Mass outside an old church while aftershocks are recurring? What if he insists: “The Lord will protect His house?” Some parishioners, out of devotion or deference will stay. And what if hours later, another tremor sends part of the ancient structure collapsing? No one will blame God. Some would even say it was a “test of faith.” But perhaps it was also a test of reason—one we continue to fail.
This story is not about religion as much as it is about how we live with risk. We are a country visited by more than 20 typhoons a year, crisscrossed by fault lines and ringed by volcanoes. Our disasters are a recurring sermon. We’ve learned to rebuild with prayer and persistence. But our resilience sometimes becomes a ritual, the belief that survival is inevitable because God has always pulled us through.
In my graduate studies in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, sociologists call this pattern the Subculture in Disasters Theory. It explains how communities repeatedly exposed to hazards develop their own “disaster subcultures,” which are shared beliefs, routines and moral codes about how to live with constant threat. These cultural habits can save lives or will cost them. Over time, people stop fearing the tremor and stop questioning the cracks. Disaster becomes normalized, even spiritualized. This is when faith, which is meant to strengthen us, can quietly become a barrier to risk perception.
A few days ago, when tremors were still coming one after the other, I heard of a priest refusing to hold Mass outdoors (to the frustration of the Disaster Risk and Reduction team), saying that if anything happens, it is God’s will. As a man of faith, he shapes the moral logic of the community. The Church is not just a building; it is also a symbol of authority. And when authority treats science as secondary to submission, even unintentionally, that sends out a strong message to parishioners that taking precautions is a sign of weak faith.
In the Philippines (and perhaps in many disaster-prone communities), we see this fusion of religion and resignation. People ignore evacuation orders, choosing to stay, convinced that prayer will suffice. Families rebuild on riverbanks, saying “God will provide.” Even local officials sometimes frame preparedness drills as optional, trusting that divine favor will intervene. In these moments, theology replaces meteorology.
But faith and preparedness are not opposites. They are even in the Bible. Noah built an ark; Joseph stored grain before famine. Even Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount told his followers not to build their houses on sand. These are not parables against belief; they are lessons in foresight. God gives wisdom, not weather forecasts. We dishonor His gift when we confuse surrender with inaction.
Our “disaster subculture” has many faces: the fisherman who jokes about typhoons, the politician who doesn’t believe in Covid because it will hurt businesses, the priest who insists on Mass beneath a crumbling church. Each is part of a broader cultural psychology shaped by centuries of surviving calamities. We’ve learned to endure, yes, but sometimes at the cost of learning to prevent.
This is not to condemn the faithful, but to confront the consequences of unquestioned tradition. Religion provides moral compass, meaning and community which are vital for recovery. But when it silences caution, dismisses science, or glorifies suffering as holiness, it crosses into danger. Faith without reflection can turn fatal.
The deeper tragedy is that these attitudes are often praised and are provocation for resilience porn. When residents refuse to leave despite rising water, we call them “resilient.” When devotees continue processions during storms, we call it “devotion.” When a whole community is buried in a massive landslide, we call it “cleansing.” We romanticize risk as proof of faith, instead of asking why we keep placing ourselves in harm’s way.
Perhaps it is time we rethink what resilience truly means. It is not blind endurance. It is the courage to adapt, to act, to heed warnings without losing hope. A resilient faith builds stronger roofs, not just stronger prayers. It listens to the trembling ground and understands that science, too, can be sacred.
When religion becomes a risk, it is not because God failed us; it is because we stopped listening to the ways He speaks through reason, through science, through the people urging us to move out of danger.
Faith means trusting that God wants us alive. That’s the kind of belief we need now, not faith that waits, but faith that works. Because if disaster is part of our culture, then perhaps salvation, too, should start with what we choose to do before the next aftershock.