Reduce, reuse and rethink
February 20, 2008
Jolene Hildebrand
An editorial in the New York Times titled “Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love”, written by Nicholas D. Kristof, commends conservative Evangelicals for their activism in greater social issues such as AIDS, poverty and climate change. In addition, The Colbert Report reported on the latest evangelical initiative to condemn global warming and encourage activism, albeit with a mocking reference to James Dobson’s response that “any issue that puts plants and animals above humans is one that we cannot support.”
This reveals the shifting ethos among Evangelicals towards internationalism and humanitarianism. Among these changes is a sincere concern for the state of our world and its people, regardless of divisive issues. In a society where Christians make themselves an easy target for mockery, it’s refreshing to notice changing attitudes and increased social awareness that force critics to think twice before labeling Christians as cloistered hypocrites.
At times it can be difficult to understand our priorities. There is a prevailing reaction to issues such as climate change and AIDS that warns against sacrificing controversial moral issues such as abortion and homosexual marriage in order to pursue environmental activism or social justice. Such a response exposes the conflicted thinking behind our culture, creating dilemmas that weigh heavily on the conscience of conservative Christians. In spite of our willingness to stand on moral issues, it’s our ability to be self-critical and expose the hypocritical tendencies in our thinking.
It seems easier to become consumed with ideological issues rather than with practical ones. Actively responding to the environments around us takes much more effort than reacting to controversial ideas. Faith shouldn’t be private, and our reaction to any criticism or persecution from the world should not encourage a stiff-necked approach to social change. When we focus on issues that concern our responsibility to humanity, and not just to our friends or immediate community, then we can sensitively address the suffering and damage that exists in our world.
I was pleasantly surprised when I read a new statement from the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) saying “the notion of a purely privatized faith in which the gospel only affects individual, personal or family life but has no wider implications for society must be rejected as inadequate.” An expanding social consciousness has encouraged reform regarding our approach to social issues, and many Christians are waking up to meet the challenge of reality.
So what does this have to do with an issue of environmental consciousness? Everything, because we can’t revoke our participation in this world and just dwell on ideology. Engaging with issues of social citizenship and justice reflect the deeper convictions that lie behind our actions.
Now you go...
6 Responses to “Reduce, reuse and rethink”
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Jolene, I really like this article. It’s high time for the Evangelical church to throw off our rejection of the concurrence of the material and the divine.
The social consciousness of the church is coming into clear focus again after what I think may be best described as a hiatus, and the current affairs of our world make a clarion call for recognition and reform. It’s time to reject this ultimately Platonic, almost Gnostic doctrine of the spiritual being infinitely more important than the physical, because how will the News be spread without any point of reference?
Dobson’s remark that “any issue that puts plants and animals above humans is one that we cannot support” shows that he has completely missed the point. His view supports an interpretation of the Genesis narrative that warrants irresponsibility with the world God has charged to our care. I don’t recall God ever supporting irresponsbility in any area of our life, but somehow Evangelicals have jumped on this strange doctrine of wastefulness, in the hope that Jesus will return in time to clean it all up and say “phew, that was a close one, but it’s okay, I got it covered!”
Caring for physical world does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean negating tending to the spiritual too. In fact, what prevents it from being a ministry at all? Answer me that, Dr. D.
In defense of Dr. Dobson, I’d say the same thing. I think his remark has been badly taken out of context. The key part is “above.” It is a necessity that we take care of the Earth -we have a Divine mandate for no less- but if any “progress” towards this end comes at the expense of fundamental human worth, this version of the progress is not worth it. This by no means justifies a slash-and-burn approach to this world, for that is very much against our mandate. But neither can we escape that we are immortals housed in the transitory, which is more of a sad and under-appreciated fact than a Gnostic notion, and therefore if valuing human life and valuing Nature comes into conflict, we must choose the former and somehow work around it.
The problem comes when the value of human life comes down so much as to be equated with that of animals and nature. Even materialists have trouble with that one, for humans are ‘unique’ somehow, though actually defining it proves problematic if the Heavens are empty. But up through the ages, through the Enlightenment, all the way until, it was generally accepted that Man > Nature. Now we come to today, where the value of human life is waning. A nutcase in America who killed a dozen or so cats got ten years in prison, parole in five, while a couple convicted of brutal infanticide got five, parole in less than two.
Once our value of the sanctity and worth of human life (as a principle) is effectively gone, anything goes with regards to saving what we actually value. This reminds me of that picture in the nursing part in downstairs Neufeld with the charming protester bearing the sign “Save the planet, kill yourself!”
Case-in-point: it is a reasonable assumption that the best way to stop environmental degradation is to “cull the herd” of humans. Reductionists among the biologists have been saying this for over a century. Today, though we’ve subverted the Nitrogen and Phosphorous cycles, we’re still (apparently) over-exerting the world biomass. So at some point, saving the one comes at the expense of saving the other. Valuing human life above all will, to a certain extent, come at the expense of the environment. Why should we aid starving people? Why campaign against abortion? Why prevent conventional warfare? Why try and prevent suicide or disallow euthanasia? Are they not just taking a hit ‘for the team’ and for Nature, albeit unintentionally?
This attitude is what Dobson is critiquing. It doesn’t mean we should give up birth-control and each have eighteen children; what it does mean is a restoration of a sense of perspective on human dignity that our culture has all but lost.
I’d like to see the context of his remark, actually. Any idea where I can find it?
As far as your comments, I would agree with you, especially with “if valuing human life and valuing Nature comes into conflict, we must choose the former and somehow work around it”, with the emphasis on ‘if’.
I completely agree with you that sometimes valuing human life most highly may mean valuing it at the expense of the environment. I agree that human life is being devalued, and I most certainly oppose viewpoints that take a low opinion of human worth. Why humanity has this insane tendency to dehumanize itself is beyond me.
What I do intend to say, though, is that Christians ought not pre-emptively sacrifice caring for the environment until we truly are at that point.
Conversely, a big problem is that although we are aware that our lives are just a flash in the pan in the grand scheme of time, this overlooks that there may be billions of other humans whose lives succeed ours, and they need the planet too. To withhold both the sustenance and beauty of the earth from them would be unloving. There breakdown in these sorts of arguments (which I know are not the one you are making, Ben) that Christians don’t need to worry about the earth because of its temporality, which simply doesn’t make sense - for starters, it almost relies on the assumption that it is up to humans when the world ends, which is theologically unsound.
I understand that Dobson may the unfortunate victim of an unsavoury pull quote, because I agree with what you have expounded upon. But at the same time, there are trains of thought in the church about our relation to the world which are pernicious not just to the environment.
Yes, I threw the Dobson quote in to balance the praise of the mainstream media and to add some perspective to what I was saying without devoting myself to another topic. Colbert used this quote without any reference to context in his show, and I thought it was unfair (you can youtube it - Colbert and evangelical environmentalism, or something close to it). However, my point in keeping it was to provide a sense of balance to the issue without detracting from my overall point, which was to remain optimistic and take note of a visible trend of environmental and social awareness in Evangelicalism that has been noted by the liberal media.
I agree it’s important to consider the context of what Dobson’s responding to. Although some will take his quote as a literal response to environmental awareness as Colbert used him, I think that he needs to be understood charitably. I didn’t have space to discuss it, so I remained editorially ambivalent to the quote and I’m glad that you guys picked up on this and are discussing it.
What is interesting is that we owe most of our destructive thinking to a utilitarianism that has fairly recent origins. Evangelicalism is quite young and was birthed in modernity, and as such carries a lot of implicit values that owe themselves to instrumental ideals, such as capitalism, that have been notoriously difficult to weed out. Evangelicals have typically struggled with environmentalism and social justice as a result of this instrumental thinking.
Many think that our comfort is guaranteed by the right to lead the consumerist life-style we feel entitled to, using this as a reason not to embrace social issues since they force us to readjust our values and priorities. In the effort to fulfill our humanity, we concern ourselves with self-fulfillment and refuse to look outward to the conditions of our world.
Evangelicals have typically come under such criticism because we often insist on using the Bible to affirm self-interest and dispose tradition for the sake of the present. What becomes a priority is the comfort and security of our families at the expense of social justice and the environment.
What Dobson is warning against is the dangerous ideology that can lie hidden behind some radical environmentalist views. We cannot ignore the sacredness of human life to attack humanity for existing on a planet that cannot reasonably be free of our influence. What he says should help us consider that our human existence does come at a cost and that our priorities should always be human life, not ideology.
That quote is to be found nowhere on Focus on the Family or their media websites, although it is quoted everywhere else online and in that same context, or lack thereof.
However, Focus on the Family has an official statement on the environment, which you may find enlightening on some level.
http://www.family.org/sharedassets/correspondence/pdfs/PublicPolicy/Environmental_Statement.pdf
“We cannot ignore the sacredness of human life to attack humanity for existing on a planet that cannot reasonably be free of our influence”
Fantastically captured, Jolene, I really like that.
Thanks for that link, Josh, that provides some much-needed context. Ecological wisdom is much needed attribute for Christians to possess if we are to face up to the realities of modern life, and Christians who are wary of environmentalists can seek comfort in the fact that pursuing a healthy environment is linked to human well-being.
Just wanted to make a correction to my last post: “the assumption that it is up to humans when the world ends, which is theologically unsound”. Should read: “The assumption that it is up to us when Christ makes his return has no theological basis”.
In the meantime, let’s not live as though the world is going to end tomorrow. Let’s have love and consideration for those who succeed us as residents on this little globe which is growing steadily more unkempt.