Tower of Babel on the Bottom of the Gulf

Date Published: 06/16/2010

Whether you are more angry at BP or President Obama over the Gulf oil spill probably reflects whether your underlying distrust of big business or big government is greater. Beyond that question is something far more profound for which the biblical story of the Tower of Babel is a telling metaphor (Genesis 11:1-9).

While BP seems not to have followed industry standards for deep water drilling, much less federal regulations, the ever increasing magnitude of not just the estimates of the daily volume of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico but also the flood of words seemingly disconnected from results, are an indication of having unleashed something so wildly unforeseen that it is unmanageable. This is Job’s realization that he cannot embrace a whirlwind (Job 38-42).

I am in no position to give advice on the future of deep sea drilling. But I do believe this is another instance of human overconfidence in our technology, intelligence and power, and underestimating the forces of nature from nuclear fission to volcanoes to tornados and hurricanes. I suggest that an authentic starting place for responding to the Gulf oil spill for all of us, not just BP and President Obama, is found in the words of Job (42:1-6). Then Job answered the LORD: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”