Pointing the Finger

The BP oil spill continues to devastate the environment. The economy continues to drag on and people continue to be out of work. The costs of healthcare continues to climb. Politicians continue to focus more on cutting each other down instead of helping people. So many things are going wrong with the world and we (the public) often finds ourselves asking who is to blame.

Take the oil spill. We want to know who is to blame for all of the destruction that is happening and that will continue to happen. We blame BP because it is their drill. We blame the producers of the rig. We blame the government agency for not providing proper oversight. We blame the president for not acting angry or swiftly enough. We blame our drive and desire for oil. We blame the super-sized cars eating up all of the oil. We blame Henry Ford for developing and selling the automobile. We blame Eli Whitney for developing the idea of interchangeable parts and mass production (say nothing of the cotton gin). We blame the dinosaurs for providing all the oil. We look for someone or something to blame.

So often when I work with the bereaved they look for answers. They want to know “why” their loved one died. They want to know the reason, the cause, and if possible the person to blame. It is as if they believe their grief will lesson if they can cast blame. The person will still be dead. The pain will still be there.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t look for a cause of the leak. We should do everything we can to be sure that someone of this nature never happens again. There is a degree of accountability that needs to be brought to question. Yet we cannot steep in the blame game. Humanity is broken and bad things happen. They happen because of negligence, greed, selfishness, or for no reason. What we need to do is to ask what we should do next. What should we do with such a tragedy?

When someone grieving asks me “why,” all I can say is, “I don’t know.” I don’t believe that God has a finely worked out plan that takes the lives of children and adults, that allows women to be raped and men to be dismembered. I don’t believe that God gives some people cancer and others are destined to die via a heart attack. I believe that bad things happen and we need to work to discern how to live after the bad things happen.

It is easy to just criticize and blame. It focuses our anger on someone. Yet if we believe that God has a well worked out plan, then in the end this is the doing and allowance of God. I didn’t know God hates the Pelican so much.

On the other hand, if we believe that life is a process, that God is working with us through this process then we constantly have to ask ourselves, what next? This is more difficult, but I believe truer to the nature of God and more honest about human accountability.


Theological ideas come from: Process Theology, John Caputo’s the Weakness of God, Pinnock’s The Openness of God, and as a straw man Calvin and Reformed Theology. Happy Reading!