A group of Christians, Jews and Muslim leaders called the Gulf Coast oil spill a “wake up call” and said the crisis has both moral and economic dimensions.

Leaders of the different faith groups came together to witness first hand the damage caused by the BP oil spill and pray, the Interfaith website said.

They converged at First Grace United Methodist Church, held an interfaith prayer service, then rode a boat down Barataria Bay, the Huffington Post said.

While seeing the extent of the damage, they dwelled on the moral consequences of heavy dependence on oil, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism said.

“From my perspective, it’s an insult to God and a sin against creation,” Rev. Sally Bingham, an Episcopal priest who heads Interfaith Power and Light in San Francisco said. Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, a social justice movement in Washington said, “This is not a spill; it’s a spoilage” of God’s creation, the Huffington Post said.

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld of the Rabbinical Assembly said the larger lesson is acknowledging the need to reduce dependence on petroleum. “We all need to turn from short-term gratification … rather than indulge ourselves with this unlimited consumption,” she told the Huffington Post.

Rev. Gerald Durley of Providence Missionary Baptist Church said, “Until one comes down to actually see the devastation happening you cannot understand fully what’s going on. The faith community must serve as a catalyst,” Religious Action Center said.

Rev. Brenda Girton-Mitchell of the Progressive National Baptist Convention said, “We need to put a face on this disaster,” Religious Action Center said. Dr. Mahmoud Sarmini, a New Orleans-area physician and a Muslim, cited the Quran calling man God’s viceroy on earth, implying humans’ responsibility for creation, the Huffington Post said.

During their three-day visit the group also met with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. They discussed the damage, cleanup efforts, and strategies by which their ministries in their home states could help, Huffington Post said.

Also discussed were the possibilities for lobbying in Congress and the White House for new domestic energy policies.

The Interfaith website cited a new poll by the Benenson Strategy Group which shows that more Americans would like comprehensive energy reform, and will vote for legislators who support such measures. Also noted was the perception that dependence on fossil fuels poses a security threat.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, cited Jewish tradition that views creation as “on loan” from God, hence should be wisely used. While calling for a new energy policy Saperstein said, “That doesn’t mean we don’t need to use fossil fuel, or drill for oil until we get ourselves off, but we have to move more quickly to get off, and while we are relying on these fossil fuels we have to be much more insistent that there be safety precautions,” the Huffington Post said.

Saperstein also said he hopes that the world will not forget the need for sustained energy reform when the crisis has been resolved. “We are going to be here and the rest of the religious institutions will be here. Religious institutions will play a central role on the Gulf Coast for a long time,” Religious Action Center said.

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The time and expense spent on rescuing and rehabilitating animals amid the Gulf oil spill has given rise to the issue of animal rights, and the question of whether animals have souls.

At the same time, the topic of theology and animal law will be covered in a summer course at Harvard University, taught by Paul Waldau, president of Harvard’s Religion and Animals Institute, The Washington Post said.

In a piece he wrote for The Washington Post, Waldau said that animal law was first taught in Harvard Law School in the year 2000. A decade later, over 120 out of 196 law schools in the United States have picked it up and also give a course on animal law, with some giving more than a dozen courses in this area.

Harvard’s Divinity School taught courses on “religion and animals” before 2000, but it has not picked up as quickly nor as largely among theological seminaries. However Waldau notes in the article he wrote for The Washington Post that both religion and law are fundamental components of human life.

Waldau also cited faith leaders who exemplified kindness and feeling for animals, such as St. Francis of Assisi and Gandhi. He contends in his piece in The Washington Post that currently religious institutions have lost this sensibility and tend instead to teach a “traditional” religious view that man has a right to harm animals.

Valerie Elverton Dixon, founder of JustPeace Theory.com contends in a separate piece that she authored for the Washington Post that humanity was created to be vegetarian–though she admits that she herself is not.

In her Washington Post article, Dixon cites Genesis 1:29, “And God said, ‘See I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the land and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food,’” and says that eating animals came after—not before–the fall.

Dixon differentiates rights from moral duty.  She says in her Washington Post piece that rights come with responsibilities, while moral duty is an offspring of rights. She adds that one should be able to think about the consequences of what they do to be able to have rights.

Dixon says in her Washington Post article that there is a reflexive quality too such that even people who are comatose, those born with disabilities and babies have rights, because they are human.

Dixon further describes rights as the human prerogative to act, or to inhibit certain acts from being done to humans. She contends in her Washington Post article that animals should benefit from our moral consideration.

Citing the disaster in the gulf, Dixon says humans have a larger duty to consider animal wellbeing, including the regulation of factory farms and methods of slaughtering animals, she writes in The Washington Post.

Extrapolating further, she says having greater conscience toward animal rights may indirectly resolve human problems of obesity and health; and will make us more excellent people, she writes in The Washington Post.

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People gathered at an intersection in Bloomington, Minn. to protest against the actions of the BP, the company formerly known as British Petroleum. The oil spill from a BP oil drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico has surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill, and it continues to gush oil as of the day of this protest.

The  “BP oil spill” in the Gulf of Mexico  is revealing the unsteady ground the country walks on, and people are feeling this more keenly now than ever before–more so because unlike the Haiti earthquake or the Indian Ocean tsunami, the oil spill is a man-made disaster.

Reverend Chuck Freeman in the Huffington Post feels an inner divide.  The pastor within mourns the loss to environment, lives and livelihood.  His prophetic side is frustrated that the country lives out of harmony with God.

Referring to Jeremiah in the Bible, Freeman notes that the oil spill is viewed as the largest in U.S. history.

He is appalled with himself as he wrestles with a callous urge, wondering if the harm is large enough for people to wake up to human limitations.

Will they, in the end, feel “rescued” by the human technology that caused the spill?  Will they become complacent afterwards, believing human genius can save mankind from any calculated failure?

Still photo from US government live feed of Deepwater Horizon oil spill in cooperation with BP. Taken May 11 2010.

Freeman wonders, too, if he can afford to think this way because he lives safely in Texas.

On the other hand Russell D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary feels the crisis keenly because it lies right at his doorstep in Biloxi, La.

In his blog, Moore to the Point, he says the oil spill exceeds Hurricane Katrina in that it makes him wonder if his children’s children will ever know what Biloxi was like.

The spill, he says, has endangered everything “from seafood to tourism, crabs and seagulls.”

It has also threatened national security because of the great dependence of the country on the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico, which some have called Katrina meets Chernobyl.

Religion Link rues how the country depends so much on fuel and values consumption over conservation.  It raises the theological necessity to teach about creation care and of the apocalypse.

The spill occurred due to an explosion one mile below the ocean surface on April 20, and has been pouring up to 19,000 barrels (800,000 gallons) a day into the waters, killing 11 men and leaving idle thousands of fishermen, shrimpers and other seafood workers, as well as causing harm to the tourism industry, according to Reuters.

BP has sheared away the gushing well pile and lowered a cylindrical containment cap over the hole—a temporary and partial fix.  According to Reuters it will take some time before they can confirm if this works.

They are hoping that when the cap is firmly in place, they can funnel some of the escaping oil and gas into a large hose that would carry it from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico to the surface, where ships will collect and remove it, Reuters said.

Louisiana is hardest hit, but beaches in Mississippi and Alabama have been fouled by the oil, and there is the possibility that the oil sheen may hit Florida in days.

Plus, the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research projects the oil slick may by early summer reach the east coast up to North Carolina, Reuters said.

Moody’s and Fitch ratings say clean up costs alone may at worst exceed $5 billion in any one year.

Moore, turning in, says “For too long, we evangelical Christians have maintained an uneasy ecological conscience. I include myself in this indictment.  We’ve had an inadequate view of human sin.”

He rues the excess belief in the free markets, to the point that they expect corporations to protect the environment.

“But a laissez-faire view of government regulation of corporations is akin to the youth minister who lets the teenage girl and boy sleep in the same sleeping bag at church camp because he ‘believes in young people,’ ”  he writes in his blog.

Freeman, looking out, notes “…the addict has to ‘hit rock bottom’ before he can muster the humility and fortitude to move toward the light.  And even George W. Bush confessed that America is addicted to oil.  Do we need to suffer full-blown ruination to be awakened to our right mind?”

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