Scope & Perspective
August 27, 2008
My four-year old, Danny, and my seven-year old, Amanda, were recently having a discussion about creation. They had been playing in the back yard when Danny very authoritatively declared, “I bet that there is about a thousand pill bugs in the whole world.” Amanda, being far more worldly wise, said, “Naw, probably about a thousand million.”
As I listened to them I realized that they had almost no sense of scale. Scope and perspective were lacking. But the more I thought about it the more I realized how fundamentally similar and childlike our adult perspective tends to be.
It is very hard for us to visualize the impact of 6.7 billion people on the world. Or the difference of a few degrees in temperature, or the loss of 13 million hectares of forest a year. As individuals, our estimates of what these numbers mean vary widely, and tend to be tied to our personal experiences; an early cold snap and those in the midst of it tend to say, “So much for global warming.”
Over the years I have read and heard some pretty strange assessments of environmental issues. Population is not an issue, for example, because 6 billion people could fit, standing up, in the state of Rhode Island. Or “climate change is going to help us because it will extend the growing season in the north.”
I admit too, that my own assessment of the state of our planet is based far too much on personal experience. In my work with Floresta, helping the poor and promoting reforestation in badly deforested, heavily degraded regions, I tend to see primarily broken-down environments that will no longer support people. It is easy to get discouraged and sometimes hard to see the big picture.
Thus, about ten years ago, I was happy to be taking a vacation in the Canadian Rockies. As I told my wife, “I think I need to go someplace where the environment is not unraveling. I have seen enough of that for a while.”
I quickly learned that in spite of their awe-inspiring beauty, the mountains were troubled by a host of serious human induced environmental issues, ranging from mountain pine beetle infestations to invasive species to over development. Every year since, I have been looking for that spot where I can rest and enjoy what God has created, without the sickness that we have brought. I am still looking. Sadly, I have concluded that pristine doesn’t really exist anymore. Creation, though still beautiful and still evidence of the Creator, also bears constant witness to our poor stewardship and narcissism.
I am confident that my view remains skewed. However, trying to get a more objective view, through study and scientific reports has led me to believe that ours is a world in deep trouble, with many of our life support systems on the verge of breaking down. One is tempted to despair, or that very least conclude that the problem is too big. Yet yielding to that temptation ignores both the sovereignty of God, who still holds us in the palm of His hand, and the fact that He has called us to participate in His plan of redemption for all of Creation. As I continually have to remind myself, “This is my Father’s world” and as the song says, “He is the ruler yet.”
Scott Sabin is the Executive Director of Floresta USA, a Christian organization that works to combat deforestation and poverty in seven countries around the world. He and his wife Nancy live with their children Amanda (7) and Danny (4) in San Diego and have been involved in Creation Care for 16 years.
Creation Stewardship
August 26, 2008
God placed man in the garden to tend and keep it. A familiar paraphrase of the Genesis 2:15 mandate. So what do we do with the mandate, just how do we fulfill this commandment? This is no simple task, but fortunately God has given us some essential resources. I only hope to shed some brief light on the matter.
The creation is a bountiful resource from which we can understand God and our proper place within the world. Creation testifies to the glories and wonders of God. It teaches us of a God who is magistic, ordered, and full of wonder. To tend this magnificant world is many ways to tend some of the richest resources that God has ever made. To be an awe of all that God makes is an important starting point.
Jesus offer us the essential guidepost for our work in tending creation. Jesus teaches us that whatever we do ‘to the least of these’ we do to him. Thus, environmental problems that impact people must be high on our priority list. Since we live off of our environment, many environmental problems have a direct impact on people. The health of local environments often have a direct link to the health of local peoples. Thus, creation care is often people care in the sense of loving your neighbor.
Jesus also teaches us that he gives us things to steward while he is away. These things include our talents, possessions, and yes even our material world. When he returns he will ask each of us what we did with what we were given. In this light our stewardship of the natural world should take on a hightened sense of urgency. At present our environmental stewardship is sorely lacking.
Jesus teaches us to make disciples of all nations teaching them everything that has been commanded. Part of that teaching must include a proper understanding of our stewardship of the world. Our discipleship remains uncompete without a strong stewardship ethic.
We also know that Jesus is Lord of all creation. Yet we often forget his authority over the environment. We forget that our sovereign King has authority over all plant and animal life. We forget that in his role as Lord nothing remains outside of his scope. This should teach us to be mindful of our own role within his kingdom.
Alexei Laushkin, a graduate from Claremont McKenna College, works for the Evangelical Environmental Network. He and his wife live in Alexandria, VA.
Go West To Go Green
August 25, 2008
If you want to see what can happen when a church gets serious about creation care, you should check out the Re:Form conference hosted by Tri Robinson, pastor of the Vineyard Boise. I first met Tri Robinson at his church in Idaho. He didn’t look like a megachurch pastor. He certainly didn’t look like an environmentalist. He looked more like a cowboy. He was hosting a conference for church leaders on environmental stewardship, and there was an unlikely mix of conservative pastors, business people, environmental activists, and ordinary folks in attendance.
I first heard about Tri from Jason Chatraw, a friend from Atlanta, who had just moved to Boise to be part of Tri’s church. He had collaborated on a book that told Tri’s story—how a conservative Republican hunter realized God wanted him to preach about our responsibility to tend the garden. After Tri finally worked up the nerve to preach about it, his church gave his sermon a standing ovation. Over the next years they saw their numbers increase, as people who hadn’t darkened a church door in years began to come back to see a congregation making a priority of the common good.
Jason took me on a tour of the church facilities, and explained to me how the organic garden in back of the church was tended by folks in the church’s various recovery programs, and how it produced food for their homeless ministry and community food pantry. He talked to me about the work done by church members restoring trails and planting trees on public lands, caring for the earth in ways that drew people into places that gave them a sense of wonder and awe. I saw a church and it’s ministries that weren’t just “green”—they were about creation care in its fullest forms, caring for people and the earth they inhabit, respecting and restoring the goodness of the natural world for the sake of its Creator, and also being a channel of healing for the broken people that depend on that natural world.
The conference is happening again this year, September 24-26. You should think about going. I know it’s a long way to Boise for some people. But you need to be inspired for this work of creation care, and to see how it connects to other issues, especially if you’re a church leader. This year Tri is connecting the dots global issues like creation care and social justice by including a forum on human trafficking, and explaining the chain of causality which often links environmental degradation with the degradations of the sex trade.
Rusty Pritchard is a resource economist and the National Director of Outreach for the Evangelical Environmental Network.
Conflicting Claims About Environmental Problems: A Primer For Non-Scientists - Part 2
August 21, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. This is part 2 of 2. Part 1 appears here.
General Advice on Sorting Through Competing Claims
Avoid extremists
Two U.K. scientists, Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, recently chided other scientists for making what they felt were exaggerated claims about global warming’s effects (Ghosh 2007). Hardaker and Collier believe that global warming is real and that exaggerating its effects will cause people to disbelieve the whole thing. I agree that that is a likely result of exaggeration. Exaggeration is sometimes promoted by the non-scientific media.
To avoid exaggerated claims, avoid getting information from the most polarized groups, the least scientific groups, or those with a clear ideological bent.
Look for people expressing levels of scientific uncertainty and moderate positions. The best thing to do is look at the mainstream science, including group statements by professional societies, and not at popular books, television shows, newspaper editorials, or web sites. If you do use web sites, look for those associated with reputable professional societies and avoid those run by private individuals or groups with an obvious bias.
Remember that when there is a scientific question with two sides, there are likely to be people on BOTH sides who exaggerate. Even if one side is actually correct, some people on that side are likely to be extremists. To sort out the truth, gather your information from those who are the least over-simplifying and the most willing to explain their reasoning. Avoid conspiracy theorists.
For example, climate change skeptic Arthur Robinson claims:
The human-caused global warming myth is not only ridiculously bad science;
It is basically a pagan, New Age effort to reduce world population by withdrawal of technology—an activity that no Christian should associate himself with. (Robinson 2000)
On the other hand, Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe says, “Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers” (Goodman 2007).
The strong language used by both of these individuals will not help anyone figure out whether climate change is actually occurring; instead they will further polarize the debate.
Get more information
Sometimes, even if you are an expert, you have to get more information. For example, in 1988 NASA scientist James Hansen testified before Congress about climate change. (Hansen et al 1988, Hansen 2004). Hansen showed a graph of three possible climate change scenarios calculated using then-current models. This graph was criticized by a number of skeptics, particularly Patrick Michaels, who claimed that Hansen’s numbers were wrong (Michaels 1998, Pease 2005). But Michaels had removed two of the lines on the graph and left only the most extreme values on the third line. The actual observed trend in the intervening years had tracked well with the second of the lines on the original graph. This misrepresentation of Hansen’s work was repeated in Michael Crichton’s popular novel, State of Fear (Crichton 2004). Hansen wrote a rebuttal, describing the graph and how it was misrepresented (Hansen 2004), but the popularity of the novel and claims on the web left many people wondering about the graph’s accuracy.
Another example was that of the famous “hockey stick graph” created by Mann et al. (1998) and used in an IPCC report. This graph was criticized for smoothing out past variations in temperature (McIntyre and McKitrick 2005). However, subsequent analysis of the graph statistics by the National Research Council (NRC) showed that while there were errors in the original statistical techniques, the results were robust. Thus even when the statistics were recalculated with modifications, the findings were upheld (Brumfiel 2006, NRC 2006).
It may be difficult to follow all of the threads in such a “he said/ she said” debate. But the point is that some scientists do not present the actual work of other scientists who may have been very careful not to avoid extremism. Often the original scientists will speak out about it.
Don’t confuse the science of the problem with concerns about proposed solutions
There is a great deal of disagreement over the magnitude of the effects of global warming and what solutions should be attempted. Scientists estimate that climate change will help some sectors of the economy, such as shipping in the far north, and some northern places where agriculture may increase. But most scientists believe that it will harm even larger numbers of people than it benefits (IPCC 2001 b, NAS 2007). Global climate change will likely increase severe events such as storms, droughts and floods. It has already begun to affect organisms and weather patterns. A warmer-than-usual winter in China in 2006-2007 left 300,000 people short of water (AFP 2007). Whether this particular event is due to global climate change or not, climate change would certainly be expected to bring that type of outcome in the future. At this point, moderate positions include concerns about significant impacts on precipitation patterns, crop yields, ice, biodiversity, and El Nino events.
Some climate skeptics claim to be skeptics of the whole phenomenon because they do not think it will be worth the “billions of dollars” that will be required to stop it. This reluctance to accept a problem because of the cost of solutions has been expressed with regard to previous environmental issues, including when environmentalists suggested lowering CFC use or removing phosphates from detergents. Today, while there is a robust debate about how much money is needed to stop global warming, here are some things we know:
• We will not develop solutions to a problem until we recognize that the problem is real.
• We do not address only one problem at a time. Some of the possible solutions to global warming involve changes that would also lower local air pollution or improve distributive justice.
• Some actions, such as generating less waste, may save money
Thus it is disingenuous to be skeptical of climate change itself because one has already decided the costs of solutions are too high. We must do what we can, and advocate for what is most easily done first, but we need to at least agree on the science of the problem and then address the issue of its solutions.
Empowered with this information and the capacity for discerning truth in controversial environmental debates, Christians with a lay understanding of scientific issues—like the members in my Sunday school—will be better equipped to take an educated approach to stewardship over God’s creation.
This is part 2 of 2. Part 1 appears here.
Dr. Dorothy Boorse is an aquatic ecologist and Biology Department faculty member at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She is one voice in the christian environmental stewardship movement and lives with her husband and two sons in Beverly, MA.
Conflicting Claims About Environmental Problems: A Primer For Non-Scientists - Part 1
August 20, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. This is part 1 of 2. Part 1 appeared here.
Recently in an adult Sunday school class at my church, when asked what barriers they experience to being better stewards, parishioners expressed frustration that environmental problems are driven by media hype. They were concerned that they were unable to discern hype from truth. Here I’ll describe how you can “read the landscape” of an environmental claim without necessarily understanding the science. I will use global warming as an example and compare it to other contentious environmental issues from the recent past. This article will be limited to how you can know what most scientists think, even when one side claims general consensus and the other claims dissension. I will also provide some general advice on understanding science in the media.
Reading the Landscape
In my observation, most scientists are convinced that . . .
A) global climate change is real
B) that it is at least significantly human-caused,
C) that it will result in significant negative consequences for much of the globe.
However, some people in the scientific community are still skeptical of global warming. The names of these science skeptics come up repeatedly on the Internet and in the media. In spite of these dissenters, you can understand the general opinion of scientists by listening to premier scientific groups, reading key documents by professional and scientific groups, and considering the trajectory of the discussion.
Premier ScientificGroups
The evidence for global warming is best summarized in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2001a,b,c,d, 2007). The IPCC
represents the research of thousands of scientists around the world. They concluded that other, natural factors like solar cycles, volcanoes, and changes in the
earth’s orbit do affect climate, but are not likely to fully account for the variability we are currently seeing.
In the United States, The National Academy of Sciences represents the top scientists in the country. In the last 15 years the NAS has had panels of experts (called National Research Council panels) produce at least fifteen reports on global climate change, many trying to solve some of the scientific questions raised by climate skeptics, and to reconcile different analyses of scientific data in order to detect a trend or anticipate the results of climate change. In the earliest studies, the NAS/NRC reports (NAS 1975) concluded that we did not know enough to conclude anything. Later reports have revised our certainty upward as climate models have gotten better and as we have gotten more data. Now, in spite of some limited dissension, the majority of these top scientists believe that the evidence for human-induced climate change is compelling. The conclusions of these top scientists are that global warming is real and that a significant amount of it is human-caused (NAS 2001a). National Research Council Reports are available on the web and are written for an educated layperson, not a scientist in a particular field.
Key Documents
On June 7, 2005, The National Academies of eleven countries (the G8 countries as well as Brazil, China, and India) issued a joint statement that climate change
is real and human-caused, and that it should be the subject of efforts at a solution (NAS 2005). Most recently, in Europe on Feb 2, 2007, the IPCC released its newest report on climate change (IPCC 2007). It was the executive summary of a longer, more detailed report that came out in stages throughout the rest of the year. It states the current scientific consensus: that global warming is more than 90% likely to be happening and to be human-caused.
Other scientific groups, including the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have also issued statements arguing that human-caused global climate change is real. These statements have to be voted on by their organizations’ membership, and consequently represent the opinions of large groups of scientists.
These scientists recognize that there are other, natural factors that may account for some amount of climate change. Nonetheless, the human-induced effects are added on top of natural forces, and may increase the rate of adaptation required by natural systems.
The Trajectory of the Discussion
Dissenting voices—such as that of Richard Lindzen, a scientist at MIT and member of the National Academy of Sciences (Lindzen 2006)—exist even among the premier IPCC working groups. However in the last several decades, as more work has been done, the data has become more, not less, clear. More scientists have
become convinced of human-made global climate change, and fewer remain skeptics. This is what you expect to happen with new scientific information. While mistaken or even bogus science (like cold fusion) can sometimes be published, the peer-review process causes such science to be heavily criticized. In the case of global warming, there is increasing certainty in climate reports, an increasing number of lines of evidence, and a decreasing number of people who disagree.
For example, a recent paper in Science (Rahmstorf et al 2007) suggested that the climate models used to make projections are more accurate than skeptics claimed and in fact have underestimated climate change. The paper revealed new findings that temperatures are rising more rapidly and sea level changes are more rapid than climate models had predicted, laying to rest criticisms that earlier IPCC models had overblown risks.
How doesthiscompare?
Compare this to other environmental controversies. If you hear, for example, that global warming seems unlikely because scientists in the 1970s thought an ice age was coming and they were wrong, this is a misrepresentation of history. There were two main papers in which scientists either a) predicted an ice age in 20,000 years (Hays et al 1976) or b) discussed the impact of aerosols and carbon dioxide on climate change without making a prediction about the future climate (Rasool and Schneider 1975). There were only a few other papers on cooling in the scientific literature, but several predicting anthropogenic warming (Connelly 2005). A popular book was published on the subject (Ponte 1975), and the topic was picked up by the media. But the authors of the scientific papers did not make claims of imminent global change, and in 1975 a National Research Council report said there was not enough information to conclude anything on the future of the world’s climate (NRC 1975). The 1970s ice age scare was a short-term phenomenon in the popular press, hyped by non-scientists, that went away quickly and did not involve the majority opinion of climate scientists.
In contrast, the global warming discussion has had a similar trajectory to the discussions over three significant environmental problems of the past: the dangers of tobacco smoke, the pollution of lakes resulting from phosphates, and the depletion of the ozone layer by CFC pollution (Masters 2007). In each case, we had a vigorous scientific and public debate. In each case there was increasing evidence of a problem, early media hype that exaggerated the known science, skeptics who reacted against that hype, new science, a gradual agreement in the scientific community, strong business pressure not to find a problem, and hold-out skeptics. But in each case eventually nearly everyone agreed that the problem was real and warranted action.
Seeing the trajectory of the discussion and key documents from scientific groups and premier statements gives us an idea of how to “read” this new environmental problem.
The big environmental problems—acid rain, lead and mercury, PCBs, dioxin pollution, ozone depletion, and tobacco smoke—have staying power and have remained concerns for decades. Global warming is in this group.
This is part 1 of 2. Part 1 appeared here.
Dr. Dorothy Boorse is an aquatic ecologist and Biology Department faculty member at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She is one voice in the christian environmental stewardship movement and lives with her husband and two sons in Beverly, MA.
The Friendship Collaborative: Part 2
August 19, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. This is Part 2 of 2. Part 1 appeared yesterday.
Pastor Ken Wilson and scientist Carl Safina met in an unexpected way. They’d both agreed to attend a retreat in the longleaf pine woods of South Georgia that brought together evangelical leaders and some of the world’s top scientists. They were responding, in part, to the invitation made by scientist and author E.O. Wilson in his book The Creation, in which he called on conservative Christians and scientists to work together to honor and protect God’s handiwork.
At that meeting, the participants discovered that they had much to agree upon. Months later they released an “Urgent Call to Action,” which stated in part “We clearly share a profound moral obligation and sense of vocation to save the imperiled living world before our damages to it remake it as another kind of planet.”
Though it was the public statement that captured media attention, some of the participants discovered something else at the retreat. They weren’t merely “co-belligerents” uniting to fight a common threat. They liked each other. They had much to learn from each other, but they left as friends, and committed themselves to intentionally strengthen their ties. Wilson, Senior Pastor of Vineyard Church Ann Arbor, and Safina, President of Blue Ocean Institute, learned from and enjoyed their unique friendship so much that they decided to forge “The Friendship Collaborative” to foster more bridge-building between other scientists and people of faith. Their premise is simply what worked for them: the chance to meet face to face and talk about shared beliefs regarding creation and the environment that supports life.
Blue Ocean Institute staffer Marah Hardt conducted the interview for Creation Care magazine. She asked Wilson and Safina to reflect upon the mutual influence and insight sprung from their unexpected friendship.
CC: What do you have in common that you might not have realized before?
KEN: It sounds strange to say, me being such a chronic hopelessly religious or spiritual person of the Christian variety, but I feel like I have a worldview, or at least major parts of a worldview, in common with Carl. As an ecologist or conservationist (I’m never quite sure what Carl is, but I know he’s one of those!), Carl is a bit of a zealot—meaning a man with a mission that he passionately pursues. And, like a believer such as myself, his vision has an apocalyptic quality to it—meaning he sees things looming on the horizon that could devastate life as we know it. He even views himself, if I’m not being presumptuous here, as someone who has some important message that more people ought to be listening to and if they did, the world would be a better place. And he’s part of a minority group that wants to convince the world to act differently. So, in a lot of unexpected ways, we see the world through a very similar set of lenses.
CARL: I took from my religion (I’d been raised Catholic) the importance of compassion, concern for the less fortunate, the challenge of loving one’s enemies as a matter of immense practical value, and a deep sense of reverence and awe for the living world and the great universe. I am, in a very real sense, a person with a mission to help save the world—the natural world, creation—from our sins, to put it in those terms. I think Ken and I are similar enough to really understand each other, or at least to be really comfortable as we get to better understand each other. Our interests aren’t identical, but they broadly overlap. The fundamental similarity is that I buy what Jesus was talking about. And Ken sure does. A lot of the practicing “faithful” may believe firmly in God but they don’t seem to have heard Jesus’s message of love, peace and compassion. Ken sure gets it. I think I get it. So in a sense, one can be faithful to the message (or, rather, can strive to live up to the challenge of the message) even without believing in the theology. For me the message—and what we do with the message—is more important than what we believe about the author of the message. Ken believes Jesus is God, but I don’t. That difference is, for me, rather beside the point. The point is whether we take up this immense challenge, and whether we will use it to save the world from ruin. I think Ken and I are both very concerned with the challenge and convinced of the rightness of it; that’s a deep similarity I feel.
CC: What’s the most pointed question or concern that you’ve raised with each other?
KEN: I asked Carl why environmental scientists who tend to view living things as populations weren’t raising more of an alarm about abortion practices in places like India and China, where there is now a gender imbalance introduced into the human population through sex-selected abortions favoring the abortion of female unborn babies. I said that it seems to me that biologists, of all the disciplines, should be alarmed by this and concerned about the perils of messing with mother nature in this way. And that I thought it was something more like political correctness in the worst sense that kept them, as scientists, from speaking out against this practice.
CARL: I don’t question Ken’s beliefs. But I was afraid he would not respect mine, and he quickly dispelled that fear by accepting my views on the problem of suffering. And we’ve been over the hot-button issues that have been so destructive to America—abortion, evolution, homosexuality. It’s part of the trueness of Ken’s compassion that we can talk about these things. Some religious people can be so rigid on these topics that they can’t even talk about them. I think a few religious leaders have used these topics as wedges to drive America apart so as to draw lines, emphasize differences, and win politically. That strikes me as both deeply un-Christian and deeply un-American. Ken realizes the world is complicated, and he’s so secure in his views and his faith that he can talk about these issues. I’m very appreciative of that.
CC: How has your interaction changed your perspectives about human interactions with nature?
KEN: Carl has given me a more global perspective about how the things we do in our ordinary lives impact nature on a global scale. His book about the Albatross helped me see the ocean with new eyes. That image of baby albatross birds choking on plastic toothbrushes that the parents regurgitated into their throats from debris ingested from the ocean—man, that was a worldrocking image! I throw away stuff like that all the time without a thought about where it ends up. And now I see that as a moral issue and myself in need of some moral reforming.
I suppose, like most people, I viewed the ocean as this pristine wilderness unaffected by humans. But now I see the ocean as something we’re treating like a free dumping place. I must say, I was completely ignorant, and my ignorance was of the worst sort because it was completely self-serving and convenient to be ignorant.
CARL: Ken has helped affirm that my view of the human interaction with nature as part of a moral continuum is a valid view. That is of great value to me. It means we science-types can work together with people of faith on matters of nature from a creation perspective. He has helped me see, and also helped affirm, that poverty doesn’t just happen to people. When we impoverish nature, we also impoverish people. And that is a clearly religious concern.
CC: How has your relationship changed how you discuss environmental or religious issues with others?
KEN: It’s given me a little gumption, a little nerve, a little fire in the belly. Unfortunately, evangelical churches in the United States have been a kind of gathering place for people who feel comfortable not caring too much about “environmental concerns” or who view them as the effete concerns of the academic elites who don’t have the normal problems of everyday people so they can afford to be upset about the spotted owls. That can create a social environment where people who do care about the environment get intimidated or put the muzzle on their passion. It can feel like a passion that somehow isn’t a faith-generated passion. It’s more like a hobby than a central concern of faith.
But I find Carl’s passion about the environment to be nothing but sane and reasonable and completely in keeping with my faith. So he’s given me a little backbone on this issue.
CARL: Mainly, because Ken views this as a moral matter, it helps me talk to scientists about the environment not just as a matter of new findings and lines on graphs, not just about trends in animal populations, but as a matter of universal moral concern. Morality is powerful because it’s more conservative than the way most environmentalists approach the issues. Environmentalists ask, “Is this sustainable?” This is a sound question but it’s more open to fudging and abuse and lip-service by people whose real interests lie elsewhere, so it doesn’t get applied well. The moral perspective sets a higher standard, asking, “Is this right, or is it wrong?” That is more difficult to answer in a complex world. But if we’d taken that view all along, we’d have gone slower, and we wouldn’t be facing the dangerous situations we’ve created. Fundamentally, understanding Ken’s views about the morality of our relationship to creation allows me to speak openly about life on planet Earth as a matter of the most basic and most crucial practical as well as moral importance to all people, everywhere. Frankly, I think more people will be able to hear that message.
For more information on forging surprising friendships, visit www.thefriendshipproject.org. To read about the original meeting and the “Urgent Call to Action” click here.
Carl Safina is President of Blue Ocean Institute.
Ken Wilson is Senior Pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, MI and Regional Overseer of the Great Lakes Region of Vineyard Churches.
Special thanks to Blue Ocean Institute post-doctoral fellow Marah Hardt for conducting the interview.
The Friendship Collaborative: Part 1
August 18, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. This is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 appears here.
Pastor Ken Wilson and scientist Carl Safina met in an unexpected way. They’d both agreed to attend a retreat in the longleaf pine woods of South Georgia that brought together evangelical leaders and some of the world’s top scientists. They were responding, in part, to the invitation made by scientist and author E.O. Wilson in his book The Creation, in which he called on conservative Christians and scientists to work together to honor and protect God’s handiwork.
At that meeting, the participants discovered that they had much to agree upon. Months later they released an “Urgent Call to Action,” which stated in part “We clearly share a profound moral obligation and sense of vocation to save the imperiled living world before our damages to it remake it as another kind of planet.”
Though it was the public statement that captured media attention, some of the participants discovered something else at the retreat. They weren’t merely “co-belligerents” uniting to fight a common threat. They liked each other. They had much to learn from each other, but they left as friends, and committed themselves to intentionally strengthen their ties. Wilson, Senior Pastor of Vineyard Church Ann Arbor, and Safina, President of Blue Ocean Institute, learned from and enjoyed their unique friendship so much that they decided to forge “The Friendship Collaborative” to foster more bridge-building between other scientists and people of faith. Their premise is simply what worked for them: the chance to meet face to face and talk about shared beliefs regarding creation and the environment that supports life.
Blue Ocean Institute staffer Marah Hardt conducted the interview for Creation Care magazine. She asked Wilson and Safina to reflect upon the mutual influence and insight sprung from their unexpected friendship.
CC: What have you gotten from each other about your faith and your science that you didn’t get before?
KEN: Carl taught me that love for the natural world could be a mystical experience. I read his book, Song for the Blue Ocean, after working with him in one of the small working groups at the retreat in Georgia where we met. In the book, Carl described experiences with nature that were very much like experiences I’ve had in prayer—mystical experiences that involve a sense of being connected with something greater than yourself in such a way that the ordinary boundaries of the self as a separate entity in the world blur, giving way to intuitive sense. Carl was having these experiences, primarily with the ocean that he loves, and writing about them in a way that built a bridge to my experience as a praying person.
So I credit Carl with being an important part of revealing to me something that is in fact, central to my own faith: understanding reality—the world around us—as a mystical place and as a window through which we can see the real God.
CARL: Science and religion differ mainly in that science demands proof and religion demands faith. That seems like a fundamental difference. But through Ken I’ve come to better understand that science and faith share a desire to know the world, and by so doing, to understand the human role here. That is a fundamental similarity. To me it runs deeper than the theological difference of perspective. In fact, if Ken can come from a theological perspective and I can come from a scientific perspective and we arrive at a similar view of our responsibilities to creation, it speaks powerfully of what we must do. It also speaks powerfully of what we can do together. To me it opens the possibility of saving the planetary world from human destruction. Science cannot save the world. Only a value system that decides that saving the world is important can actually save it. Science can only provide information and predictions. So science and religion need each other here. And Ken has shown me that this can seem a natural, easy, and enjoyable alliance.
CC: What surprised you about each other?
KEN: His intuitive grasp of religion. Carl presented himself to me on first inspection as a no-nonsense New Yorker who perhaps didn’t have a personal interest in religion. He described himself to me as atheist and secular, though he said he prefers the term secular because it’s more about what he’s for than what he doesn’t believe.
I suppose it was my own ignorance of the intentionally secular sensibility that thought of this as a non-religious sensibility. But like I said, I found Carl to be someone I could talk to about religion, knowing that he had an intuitive grasp of the subject. So I think he’s a religious secular guy!
For example, he told me early on that his two heroes were Charles Darwin, for showing us the relatedness of all living things, and Jesus of Nazareth, for his teaching on loving our enemies, which showed us that all human beings are related. It blew me away that he had latched on to the central and distinctive thought of Jesus, and not some side issue that happened to appeal to him. That shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.
CARL: Ken is very welcoming. I was very open with him about the fact that I am secular. When people first meet me, it’s not unusual for them to think I’m religious in the usual sense of equating religious with belief in God. I didn’t want any misunderstanding. But people also often believe that science is the opposite of religion. That’s not at all true. Science and religion are very similar in some ways and very different in others, but they’re not opposing forces. They ask different questions and perform very different roles in society. And many scientists have a strong faith in God. I respectfully explained to Ken that my view on the question of whether God exists had little to do with science and everything to do with the suffering of innocents. Ken really took me by surprise by saying he respected that view. I realized that Ken and I both have bigger fish to fry, so to speak. I realized that after that there were no barriers between me and Ken and that we could really enjoy a very warm friendship and try to maybe accomplish something good together.
This is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 appears here.
For more information on forging surprising friendships, visit www.thefriendshipproject.org. To read about the original meeting and the “Urgent Call to Action” click here.
Carl Safina is President of Blue Ocean Institute.
Ken Wilson is Senior Pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, MI and Regional Overseer of the Great Lakes Region of Vineyard Churches.
Special thanks to Blue Ocean Institute post-doctoral fellow Marah Hardt for conducting the interview.
Practical Strategies For Honoring The Sabbath by Nancy Sleeth
August 15, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Sabbath observance invites us to stop. It invites us to rest. It asks us to notice that while we rest the world continues without our help. It invites us to delight in the world’s beauty and abundance. - Wendell Berry, Foreword to Living the Sabbath by Norman Wirzba
How can you be more intentional about your Sabbath rest? Jesus says that it’s the spirit of the law, not the letter, that matters. Your Sabbath traditions can be negative—no shopping,no Internet cruising or emailing, no eating out. Or, they can be positive—reading a family book out loud, playing board games, going on a prayer walk.
Adapt a few of the suggestions below to create your own Sabbath rituals. Our family cleans the house together the day before the Sabbath. We’ve been doing this for years; it takes about 40 minutes for us to clear up clutter, dust, vacuum, scrub bathrooms, wash floors, and deep clean the kitchen. The reward is a relaxed home, with (almost!) everything in its place To step fully into Sabbath time, take off your watch. Leave it in a drawer from sundown to sundown. Notice how many times you automatically look at your wrist to check the time; instead, use that glance as a prompt to thank God for the gift of rest, so necessary for the renewal of life.
We not only need to cease working; we need to cease worrying about not working. Try putting away anything that reminds you of work. Shut down the computer. Don’t answer email. Place your wallet, palm pilot, and unpaid bills in a drawer. Close the door to your home office. Reminders of chores left undone, calls that need to be returned, and long to-do lists will interfere with the full rest that God wants us to enjoy.
One of our favorite Sabbath rituals is to take a Sabbath walk. Observe and investigate. Enjoy watching the caterpillar nibble a leaf, marvel at the new buds that are forming, watch a gathering of birds peck for food in the ground. When you pass neighbors or acquaintances, stop and talk. Enjoy a special stroll with a child or grandchild. Because they are closer to the ground (and closer to God’s sense of time), you are guaranteed to see things through their eyes that you normally would pass right by. There is no lack of wonder in the world, only a lack of wonderment.
Demonstrate your love of Creation by bringing a trash bag on your walk. If you have kids, ask one to carry a bag for plastics, one for cans, and one for glass that you will later recycle. Is this “work?” In large part, that depends on the spirit behind the act. If you are healing the land, just as Jesus healed the withered hand, you’re probably walking on safe ground.
Another Sabbath discipline is to spend at least ten minutes completely surrounded by nature. Some of our most memorable times as a couple have been in silence: sitting on a sunny south facing slope in winter, leaning against a tree at the edge of a cool forest in summer, watching streams flow by any time of year. Make sure you can see nothing manmade—even if you have to restrict your vision to one square foot of grass. Study the “other book” referred to by Paul in Romans 1:20, the book of God’s creation, and see what it reveals to you about the nature of our Lord.
Our lives are filled with noise. Give at least one noisy appliance or device— the dishwasher, your washing machine or dryer, the TV, your telephone—a day of rest, and listen to the quiet.
Go one step farther: unplug EVERYTHING electronic except the refrigerator. Sound radical? Jesus didn’t use text messaging or PowerPoint—and his ministry was pretty successful.
Consider including an hour of silence in your Sabbath day. If you have young children, make each child a Sabbath box that is only brought out once a week, filled with watercolors, new books from the library, a journal, and other ageappropriate treats.
After church, we have a ritual of Bible study by osmosis. We get into comfortable clothes, open the Bible, read a few passages, then take a nap. In our busy lives, a nap feels like a luxurious indulgence, costs nothing, uses no energy, and charges us up for the week ahead.
Say a Sabbath prayer, such as Psalm 92 (called A Psalm for the Sabbath Day), or a meditation such as this:
Dear Heavenly Father, still my mind, my body, and my soul. Teach me to come to rest and behold the wonder of your creation. Remind me that the Sabbath way of life is not one of endless toil, but a holy cycle of work and rest, fellowship and solitude, laughter and silence. Teach me, glorious Creator, to pattern the rhythms of my life on yours, to remember my deliverance from bondage, and to accept the sacred gifts of peace and balance.
Running On Wind
August 14, 2008
This news post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
A May report released by the Department of Energy makes the projection that, with improvements in technology and more funding, the U.S. could be relying on wind power to provide 20% of its energy by 2030.
The report indicates that an increased reliance on wind power for the nation’s electricity-generation could displace up to 50% of our natural gas consumption and 18% of our coal consumption, as well as reduce the amount of water required to generate electricity through hydropower.
The optimism of the report is tempered by the realities of what must be accomplished in order to realize this projection. Improvements in wind turbine technology, an increase in the pace of wind turbine installation, and reductions in wind energy costs are just a few of the steps that must be taken in order to establish a more viable wind energy industry. Estimates place such advancements at near $197 billion, although this cost would be largely offset by a reduction in fuel expenditures.
A shift toward wind-generated electricity would drastically reduce the nation’s dependency on global warming-causing fossil fuels.
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.
