Who Is Creation Waiting For?
August 13, 2008
A few weeks ago, my husband and I attended a Shabbat (or Sabbath) service at friend’s church. Although it wasn’t done intentionally, the service had a heavy creation theme. We even read a psalm, from the Book of Common Prayer, called “A Song of Creation.” I’d love to record the whole thing here, but it’s very long, so consider these lines:
The Earth and its Creatures
O let the earth bless the Lord;
O ye mountains and hills, bless ye the Lord;
O all ye green things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord;
praise him and magnify him for ever.
O ye wells, bless ye the Lord;
O ye seas and floods, bless ye the Lord;
O ye whales and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord;
praise him and magnify him for ever.
O all ye fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord;
O all ye beasts and cattle, bless ye the Lord;
O ye children of men, bless ye the Lord;
praise him and magnify him for ever.
After that reading, my friend Joel gave a short sermon on the purpose and importance of—what else?—Sabbath.
Sabbath is intimately connected to creation care, and I could talk about it forever, but you’re probably better served by reading Dr. Matthew Sleeth’s article on the topic in the Summer 2008 Creation Care magazine (to receive a copy, sign up here). Joel linked the Sabbath rest we take to the good of creation, as Sabbath gives the natural world time to rest and revel in God’s goodness, too.
What really caught my attention in Joel’s sermon was a passage he referred to as almost an afterthought, Romans 8:19-23: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
This passage has always haunted me. What is the sound of creation groaning? I imagine that it’s best heard in the scraping and splitting of wood that occurs when a huge tree is felled in an otherwise silent forest. A distinct wail accompanies falling trees in their downward trajectories.
But creation’s groaning isn’t always audible. There is the collective moan of humanity as it struggles through all of its trials. And there is the crying of the polluted oceans, the ravaged mountains, the dying species, the desiccated valleys, the waning forests.
But should creation still be weeping the way it is? When I listened to Romans 8 this time, I heard something new: “… creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” Isn’t that us? Aren’t we here? Doesn’t Paul say, several verses earlier in Romans 8:14-17, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God”?
Like Alexei, I sometimes I think we underestimate the power of this privilege. Now that we are God’s children, filled with his Spirit, we are empowered to start living in his hope of resurrection and renewal—not just by what we say and do and think, and not just by who we share his Gospel with, but by how we live as a part of his creation.
Jesus Christ has conquered death. Surely he has also conquered the pollution of the oceans, the ravaging of the mountains, the dying of the species, the desiccation of the valleys, and the waning of the forests. Just as we were made to proclaim his victory over the grave to our human brothers and sisters, so too are we to proclaim his power over creation’s suffering so that it can be “brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
We’re certainly not perfect (we still groan for our full redemption), and we can’t presume to make the world perfect, but don’t we have the Spirit of God within us, and his hope energizing us? We’re here, quickened by Christ’s death, resurrection, and gift of eternal life. That fact is one of the most hopeful things I can fathom. What are we, the children of God, going to do with it?
Obviously we don’t go running from tree to tree with our Bibles in hand, trying to bring the forest to Christ. But we are charged with bringing good news to creation. Creation is still waiting for us to open our mouths and preach the good news, to move our hands and feet and live it.
Kendra Langdon Juskus is managing editor for Creation Care magazineCreation Care magazine. She lives with her husband in Illinois.
The Ocean Revealed: Part 2
August 12, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. You can find Part 1 here.
Hidden Changes In The Sea
The trouble is, climate change is not the only stress on ocean life. Long before greenhouse gases ever rose to record highs, fishermen—from the big commercial captains to small island locals—were taking fish from the sea. Scientists like me who conduct research on coral reefs have become accustomed to a new undersea loneliness, emptiness on reefs that were formerly filled with sea life. What happened to all the fish? We ate them. And we continue to do so around the globe. When we take out more fish than the fish themselves can replace by reproduction, the number of fish declines. Also, our fishing gear can damage the homes and habitats that produce the fish, or it can catch and kill unwanted species—called “bycatch”—in the process. Read more
The Ocean Revealed: Part 1
August 11, 2008
Marah Hardt is a research fellow at Blue Ocean Institute where she works to share the message fo cliamte change effects on oceans and potential solutions with people around the globe.
Seen from the shore, the ocean looks the same today as it did centuries ago: a vast shimmering silver-blue mirror of sky. This reflective veneer, however, masks an emptier, more polluted, warmer, and chemically changed sea. The collective weight of humanity presses upon the ocean now as never before, as we pull out too many fish and pour in too much garbage, fertilizer, and other pollutants. Our fishing and mining techniques scrape the bottom of the seafloor, raking up sea fans and crushing corals, destroying productive habitat. And by burning fossil fuels we not only raise the temperature of the water but also make it more acidic.
Why does this matter? Because the ocean supports all creation, in the sea and on land, including us. We are not as disconnected from this watery world as we may think. Tied to the shore, we also remain bound to the sea—by our need for food, oxygen, a stable climate, and the countless other life-sustaining services the ocean provides. We should understand something of how the ocean works, why we depend upon a healthy ocean, and why, despite all the damage that has been done, we can still be hopeful. Read more
Family Outings To The Hazardous Waste Site
August 8, 2008
Sitting in an idling car on a hot summer day with a whining toddler and screaming baby was not how I expected to spend my Saturday. We were on our way to a family outing and decided to make a “quick” stop at the area Hazardous Waste drop-off since it happened to be on our way. Yet as we sat in the line of cars that wrapped around the block and crawled along at an aggravatingly slow pace, I wondered more than once if the “safe and proper” disposal of chemicals was really worth the effort. Did I mention the baby was screaming?
You see we had a jug of old gasoline we needed to get rid of. Having drained it from the lawn mower after a long cold winter (the stabilizer having not sustained it through the season), we had a volatile hazardous chemical on our hands and needed to dispose of it. When I checked with our city’s municipal office I was told that the nearby hazardous waste dump had closed down a few years ago. The next closest one, servicing four counties, was an hour away in an area I hardly ever had a reason to visit. And it was only open on Saturday mornings. So the gas sat in my garage. For a long time.
I thought a few times about just getting rid of it the easy way – dumping it down the drain, hiding it in the garbage. I knew that this was what most people did having heard others brag about how they evaded the hassle of making it out to the hazardous waste site. They didn’t care that it was illegal, dangerous, and seriously harmful to the environment – it made their life easy. But I couldn’t justify poisoning the river, tainting the groundwater, and endangering the sanitary workers (not to mention breaking the law). So I got to sit sweltering in my car all Saturday morning awaiting my turn to properly dispose of a few cups of gasoline. With a screaming baby.
But it made me think. Our society just isn’t geared towards sustainable environmentally friendly living. The hassle I faced to avoid direct pollution only represents a part of the problem though. Sure it’s annoying that the hazardous waste drop-off was so far away and had such limited hours (maybe more people would responsibly dispose of things if it was more convenient), but I had to consider that perhaps responsible living should start before it gets to the point that we need to dispose of hazardous chemicals. If my lawn care practices led to this need, perhaps I should think though what exactly I am doing with my lawn.
Like any good suburbanite I take care of my lawn (okay, so don’t do a very good job at it as attested by the armies of invading dandelions, but at least I give it a vague attempt). I have the gas powered lawn mower and I start getting nervous about what the neighbors will think once the grass gets a centimeter or two too high. I feel the social pressure to make my yard look a certain way despite what harm it does to the environment. Living just a few blocks uphill from the river (and having young children) I have reason enough not to dump chemicals on my lawn to help it look good. But all my neighbors do. I watched my neighbor across the street fertilize his yard five times this season. His lawn looks immaculate. Mine’s the one with the dandelions.
But this compulsion to create nice looking chemical lawns (cut with gas guzzling lawn mowers) generally trumps any desire to be environmentally friendly. Some of us might bother to dispose of the old gasoline responsibly, but it is rare for us to rethink what we are doing to the environment by having the standard lawn in the first place. Instead of working with the natural ecosystem we are fighting to conform it to our unnatural preconceptions of what we think it should be. We call what we do “caring for our lawn,” but often our actions are closer to abuse than care. We introduce foreign plants, we strip the soil of nutrients, and we allow vast amounts of run-off (generally laced with chemicals) from our flat, hard lawns. We dominate the land instead of lovingly care for it.
Like I said, we aren’t geared towards environmentally responsible living. Our convenience and our cultural mores all too often stand in the way. Some of those hurdles even seem insurmountable (like the fact that I get fined by the city if I don’t keep my lawn looking a certain way). But as I sat in the car with the screaming baby inching my way to the drop-off site, I had to consider the ultimate cost of those ingrained habits and expectations. And begin to think though my options.
Julie Clawson has spent the last few years helping plant an emerging church in the Chicago suburbs, but has recently re-established her roots in Austin, Tx. She is passionate about social justice, emerging Christianity, gender equality, and really good Tex-Mex food. Julie is currently working on a book about everyday justice issues. She blogs at julieclawson.com.
Evangelicals and Climate Change
August 7, 2008
Rusty found this great post over on the Less Than The Least blog. They’ve got a great site and are well worth checking out.
Three follow-up comments about evangelicals and climate change, inspired in large part by the comments to the earlier post:
1) Perhaps the biggest point of disagreement among evangelicals, which shows up in spades in the comments, can be traced to differing perceptions of the implications of accepting scientists’ warnings about climate change. For skeptics, the science is a Trojan horse paving the way for massive governmental intervention. Most evangelical environmentalists seem less worried that socialism is right around the corner. Mike Vandenbergh, a leading environmental law scholar and co-organizer of the Vanderbilt conference mentioned in the earlier post, pointed out to me that the divide among evangelicals echoes a fault-line among Americans generally: work by Dan Kahan at Yale suggests that people’s perception of the importance of climate change is closely tied to whether they think the societal response will be more governmental regulation. Those who believe that accepting the science is likely to mean lots more regulation are much less likely to credit the science.
2) The second point follows directly from the first. Evangelical environmentalists, like environmentalists generally, are likely to be most persuasive to other evangelicals if they frame the issue in terms of individual responsibility rather than governmental intervention. It is no coincidence, I suspect, that the most widely read books by evangelical environmentalists, such as Matthew Sleeth’s “Serve God, Save the Earth,” are short on regulatory proposals and long on lifestyle advice.
3) Many people– including the Wall Street Journal in an editorial last week– have suggested that soaring energy prices will dampen Americans’ concern about environmental issues, since people equate environmentalism with governmental measures that will increase prices. Perhaps counterintuitively, the historical evidence seems to me to suggest that high oil prices could have precisely the opposite effect, at least for evangelicals. I’ve been researching the coverage of environmental issues in Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical magazine, over the past forty years. What I’m finding is the Christianity Today ran numerous articles about environmentalism, nearly all making a Biblical case for environmentalism, during the first energy crisis in the 1970s. After the 1970s, the number of articles declined significantly, I suspect due to the passing of the energy crisis and to a perception that scientists had wildly exaggerated the environmental risk. As our current energy crisis deepens, I suspect we may see a reprise of the 1970s experience. If this is correct, and if advocates of responding to climate change wish to have evangelicals on board, they would do well to beg Al Gore to stay quiet and to focus on making a quieter case for individual lifestyle change.
Plastic Bags vs. Cloth Bags
August 6, 2008
Seems like everywhere I turn people are lamenting the impact of the plastic bags available at the grocery store. It’s not that they don’t have good reason to. It’s estimated that we as a global society use nearly one million plastic bags a minute. Besides using 12 million barrels of oil in the US to make those bags, it’s estimated nearly 100,000 marine animals die each year when they mistake plastic bags for food. Whether it’s the statistics or the ‘green’ trend that’s caused a shift, one thing is clear, everyone is jumping on. Nearly every store has reusable bags in their aisles, companies give them away as door prizes, and everyone and their mother are picking up two or three at the checkout.
What has amazed me is that I haven’t heard anyone acknowledge the irony in this. We critique the rampant consumerism and environmental degradation of plastic grocery bags that fill landfills, waste energy, and acknowledge our disposable society, and our answer to that problem: Buy something. Buy a bag, a nice pretty canvas tote with trendy design and take it to the grocery store and show it off.
While we think we’ve done some great act for the environment, we’ve in some ways simply traded one consumable product for another. We need to think more critically about this. We need to raise some questions about our consumerism and think hard about our choices:
1. Is plastic bad? If you think it is and should be used in moderation, then we need to make a serious effort to reduce our use of plastic across the board, not just shopping bags. And may I suggest we do this buy purchasing non-plastic products when it’s necessary to buy something new, but even better, simply buy used.
2. Can you reuse your plastic bags? Since moving out of my parents home I have never spent a dime on trash bags. Instead, we’ve used those dreaded plastic grocery bags as our kitchen, bathroom and other trash can liners. We also used reused them to get our groceries time and again until we accumulated enough cloth bags for our shopping. I use the plastic bags to store dirty cloth diapers when we are on the go. And if we had a dog, I’d be using the bags for clean up there too.
My goal is not to discourage anyone from using cloth bags, but to think more critically about our purchasing and lifestyle, rather then simply following the trends, even if they are ‘green’ trends. Personally, I use cloth bags quite often for groceries. It’s been fun to see the change in attitude in the checkout line at the grocery store. We used to walk to the store with a couple backpacks and a cloth bag and when checking out we’d tell them we were going to bag it ourselves in our own bags and we’d get very strange looks. Now it’s not that big of a deal. We’ve reduced our trash output so much that I don’t need many plastic bags for that anymore either.
If your going to purchase cloth bags make sure they are environmentally friendly and fair trade. And if someone’s got a more creative way to collect trash then plastic trash bags I’d like to hear it.
Ariah Fine lives in North Minneapolis with his beautiful wife and daughter. He is a blogger, community organizer, and author of Giving Up.
Organic Farming Reflections
August 5, 2008
Here are the reflections from my first day on the farm. Below are further reflections from “a day on the farm”.
Well you remember all of that talk about it all probably being a bit over-romanticized in my mind . . . well this week kicked my butt. My loins (which I didn’t know I had) ache. My back is tweaked. And I’m still trying to get the dirt out from under my fingernails.
As a tease to keep reading the rest of this . . . I’m a beet farmer like Dwight Schrute . . . scroll to the bottom if you just want to hear this story.
When I got there, Lynn had me help her cut up some old potatoes from last year. She planted 200 lbs the day before and I was going to help her plant the remaining potatoes (maybe a third to a half of that). Apparently, you cut up old potatoes and bury them to grow new ones. This probably seems like common sense to most of you, but to me it was revelatory. So we cut up the potatoes, being sure to leave an “eye” on each piece. This was the easy part. We then went to the back pasture and planted 3 100 foot rows. And each row had 2 furrows on it. So technically 600 feet of potatoes. Now that doesn’t sound like much. But when you consider it’s 2 football fields it gains a little more perspective. And when you consider you don’t just throw the potato on the ground and kick some dirt on it, you realize that it’s a good sized job.
You basically have to take a hoe with a longer end on it and run a deep line through the soil. Essentially creating a little ditch or canyon within the larger row. This sounded so easy and it even looked easy as I grabbed the hoe from Lynn’s hands. But after a few feet, I realized how freaking hard it was. After digging the first of 6 furrows, even with gloves on, I already had a blister on my left hand. Was dripping sweat despite it being 65 and was covered in dirt. I then dug the remaining 6 furrows. Dug a hole every 10-12 inches for a potato and buried it. Oh by the way, you bury it cut-side down. Then I had to go back with the hoe and cover every hole.
Then I got the meticulous job of clearing away weeds that had grown around the 3 rows of green onion. I quickly realized just exactly how hard it is to farm “organically”. On an industrial farm, you could just carpet bomb the row with pesticides and weed killers. Here I had to delicately scrape the weeds off the top of the soil that were surrounding every onion. Sounds easy, but you have to be careful or you chop off the top of the onion. The hoe was sharpened to a point and could have sliced down a tree had I gotten ambitious. So I couldn’t just hack away at it. I had to be slow and delicate.
I also realized just how much I loathe slow, meticulous work. If I have to be slow, discerning, and delicate I’m probably not having fun. At that time, I would have given anything to be hacking away at the dirt for the potatoes again. I think this says something about me and perhaps the larger culture in that we prefer doing things that we can see tangible results quickly. We like the sheer brute force of doing work sometimes. As opposed to the slow, steady process that seems trivial. Sorry to get pyscho-analytical but that’s what I was thinking about while I made my way down the rows.
We then moved into the beet farming section of the day. We planted 3 different types of beets: yellow, green, and purple. This was a pretty delicate process as we were transplanting them from trays into the ground. The day was overcast and it was supposed to rain during the night which is apparently the best time to transplant things for future reference. So we laid down some beets and then moved over to the cabbage. This went a little faster but not by much. We put down two rows of cabbage. They had made a little homemade contraption to dig the holes in the ground at the perfect interval and in a line that I’ll try to remember to take a picture of. It was basically a small barrel with some PVC piping that we got to pull/drag across the rows. Oh yeah . . . the tractor broke 2 days before so we to till all of these rows with a big rake. Which made for more back pain and tedious work.
All in all, it was a nice day with great weather. My back still feels like a little ninja drop kicked me. And the back of my legs ache from all the squatting and bending over. And for 3 foods that I can’t stand in cabbage, potatoes, and beets. So I’m not sure how much I’ll enjoy the “spoils” of my labor. But it did feel good to sweat and do labor and to be away from the stress of clients and computers. There is something quite freeing about breathing in fresh air with sweat dripping. It makes you feel human.
Josh Brown is a 27 year old graphic designer who is married to this cute little lady. He runs Red Cowboy, writes, reads, and podcasts. And acts with hope. I’m a Mac Lover. Vespa Rider. And Amateur Photographer. You can find the full IAmJoshBrown.com empire here.
The Resurrected Christ
August 4, 2008
Why don’t we see Jesus for who he really is? You know the resurrected Jesus, the Risen Lord, the one that sits at the right hand of the father. The one who died and was buried and on the third day rose again. The one who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
His body was literally raised from the grave, as ours will one day rise from the grave. Our resurrection through Christ is a physical resurrection. Not a disembodied spirit resurrection, but a physical one, one in which we will be made new. Surely our God values the physical.
Our future and the vision of that future include the physical world, the world we are called to tend and keep. Proverbs offers us this wisdom, “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.” (Proverbs 29:18, The Message). As God’s people we have stumbled over ourselves when it comes to caring for creation, mostly because we can’t see what God is doing, what God has done through his son Jesus Christ. We have not seen the vision of reconciliation that scripture offers. We have not seen the vision of heaven come down. Our vision of creation suffers from our understanding of God’s intent for it.
In the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Yet we don’t actualize that expression when it comes to the Father’s will for the physical world. Revelation offers us the hope we need.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’” (Revelation 21:1-5, NIV).
John is offering a vision of heaven coming down to earth, of earth being renewed of God making his dwelling with man. Of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven with trinity at its center. This is a God who will make his home on this earth and bring light through his glory.
If we understand that as Christians we are given a physical body to live with God on earth and share in the splendor of the new creation; than we too can see and act as God’s children to uphold one of the oldest commandments to tend and keep what by nature is God’s.
Alexei Laushkin, a graduate from Claremont McKenna College, works for the Evangelical Environmental Network. He and his wife live in Alexandria, VA.
Pollution Down, Health Up In Marine Ecosystems
August 1, 2008
This news post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
A 20-year-long study done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has reported some good news: levels of pesticides and industrial chemicals in U.S. coastal waters and the Great Lakes are decreasing.
Mussel Watch, the longest-running continuous contaminant monitoring study, began in 1986. Scientists measure contaminant levels in sediment and in the fatty tissue of mussels and oysters from over 300 locations—from the Great Lakes to the coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan estuaries. They test for 140 different chemicals, and have discovered that, in general, chemical concentrations in these locations have decreased over the last two decades. In particular, the study records decreasing concentrations of DDT and PCBs.
Gunnar Lauenstein, lead scientist for the study, explained that while every area tested had a different story—in some places pollution levels rose, in some places they fell—the overall statistical evidence demonstrates a national decrease in contaminant concentrations. The broad time frame of this study shows that these concentrations continue to fall even today, decades after the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (better known as the Clean Water Act) was created in the 1970s. One of that Act’s primary goals is to prevent water pollution. Mussel Watch indicates advancement toward that goal.
However, its results also demonstrate no decrease in water pollution from oil-based compounds related to motor vehicle and shipping activities.
