A Christian Response to the Enviornment, Part Two

   

    Although the Bible is bookended by the creation and rebirth of creation and God’s concern for his world is woven throughout its story, a shocking number of modern Christians see environmentalism to be extra-biblical (something the Bible simply does not seem to care about either way) or anti-biblical (contradicting some biblical text). While many of this reactions come from a blending of environment concern with other liberal concerns rather than dealing with it on its own, there are two other assumptions that must be addressed.

          The first assumption is related to the position that this world will be destroyed by fire; therefore, humans need not worry about conserving it. This is a biblical image found in 2 Peter 3 where Peter talks about how the “heavens will pass away with a roar and the earth with be destroyed with fire” (2 Pet. 3:10). However, fire is not simply to destroy. In this passage it is a part of rebirth process that will produce the new heaven and earth (2 Pet. 3:13). This fire is not be understood like an obliviating black hole where all the old will be forgotten, but like a controlled forest fire that looks like destruction, but that is followed by the purer, healthier reawakening of what was there before. It is also designed to mirror the Flood where the world was destroyed by water, yet the revival of the world was brought about by the raw materials from the pre-flood world.

          The oriental phoenix that is consumed by fire, yet reborn from that pile of ashes is a striking analogy to the fate of our world. Another analogy is humans themselves. Eventually, our bodies will wear down, die, and turn to dust. Yet in a mystery of God’s design, at the resurrection, our bodies will somehow reassembly and we will be physically raised as Christ was (I Cor. 15). No one would argue that because a baby’s body will wear out and then decay, the mother should not care for them. We do not care for the world we were entrusted with because we believe that we can reverse the effects of the curse on it (Christ has already set that in motion), but that we should care for it. We can make a difference in the same way a caring mother makes a difference in the life of their child, especially compared to a neglectful one.

          Another objection that people raise against environmental concerns is that there are other things more important. I have heard people say things such as, “how can we care that polar bears are dying when babies are being murdered in the womb?” In logic, this is called a false dilemma. The answer is not either/or; it is both. You can care about both issues. You can care about black lives, unborned lives, and lives with asthma in California who are struggling to breath due to the wildfire smoke and pollution smog.

Typically, people do have an issue or a few issues that they dedicate more time and money to. As a hospice nurse, I am specifically passionate about a compassionate, dignified death for every human; my sister runs an outreach for people with disabilities because that is something she is especially called to. Yet, I can still care for people with disabilities when I encounter them, support her work, and be basically literate about their struggles. In the same way, she can listen to me talk about my work, support my profession, and be a part of end of life conversations for people in her life. Does this take more work than just picking one issue? Sure. But Christianity requires that we care; and caring requires a little bit of effort.

Further, environmental concerns are a life issue. At the height of the industrial revolution in England, pollution killed so many people in industrial centers that life expectancy for urban populations was significantly less than those who lived in the country. This is way wealthy characters in Pride and Prejudice and other novels of their time are always “going to the country” during the summer; it was deadly to stay in the city. Today, urban populations continue to have lower life expectancy than their rural counterparts though not as extreme.

Global warming is a scientific reality, which has led to erratic weather across the United States and the world. People are dying in hurricanes in the gulf, wildfires in California, and extreme cold in the Midwest at higher rates than ever in modern times. Feeding the world (a goal we already cannot reach) is becoming more difficult due to unpredictable rain, droughts, and shortening growing seasons. Global temperatures have warmed by one degree Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit); if they warm by 1 or 2 degree more, millions of people will be displaced because their cities and farmlands will no longer be habitable due to dryness, heat, or floods.

My parents taught us that character is measured by how many people a person thinks about. A selfish person thinks only of themselves. A person of character is thinking about how their conduct will impact those who came before them, those around them, and those who will follow. Even if environmental concerns were not about honoring God’s commission to our species or saving human lives, it would still be selfish to use up resources without a thought to others. To drive animals to extinction without wondering if a later generation may want to see them, to clear a rainforest without considering the impact of that on the indigenous people who depend on that rainforest for their livelihood, or to pump toxins into the air without worrying about the most valuable whose bodies may not be able to process them are all selfish acts.

Common sense environmentalism is about making small, individual changes such as recycling, donating to environmental groups, watching our carbon footprints, preventing littering, caring for parks and preserves. And it involves supporting sweeping, corroborative, workable regulations, laws, and treaties. This combination can make a profound impact. If you ever make it to Niagara Falls, you can thank the citizens of New York state for doing both the little personal changes and the grand legal ones to restore an industrial pollution center to a natural wonder. Many of those who advocated for those changes did not live long enough to see the falls restored to their full beaty, but three generations later, we do. They thought of people they would never meet and imagined a world that they would never fully get to experience. They worked to create that world and left it as a gift for us.