Stewardship in the Snow
January 13, 2009
It’s snowing again.
Since moving to Illinois, I’ve had to get used to the snow, and, if I want to keep my sanity, even develop a love for it. I love how it pacifies things: how everything gets still and quiet and slow under the snow, so that even the slightest movement from a bird or squirrel stands out from the rest of the world in stark and startling contrast. When it snows in my neighborhood, people stand in their driveways listening to it whisper, and kids play ice hockey on the frozen pond down the street. A camaraderie develops between neighbors as we shovel out our houses and finally have something to talk about: the snow.
All that shoveling-out-our-houses has made me wonder, however, if we’re counteracting God’s beautiful miracle of snow with actions that are destructive to Creation. I’m talking about de-icing. That final step in the snow-removal process. Pouring little white granules on my driveway and front steps makes me wonder, what is it? How does it work? Where does it go? What else does it destroy besides ice?
I found a few answers about salt and other de-icing compounds in these two articles. The bottom line? What we use to keep our walk and driveways ice-free can harm plants and animals, and eventually run off and exacerbate pollution or sedimentation in local waterways. Our best response to snowy days is to keep up with good old-fashioned shoveling (preferably with actual shovels, to keep from polluting the air with emissions from snow blowers or vehicular plows)–protecting God’s earth with the muscles and the energy he gave us.
Do Retailers Know Us Best?
December 22, 2008
by Rusty Pritchard
Three pieces of writing occupied my mind this morning. All are relevant to the storm of consumption that strikes the nation at year’s end. One came in the annual double Christmas issue of The Economist: a disturbing review of brain science research into the psychology of shopping, much of it proprietary. Corporations have sponsored numerous studies in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see which parts of a consumer’s brain respond to which products or brands. The Economist cites an academic researcher:
“We are just at the frontier of the subconscious,” says Eric Spangenberg, dean of the College of Business at Washington State University and an expert on the subtleties of marketing. “We know it’s there, we know there are responses and we know it is significant.” But companies commissioning such studies keep the results secret for commercial reasons. This makes Dr. Spangenberg sure of one thing: “What I think I know, they probably know way more.”
In our most basic (and base) appetites and desires, we are known intimately by retailers, and they use that knowledge to manipulate us. For many people, being known leads to enslavement.
What a contrast to the way we are known by God!
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? (Galatians 4:8-9)
As Joanna and I were praying this morning, she prayed something that came from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermon “Transformed Nonconformist”. We looked up the quote later:
Everywhere and at all times, the love ethic of Jesus is a radiant light revealing the ugliness of our state conformity.
In spite of this imperative demand to live differently, we have cultivated a mass mind and have moved from the extreme of rugged individualism to the even greater extreme of rugged collectivism. We are not makers of history; we are made by history. Longfellow said, “In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer,” meaning that he is either a molder of society or is molded by society. Who doubts that today most men are anvils and are shaped by the patterns of the majority? Or to change the figure, most people, and Christians in particular, are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion, not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society (from Chapter 2 of King’s Strength to Love).
I don’t doubt that most of us who claim to be believers (including me), if subjected to a brain scan of our responses to brands and shopping opportunities, would respond almost exactly as the world does. Part of the response comes from just being human.
Does a response that comes from the spirit as well as from the gut make a difference to our consumptions decisions. So far, there is no magnetic resonance imaging device to track our spiritual responses to commercial culture. Can we cultivate a spirit of transformed nonconformism that controls our merely human responses? Can we be the hammer and not the anvil, the thermostat and not the thermometer?
Retailers think they know us; we think we are known by God. For Americans, the holiday shopping season may be the best test of who knows us best.
Rusty Pritchard is a natural resource economist and the editor of Creation Care magazine.
What If We Had a Year of Jubilee?
December 17, 2008
by Ariah Fine
The Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25) is one of the most radical things I’ve come across in the Bible. It’s one of those passages non-Christians should know and ask all the Christians they talk to about, and expect some sort of a response regarding it. The Year of Jubilee is many things, but one thing it is in particular is a time for all debts to be forgiven, and everyone to have a fresh start. Could you imagine this happening? It’s supposed to happen about once every 50 years, so let’s just say, oh 2009 happens to be the next Jubilee Year. What would happen if this was carried out on an Individual Level? Church? City? Country? World?
Read more
Creation Care coloring books
December 17, 2008
From Jonathan Merritt:
I ran across something surprising today: a creation care coloring book for children. I would never have thought about something like that, but it is a great idea. Never too early to get your children thinking about creation care stewardship. But, here is something even better: IT’S ABSOLUTELY FREE. Check it out at http://www.marvelbelievecare.
Blog Highlight: The Wonder of Creation
November 20, 2008
RBC Ministries, publisher of the popular Our Daily Bread devotional
booklet and producer of the Day of Discovery television program, has a
new sub-site on its website dedicated to the wonder of creation and to
a theology of nature that includes a strong call to evangelicals to
care for creation. The author and host of “WonderOfCreation.org” is
Dean Ohlman, an advocate of evangelical involvement in creation care
for twenty years. The new resource is, according to Dean, a sort of
hybrid blog and website that encourages input from visitors. One
unique aspect of the site is the “Wonder Kids” page that provides tips
on getting kids outdoors and helping them develop a biblical worldview
regarding the stewardship of the creation. You can check it out at
this URL: http://www.wonderofcreation.
Dumping on Recycling
November 14, 2008
The practice of recycling is incredibly popular. It’s usually one of the first practices adopted by people trying to go green. But its popularity has also led to a backlash: it’s currently pretty fashionable to dump on recycling. Critics seem to make three main claims: (1) that the problem they were intended to solve (overflowing, dangerous landfills) never really existed, (2) that the the benefits of recycling are scant and the costs too high, and (3) that recycling actually harms the environment!
The critics are right about point number one: We’re not “running out” of landfill space, and we never were.
2008 Day of Prayer for Creation!
October 29, 2008
Join with the 
Renewal student network today as college students across the world pray for the renewal of God’s creation. You don’t have to be a college student or even know one to join in this day of prayer: pray for forgiveness for our treatment of God’s world, pray for wisdom in how to take better care of that world, pray for God’s love to be known throughout creation, and pray out of gratitude for the marvelous natural world he has placed us in! For more information and ideas for prayer today (and every day!) visit www.renewingcreation.org/get-involved/pray/2008-day-of-prayer.
Science Gateway: Extinction and Its Causes
October 20, 2008
by Kyle S. Van Houtan, from Creation Care magazine Issue 37, Fall 2008
Extinction
A key word scientists use to describe the biodiversity crisis may surprise you. “Extinction” literally refers to putting out a fire or light, and some of its early uses appear in Christian texts. The 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, for example, petitions Christ to “grant that all sin and vice here may be so extinct” and so extinguish the fire of one’s sin. Other uses of the word are perhaps more familiar. In the King James Bible, an exasperated Job cries, “My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me” (17:1), and the Oxford English Dictionary declares “the dodo went extinct.” This last example is what we might recognize. The passenger pigeon, ivory-billed woodpecker, or any number of other creatures come to mind. But a scientific account of animals and plants cannot by itself describe the significance of extinction. Driving an entire group of creatures to oblivion is more than a biological act: it is the extinguishing of a light kindled by the One whom James refers to as “the Father of lights” (1:17). Extinction is a theological act.
What Is a Species? How Many Are There? Read more
The Joy of Bees
October 20, 2008
by Margie Haack, from Creation Care Issue 35, Spring 2008
A long time ago when our children were young and we lived in Albuquerque, Denis traveled a lot. The reason I mention he traveled a lot is because when he was out of town there was some kind of cosmic balance that shifted and it did nothing to favor me. Thus trips to the ER, little fires in the kitchen, escaped animals, and most annoyingly, the times when our bees swarmed, happened when he was gone and I was left to deal. It was easy to imagine him in El Paso drinking Corona, eating chili rellenos someone else labored to make, and having lively conversations with students and staff about theology and culture while I tried to capture bees from the yard of a neighbor who was calling the police and demanding I be arrested.
It was a time in our lives when we were determined to live simply, become urban farmers, and eat healthy. (I admit tanning rabbit hides in the garage didn’t work. Just five minutes at midday was hot enough to give a lizard heatstroke. My dreams of stitching rabbit hides into mittens, slippers, and rugs perished when the hides rotted with such ferocity the odor would have killed a dung beetle.) In all the books I read no one mentioned any of this would be difficult or dangerous. Read more
A Covenant with Creation
October 20, 2008
by Peter Illyn, from Creation Care magazine issue 37, Fall 2008
Fifteen years ago I cut my teeth as an environmental activist by building theological support for the protection of species and biological diversity. My story is simple. After 10 years as an evangelical minister, I bought two llamas and went on a 1,000 mile hike up the spine of the Cascade Mountains. During the four months of hiking, I developed a heart-felt relationship with the mountains, the meadows, the groves of trees, the songbirds, and the elk. Day after day, I sensed the praise and worship that Scripture says all parts of creation are offering to God. It was a sacred time.
Extinction Isn’t Stewardship
But it was also a conflicted time. Read more
