"When elephants fight, the grass suffers." So goes an old African proverb.[1] The elephants in question here, Yahweh and Baal — gods competing for a nation's allegiance with the original weapons of mass destruction. Drought and disaster, the grass, this widow and her son, were caught in this cosmic struggle between fertility and famine.

We meet one of faith's greatest heroes as this story begins. With Elijah there is no question whose side he is on; his name means Yahweh is my God. He gets no introduction other than the fact that he is from an obscure northern village called Tishbe. "As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve," Elijah announces to King Ahab, "there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word" (1 Kings 17:1). Not a welcome word in the arid…