The Echo Chamber

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Lessons in oil disaster: 6-3-10

I was struck the other day when I heard Stanley Hauerwas, the prominent Duke theologian, say that although Americans always stand ready to rush in with lots of resources when a coal mine explodes and miners need to be rescued, no one ever asks why the heck those miners were down there in the first place.

 

The obvious answer is that they were there to help satisfy our insatiable hunger for energy -- energy we often use wastefully.

It seems to me that there's a similar response to be made to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. We risk major damage to our planet when we drill for oil deep under the sea to help meet our energy wants (not needs) to maintain the kind of unsustainable life many of us, including me, lead.

Yes, BP

is to blame. The government is to blame. Probably human error is to blame.

But the surprise to me in all this is how little we've heard from faith communities about our own culpabilities in this. Oh, the neo-pagan folks with their reverence for Earth as somehow sacred have spoken out. Click here

for an example of that.

And no doubt here and there people of faith have bemoaned the disaster still unfolding before our shocked eyes. There have been, for instances, prayer services

. And congregations are jumping in

to help people affected by the catastrophe.

But where are the prophetic voices calling us to a simpler life, to a recognition that we simply cannot continue to suck up resources at this rate so we can drive our cars to shopping malls to watch action movies?

I'm not suggesting we abandon electricity and all fossil fuels and live hermit-like lives between sunrise and sunset each day. That possibility is long gone. But surely communities of faith can appeal to our better natures and remind us that we are stewards of the creation and responsible for its maintenance. We've been doing a terribly lousy job at that, and the gulf oil mess is just the latest example.

My theology shies quickly away from the idea that the gulf oil explosion and continued spillage is evidence that God is punishing us for some reason. But I do subscribe to the idea that God lets us punish ourselves by making greedy and unsustainable choices.

And surely that's what the catastrophe in the gulf is telling us.

(By the way, the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog just posted a question for its experts on whether the gulf oil spill is in some ways also a moral disaster. To read their answers about all that, click here

. ALSO: A good interview with the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners about this oil mess has just been posted on the National Catholic Reporter's site. To read it, click here

. AND: The Religion Newswriters Association has produced this information

for religion journalists who want to cover the religious and moral aspects of the Gulf oil story.)