"What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" (Romans 6:1 NIV).

As the Apostle Paul developed his magnificent treatise on grace and salvation in his letter to the Roman Church, he raised more than 70 rhetorical questions. In the sixth chapter we can hear the somewhat typical sarcasm of first century Jewish intellect. The former Pharisee implied that we should not continue to practice destructive behavior based on the preeminence of God’s abundant grace and mercy. That would be dangerous, reckless, and senseless. Some might call it insane.

When I watch the network news coverage of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, I’m overwhelmed by the magnitude of what has become the largest oil spill in history and possibly the worst man-made disaster since the Exxon Valdez spilled as much as 32 million gallons of crude oil in the Prince William Sound, off the coast of Alaska, in 1989. It seems as if every decade or so we have one of these major catastrophes that devastate our ecosystem and threatens already endangered wildlife to the brink of extinction.

It would make sense to explore and invest in new deposits of clean, less toxic energy sources to satisfy our insatiable need for fuel. But when it comes to oil and the supply and demand for it, logic is often tossed out the window.

The Deepwater Horizon offshore oil disaster should have been a wake-up call to our nation. It should have signaled the beginning of the end of offshore drilling.

Instead it has ignited big oil companies to launch media campaigns promoting increased offshore drilling in deep water. The Obama administration issued a moratorium on drilling, only to have it rejected by a lower court decision in New Orleans, rendered by three judges with previous ties to the oil and gas industry. In their opinions, an eminent threat to the environment was outweighed by the potential loss of revenue to the oil companies that threatened to slash jobs if the six-month moratorium stood.

So we keep drilling even though we know the potential danger. We must be insane. That’s how the 20th century genius Albert Einstein described it. He described insanity as, “doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”

I guess that would qualify most of us for a straitjacket, continuing in toxic relationships or depreciatory addictions in hopes that “maybe one day she will change, maybe one day he will kick the habit”…by attrition.

The oil companies continued to drill on over 3,000 platforms and 33 exploratory wells while an estimated 180 million gallons of crude gushed into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, 2010. BP could not stop the flow of oil because the technology at their access was inadequate at depths greater than 300 feet below sea level.

When you know something is wrong and you know it’s potentially harmful, continuing in that endeavor is an abuse of God’s abundant grace. His grace is certainly sufficient, but should not ever be taken for granted by blatant arrogance.
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The Rev. George B. Jackson, Ph.D., is pastor of Citadel of Faith Christian Fellowship in Thomasville.
 

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