"God will save the Chesapeake crabber"

Huge story in Washington Post today about God and the Chesapeake Bay crabbers. It starts like this:

Where in the Bible does it say God will save the Chesapeake crabber?

Down on Tangier Island, Va., some people say it's in Ezekiel: "There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh." Never mind that Ezekiel was written about the ancient Middle East; that half-salty sea sure sounds like the bay. And "large numbers of fish" could certainly mean blue crabs.

Except that the God of the Old Testament didn't want people to eat crabs:

Leviticus 11:9-12
These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

and

Deuteronomy 14:9-10
These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.

So, not so much "fish means crabs", there, wouldn't you agree?

But that's okay, because the crabbers have got a New Testament story, too:

Here on Maryland's Smith Island -- at the heart of a waterman's culture still on fire from an 1800s revival -- they turn to John. That gospel tells how the disciples once fished all night but pulled their nets up empty.

Then Jesus arrived.

"He said to them, 'Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some,' " waterman Morris Goodman Marsh read during a recent church service. "And they cast their net, and they were not able to haul it in, because it was so full of fish."

Yep. That story clearly means "fish the hell out of the Chesapeake; God'll keep filling it back up." Or not. As the writer points out

The blue crab population in the Chesapeake has fallen about 70 percent since the early 1990s, due to warmer waters, pollution from cities and farms and heavy fishing. This spring, Virginia and Maryland officials pledged to cut the harvest of female crabs by 34 percent....

Not that this is making these crabber think twice about their faith-based crabbing philosophy:

In some other industry, some other place, all this might drive a man to drink. On Tangier, it drove Eskridge to the Old Testament.

The Israelites wandered 40 years in the desert, he said, but God delivered them in the end. He said such stories help assure him that only God -- not scientists or state regulators -- can save watermen from their predicament....

This region's religious roots go back to the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s, when Protestant revivals swept through the new nation.... Two centuries later, watermen are hardly saints. Natural resources police sometimes find them setting traps illegally and selling undersized crabs. Scientists say their aggressive harvests have helped devastate the bay's crabs and oysters.

But an old-time faith abides among them, and -- like saltwater -- it gets stronger as you head toward the lower Chesapeake. Smith Islanders still have a week-long summer revival. The Tangier Methodists meet five times on Sundays alone. And, on the waters near Deal Island, workboat cabins can fill with scratchy hymns: Waterman Stan Daniels serenades his compatriots over the ship-to-shore radio.

In any year, they would pray for the crab season: Watermen point out that, unlike farmers, they have no control over their crop. But this year, parishioners and preachers alike have noticed a special intensity to the requests, to the searching for scriptures that assure them they will be answered.

"We don't plant, you know, our harvest. We pray for a good harvest," Duke Marshall said. "As of 2008, we've never been let down."

A lone voice of reason is quoted:

Not everybody is thinking this way. Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen's Association, has been telling his members to lobby for federal disaster funds and look for a part-time job on the side. The Lord helps those who help themselves. "He won't let them starve to death, but that doesn't mean they're still going to have a job," Simns said. "He don't work that way."

But among the faithful, they are already seeing signs that He does.

So keep on fishing, and God will provide. Ignore those scientists and regulators, catch all the crabs you want, and God will "give the increase."

Or maybe you'll fish the Bay out of crabs and destroy the life you think God has given you. Your children will never catch a crab, or eat one.

But whatever you do, don't actually, you know, think about it. Just hit your knees and pray... and then do what you want to.

Because after all, the End Times are coming, right? (And yes, nobody in this article actually said that, but it's sure an article of faith among a lot of anti-science, anti-conservation folks.)

If nothing else, this article indicates one of the dangers in letting religion drive policy.