August 12, 2001
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Based on the book The Bible Tells Me So ~ Uses and Abuses of Holy Scripture
By Jim Hill and Rand Cheadle
As I anticipated this Sunday's topic, I heard things in the news again that applied to our concerns. This past week there were reports about the Orca whale population in Puget Sound. The reports were that we had lost 20% of that population in the last 7 years during the time that our family has been here with you in Kirkland. In addition, there were reports about the declining numbers of fish in the oceans. I remember that when I was in grade school the oceans were looked at as a never-ending, never-ending source of food. Now we are talking about even the resources of the ocean being depleted. There are continual stories of global warming and we hear reports of excessive heat throughout the entire country, except the northwest. There continue to be ecological concerns of all kinds.
It would seem that it would make sense that Christians would be on the side of ecology. But, like many of the rest in our society, it is only circumstances and economics that drive us to become supporters of taking care of our planet.
If we look into the history, and look into some scripture passages, we can see why Christians have been lined up on the other side of the argument. Against the planet, against ecology and the environment. When we read in the book of Genesis, we find that the scripture's command humans to have dominion over the earth.
(1:26) Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
This is affirmed a couple of verses later with an even more critical word than "dominion." That word is "subdue."
(1:28) God blessed them and said unto them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
For much of history, humans have seen the planet as something to be used and used up if necessary, for the benefit of humankind. The idea that comes from Christianity that humans are at the very top of the pyramid of life, only gives further encouragement to the view that everything that is here, God put here for us to use. Now if you doubt that Christianity presents that kind of view, I can tell you of my own personal experience in the first church I was serving. An adult Sunday school class was looking at some UCC materials that talked about the use of oil resources. This was in 1980. The materials clearly suggested that we had responsibility for good stewardship for, the wise use of oil resources. We needed to be careful when we drove and what kind of vehicle we drove. One of the women in the class didn't see the sense of any of that. She said, "I don't know why we are worried about all of those things. If we use up the oil, we'll find something else to use to power our vehicles." It was clear in her mind that the resources were our to use, and, if necessary, to use up. When those resources were gone, we'd find something else to use.
For many years, I thought that this was just an aberration, just a particular view that this woman held. But five years ago, I became involved in an organization in the Puget Sound area called Partners for Religion and the Environment. I was representing the Interfaith Alliance when I gathered with that group. I was asked to join a retreat in Leavenworth with the Wilderness Society. There were representatives from all over the country for that meeting. I was asked to share an opening prayer and say a little something about the Interfaith Alliance and the work that we were doing. After I concluded the prayer and some brief comments, the whole group gave me a round of enthusiastic applause. I was told by a variety of people that they were so pleased that as a Christian minister I would be there at the environmental meeting. Many people expressed a concern about the Christian community, about their lack of support for environmental concerns. Even beyond that, they saw many Christians as being not just apathetic about ecological concerns, but really being against ecological concerns. Some of that idea comes from those first verses that I quoted form Genesis. Some of it also comes form the idea that as a people, that Christians are really not at home here on the planet. Our true home is somewhere else in heaven, with God. If you take that view of Christianity, that we are just here for temporary time, you can extrapolate that to say, "Well, we don't have to worry much about taking care of the this planet, because this is just a temporary location. We're really looking forward to another place and our true home. That should be the real focus of our faith." These views support the position that we can do whatever we want to do. Use up the resources, because we are going to say, "Bye, bye" and go and live with God anyway.
On the Internet, I found a another page talking about the role of Christianity in the ecological crisis. Wendell Berry writes:
I want to begin with a problem: namely that the culpability of Christianity in the destruction of the natural world, and the uselessness of Christianity to any effort to correct that destruction, are now established in cliche's of the conservation movement. This is a problem for two reasons: First, the indictment of Christianity by the anti-Christian conservationists is, in many respects, just. For instance, the complicity of Christian priests, preachers, and missionaries in the cultural destruction and the economic exploitation of the primary peoples of the Western Hemisphere as well as traditional cultures around the world is notorious. Throughout the five hundred years since Columbus's first landfall in the Bahamas, the evangelist has walked beside the conqueror and the merchant, too often blandly assuming that his cause was the same as theirs. Christian organizations are as happily indifferent as most industrial organizations to the ecological, cultural, and religious implications of industrial economics. The certified Christian seems just as likely as anyone else to join the military-industrial conspiracy to murder Creation.
Now these are not words from the past, but are words that are on the Internet right now, about the role that Christianity has had in causing destruction to our planet. A couple of weeks ago we heard words of condemnation about the role that the Christian churches had in causing hatred against the gay community. I think that a view of the way that scriptures have been used, very clearly affirms exactly that. We could make the same argument about the ways that Christianity has been used against the Native Americans in this country, against the native Hawaiians, against many other groups around the world. When we have gone in believing that we had the truth about God. Believing that we had the truth about culture, about the ways to live our lives. Believing that we had the right to go in and use whatever resources we found, to enhance the comfort of our own lives.
Strong words. Strong condemning words. In addition, there are Christians who have looked at the conservation community and have accused them of witchcraft because of their earth/nature focus. There are many among the conservation community that have a very high respect for our earth. They talk in poetic language and find spiritual affinity with Pagans who see God in all things in the world. Or Native American spirituality that also sees Spirit everywhere in the world. Christians have a very narrow understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. They point to those folks and say, "Well, they are obviously anti-Christian. They are following a cult of the earth." The words of condemnation are hostile, further increasing that gap between the Christian community and the conservation community.
There have always been theologians who have seen the connectedness of the world. Saint Augustine in the early church spoke of the connectedness of the world. The French Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin saw a Spirit in all things and his words are echoed by Alfred Lord Whitehead, who was a proponent of a kind of theology called Process Theology, that again sees us all in relationship and sees all living things as having a Spiritual aspect to them. Teilhard would extend that to say not only do all living things have a Spiritual aspect, but every atom, every piece of matter has a spiritual aspect to it. We are all involved in this planet together. Humans are not separated from the water and the rocks and the air. An inclusive position challenges the Christian traditional view that has separated the human from the animals and the plants.
Those who are concerned about the planet in the Christian community point to scriptures that remind us that God is the Creator of all things. The passage from the Book of Job that I shared this morning said:
(12:9) Who knoweth not that in all these things that hand of the Lord is present?
In the book of Leviticus, there is even some suggestion that the land is to be properly cared for. You should raise crops for six years. On the seventh year let the land he fallow so it can be restored again to productivity. As in many different areas, the words of scripture have been taken, but they have been taken to an extreme. They have been abused, to give us justification, to use up the resources of the world and to believe that God will somehow provide something else for us, or that God will take us to a better place. The words of scripture that say, "God created the world and the world is good" also call us to responsibility. They call us to be partners with God in caring for creation, in preserving and protecting and enhancing the world for all of us.
I think that this issue is less controversial than many of the ones we have dealt with this summer. You can see very clearly that it is critical for us, not only as people paying for energy bills, or as people worried about the lives of our children and grandchildren, but also as people of faith. We have spiritual reasons to care about our world and to work to protect our world. May God be with us in that effort. Amen.