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Gulf gusher is moral failure
Q: The catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a widening environmental, economic and political crisis. Is it also a moral crisis? How does religion influence our use and abuse of the natural world? Does religion help or harm the environment?
Six weeks after oil began gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the United States faces what appears to be its worst manmade ecological disaster. Yet too few Americans have framed the issue in moral terms.
One exception is Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas). He told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce two weeks after the BP eruption, "From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented."
At a meeting, where Perry rambled against the government--anti-regulation, anti-health care reform, anti-taxation--and said trust the private sector, he chose predictably to defend BP and inexplicably to blame God.
Contrary to Perry's morally absurd claim, God is not to blame for BP's corporate greed, America's sloth or prideful confidence in technological infallibility.
Traditional Christianity identifies greed, sloth and pride as three deadly sins--sins that manifest themselves in BP's disaster.
BP is driven by corporate greed, the kind of greed that takes shortcuts to maximize profits, the kind of greed that takes risks at depths where problems can't be managed.
Americans are driven by sloth or moral indifference. We are unwilling to protect the environment, an undeniable biblical imperative, by breaking our energy dependence on dirty oil and supporting a climate bill that will invest in clean, renewable energy.
Slothfulness finds expression among those who don't care if the government regulates the oil industry and foolishly trust Big Oil to do the right thing.
BP was certainly prideful about its technological infallibility. BP couldn't imagine failure. A BP official said that the company had not built a container device before the blowout because it "seemed inconceivable" that the preventer mechanism would fail. He said, "I don't think anybody foresaw the circumstance that we're faced with now."
BP has proven repeatedly through its failures to shut off the gusher that it was unprepared. Why was BP unprepared? It arrogantly believed its technology wouldn't fail.
Yes, the BP disaster is a moral issue, one that goes to the very heart of our economic and cultural crisis about energy and the environment.
Loving one's neighbors means ensuring that they have a decent place to live--now and in the future. The moral choice is ours--we can take advantage of the current crisis to take the right steps or we can evade our responsibility for the common good.
By
Robert Parham
|
June 1, 2010; 2:10 PM ET
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Posted by: mono1 | June 4, 2010 11:11 AM
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Posted by: mono1 | June 4, 2010 11:10 AM
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> Yet too few Americans have
> framed the issue in moral terms.
Gosh, sorry we haven't gotten around to that yet. We've been a bit busy trying to get a few million gallons of toxic sludge cleaned up. How about we play the blame game some other time?
Posted by: marcello09 | June 3, 2010 10:45 AM
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Mr. Parham - I believe you are relying on press reports that misrepresent Gov. Perry's comments from May 3rd. The full video can be found here:
http://www.freeenterprise.com/governors/
The specific section on the oil spill is from 2:49:55 to 2:55:16
Posted by: blpeckdc | June 2, 2010 3:48 PM
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I see nothing in christianity that says we should suffer for exploiting the environment. We can suffer for eating pigs, being gay, being female, being heathens...
where in the bible does it say god will make you suffer from destroying the environment? Or was god of the bible too busy to mention this in anticipation of the human future?
By the way, I would wager that the people who profited the most from BP, drilling, support of drill baby drill, energy overconsumption... were largely christians and their morality that of their churches. They had no problem while they could get away with it. Of course, with a carte blanche from a savior getting you into heaven, you eternally get away with it don't you.
hariaum
Posted by: Navin1 | June 2, 2010 3:21 PM
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Robert, well said. To blame the BP oil disaster on God is both bad theology and wishful thinking. We would like to think that our technology can solve any problem; but, too often our technology outpaces our ability to manage risk, which is a new way of saying that stewardship (caring management) of our resources is faulty.
Posted by: chuckwarnock | June 2, 2010 10:58 AM
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Under Health Care Reform, Health insurance is a must, but now you can easily find health insurance for $40 http://bit.ly/c3RV9F
Posted by: talbertjo13 | June 2, 2010 9:53 AM
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