Creation Groans: What Have We Done?

For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care, by Steven Bouma-Prediger
progress: 98/187

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning

as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

Romans 8:22

I am really enjoying this book. After so much sensationalism, oversimplification and willful ignorance in the media and popular thought, Bouma-Prediger offers a refreshingly sane review of our current environmental situation, as well as thoughtful explanations of how many Christians have misinterpreted Scripture with regard to ecology, and a humble but passionate plea for a closer, more informed look at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

As I write, an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil have been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico every day for the past five or six weeks, since an oil rig exploded in mid-April. As of May 18th, 46,000 square miles of the Gulf had been closed to fishing because of the spread of this dirty, sticky, toxic mess. Amazingly, some folks in the news have chosen to attack random third parties, defending the corporations and deflecting public sentiment from what should be the obvious response: sorrow at the soiling of our good earth.

 Some of the heaviest oil on land to date is seen along the Louisiana coastline on May 20.

An oil-covered crab crawls past an oil blob that washed ashore on May 22 in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

(photo and caption credits to CNN) 

I think it is this deflecting that disturbs me most. On a CBC news interview last week, callers called in to respond to the Sierra Club's suggestion that the Alberta oilsands are environmentally harmful and therefore new investments should be made in greener technologies. The Sierra representative wasn't even saying that the oilsands should stop, just that new growth should be suspended. Obviously, this struck a chord with the Albertans, so many of whom rely on the oil and gas industry - messy as it is - to put food on their tables. It is completely valid to raise this as a concern in the discussion, but I was surprised how many people simply wanted to shut down the discussion "because the oilsands make good money," as if that in itself were a good enough reason to do anything. I couldn't help thinking about the formula, "We should do ______ because it makes good money." What else would we be willing to plug into such a simplistic statment? Prostitution? Drug-dealing? Abortion? Child labour? Our perspectives on ecology are skewed by many things, not the least of which is money. While a healthy economy is indeed important, we can't separate that from the multitude of interconnected topics that relate to a healthy world at large.

I have puzzled over the highly-politicized nature of the environmental debate, as politicians and the average joes who support them, rather than scientists, make concrete statements about what is or isn't happening with global warming, among other things. When did it become Christian to say that global warming is a hoax? When did it become Liberal to care about environmental issues? Not being a scientist myself, I can only rely on the science of others to sway me one way or the other, but I think any reasonable person should be able to admit that we humans affect our environment- to some degree at least - with our cars and our industries, our chemicals and our sprawl. One fellow who called in to the aforementioned radio show boldly proclaimed that "Ants have made more impact on this planet that humans have!" Meaning no disrepect to ants, I somehow doubt that.

It's a good thing I haven't written in over a month, because that's at least a month's worth of opinions right there. Hopefully I haven't lost any of you yet!

The most intriguing chapter that I've read thus far is the one entitled, "Is Christianity to Blame?" in which Bouma-Prediger explores the multifaceted critique of Christianity as the primary cause of our world's environmental crisis. Though he ably argues against this charge, he emphasizes that Christians do bear part of the burden of responsibility. In his defense, he differentiates between various (misinformed) expressions of Christianity and what the Bible actually has to say on the subject. The expressions of Christianity were familiar to me, and the criticisms of such expressions need to be heard by the church.

The biggest criticism was that God's command in the Garden of Eden for his human creatures to "have dominion" (Gen 1:28) over the earth was tantamount to commanding the exploitation of the natural world for the sole benefit of humans. In the critics' definition, dominion equals domination. Bouma-Prediger challenges this interpretation of dominion, arguing from Psalm 72 as well as Jesus' life that godly dominion is in fact defined by service. Regarding the domination/exploitation view, Wendell Berry writes,

"Such a reading of Genesis 1:28 is contradicted by virtually all the rest of the Bible, as many people by now have pointed out. The ecological teaching of the Bible is simply inescapable: God made the world because He wanted it made. He thinks the world is good, and He loves it. It is His world; He has never relinquished title to it. And He has never revoked the conditions, bearing on His gift to us of the use of it, that oblige us to take excellent care of it. If God loves the world, then how might any person of faith be excused for not loving it or justified in destroying it?" (quoted in SBJ, 75)

Another criticism is that Christian eschatology has contributed to the earth's malaise. Many Christians believe that, since the earth is going to be "burned up," there's no need to be overly concerned about the earth of this world, which is passing away. I have encountered this mentality amongst Christians with dismay. Bouma-Prediger discusses 2 Peter 3:10, the primary verse that has been used to support such a view:

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up." (NASB)

He explains that this is a mistranslation of the Greek word, which means "to be found." The idea, more clearly translated in the ESV as "the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed," carries the idea of purifying judgment rather than utter destruction. Eugene Peterson brings this idea out even more clearly in his paraphrase: "earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment." As I look more closely at the entire chapter of 2 Peter 3, I still have questions about the nature and extent of the fire. However, as the author points out, even if such an interpretation is correct (i.e. the earth will be utterly destroyed), it should not follow that we are not called to be good stewards of it until that time.

The unfortunate truth is that some Christians have used this passage to justify the degradation of God's good creation. How might things change if more Christians understood having dominion over the earth within a Christlike context of service? What of our own luxuries might we sacrifice in deference to our charge to rule the earth in a godly way?

A number of years ago, it occurred to me that if Jesus' post-resurrection body bore the scars of his death, then what if our restored earth also bore the scars of its previous life? The thought has stayed with me, sobering me to the reality that the choices we make in this life will have consequences in the next life.

Though Bouma-Prediger opposes the accusation that Christianity is wholly to blame for the earth's ecological woes, he goes on to explain how Christians are indeed complicit in at least five ways:

1. The church is captive to modern Western culture, and its patron gods of consumption and wealth
2. The church has accepted the anthropocentrism of modernity, placing humanity at the center of purpose and meaning in the universe
3. The church, along with Western culture, has made technology into a god, forgetting that it is good and bad
4. The church has forgotten creation in light of redemption, even though creation provides the foundation for understanding that redemption
5. The Western church is prideful, unwilling to learn from other traditions and perspectives

There is much to think about, much to confess. I'm looking forward to reading more of his thoughts on the path forward, on his "vision for creation care," and how I can be a better steward of my beautiful world.

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