If oil spill is 'an act of God,' BP merits divine retribution

By Dana Milbank
WashPost
Sunday, June 6, 2010

God spoke to Moses through a burning bush on Mount Horeb. He apparently speaks to Republicans through a spewing oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) delivered the startling revelation last week that the BP oil spill was caused not by a faulty blowout preventer but by the Almighty Himself. He explained the spill to an Oklahoma City radio station like this: "Acts of God are acts of God." With this curious theology, Cole has joined the ministry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a fellow Republican, who last month said of the oil spill: "From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented."

So if God is responsible for the spill, and BP is the spill's "responsible party," what these men are really saying is that BP is . . . God?

This interpretation is at the very cutting edge of ecclesiastical thought. In the past, our Heavenly Father has involved himself in floods, droughts and the occasional earthquake, but this may be his first foray into industrial disasters.

(More here.)