By Neil Earle
A writer has mentioned that when he was a boy, if he wanted a good scare, he would go to the movies to see Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man. These days, he says, he gets the same effect just watching the nightly news.
Boy, there sure has been a lot to keep the media busy lately. There are the depressing job figures, the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, immigration issues and boycotts, and – most depressing of all – this horrific slow-motion environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Estimates range that from 500,000 to 1 million barrels a day have been spewing out of this underwater oil volcano in the last seven weeks. With tar balls showing up in Florida people are understandably worried about the destruction of a whole economic culture and the ecology of the Gulf States.
Our church, in its previous incarnation as the Worldwide Church of God, has a tradition of environmental awareness. In 1968 we published a booklet, Our Polluted Planet that addressed the degrading of our physical world and highlighted such pictures as those from Cornwall, UK where seabirds were caught in the grimy muck of the Torrey Canyon disaster, pictures that look sickeningly similar to the ones coming out of the Gulf these days. That was 1968 and the booklet led off with the threat smog was to our big American cities and – thankfully – that threat was largely contained by regulations relating to catalytic converters and such initiatives as the Clean Air Act of 1972.
This should make us think. These oil spills occurring with sickening regularity every twenty years or so – Santa Barbara in 1969, Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989 and now this in the Gulf – these are not naturally mandated acts of God. We foul our own nest it seems without the need to blame divine intervention.
So what’s a Christian to do in such case? We feel pretty helpless as we watch 23 to 49 millions of gallons of toxic oil wash up on our beautiful, fragile Southern shores. Strategies for meeting this mess have not been withheld from the public. Some like the Governor of Louisiana’s calls for dredging the coastline to construct 20 foot berms as a temporary safeguard. Other scientists feel that this would only increase tidal action and make the problem worse. Still, it is hard not to sympathize with the desperate pleas coming from the Gulf coast for “someone to do something.” (I well remember our Regina, Saskatchewan church assembling after services to sandbag a member’s house that was threatened by high floods in 1974 – not the Gulf, to be sure, but hold on!)
Then there is the suggestion that we copy the tactics of the Arabian Gulf spill of 1994 where a tanker made an unprecedented mess near the Straits of Hormuz. Back then a fleet of tankers was released by the major oil companies and about 80-85% of the oil was salvaged and most of the water able to be treated – almost simultaneously. That would take enormous international collective action to be effected by Presidential emergency powers IF oil companies could be persuaded that this would work and release the ships.
In Time magazine on June 7 Joe Klein handed out equal measures of blame – he implied that oil companies need to stop crybaby tactics of overmuch regulation and playing dice with people’s lives both on the rigs and along the threatened coastline. He could have added that in everything from catalytic converters to seatbelts, industry has put up stiff resistance to such conditions that are normal in Norway, Venezuela, Mexico, Canada and the UK where regulation is seen as par for the course. Regulation grates against the American free enterprise spirit and makes it hard to stress prevention in such cases. As the conservative writer David Brook says in the New York Times, we live in a high-risk, highly-dangerous society as a result.
On the other hand, as Klein points out, regulations do no good unless they are actively enforced. “Most bills are designed for passage, not implementation.” So there you have it. The traditional American gridlock we’ve gotten so used to these past twenty years. But what might the Bible have to say along these lines?
One good thing Christians are always taught to pray for is wisdom. A whole book of the Bible is devoted to just that subject – the Proverbs of Solomon. “If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask God,” James 1:5 says. We appear clever today, more than wise. “Where is the wisdom that is lost in data,” a poet asked years ago. We appear to be paralyzed by the size and scope of our failing systems lately, from banking systems that self-destruct to mining projects in West Virginia…to this. Christians are taught to pray for their governmental leaders especially, “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life” it says in 1Timothy 2:2. Few in the shrimp industry or the tourist industry along the Gulf are leading a quiet life these past weeks. Our hearts go out to these people, our fellow-citizens, just as it motivates us to pray for our state and federal and local officials so that some kind of relief can be effected quickly. Prayer mobilizes spiritual energies as we learned in Regina in 1974.
Job 28 says a lot about wisdom and – interestingly – it uses the example of drilling or mining to make the point. The Bible says that wisdom is not lying easily on the surface ready to be had. It takes work and energy just like drilling and mining take work and energy. Job 28:2 describes iron taken out of the earth, drillers opening shafts in the valleys away from where men live, swaying on ropes to dig out the precious ore (v. 4), using fire to weaken the rock surface (v. 5), in places where no living thing ever goes – “as dark as a dungeon way down in the mine” as the 1950s song put it.
Then Job shifts tactics and, with the analogy of mining before him, asks the central question in verse 12: “But where shall wisdom be found?” Indeed – where? We all seem so helpless these past few weeks. As Klein put it: Those who see no role for government now see they were wrong; those who believe government can fix everything are brought up short.
By his use of mining as an analogy of the search for Wisdom, God shows he is not opposed to industry, to mining, to drilling. But other passages in His word show that the Creator of all life wants us to have an environmental sense. That is why he inspired the people of Israel to heed such ecologically sound principles as not cutting down all the trees during a siege for the trees are a society’s life (Deuteronomy 20:19-20). The Israelites were instructed not to take the mother bird along with the young bird when out foraging for food – a provision to preserve the wildlife of a region (Deut. 21:6-7). People with flat roofs on their houses were mandated to build a parapet or retaining wall around their new houses to avoid accidents (21:8). This is progressive legislation – amazing statutes for the Bronze Age.
God cares for whales, dolphins, pelicans, herons and kingfishers. Their lives and activities are part of a holistic pattern designed to turn humankind towards the great creative Mind who gives us all things richly to enjoy (Psalm 148:7). They are not to be pursued to extinction.
The talk shows and cable outlets are turning the air ablaze with blame-placing, easy answers, and abusive verbal attacks. This is not the Christian way. Paul advises: “Let your moderation be known to all” (Philippians 4:5). We pray. We talk to God. We confess our lack of stewardship towards the superbly designed creatures he has made. We ask for his mercy in once again overlooking our stupid shortsightedness as a human race. We ask for his deliverance and – if it will work in our area – we might just get a shovel and sandbag and offer to do our part.