The Missing Link
December 3, 2008
While more and more churches are awakening to God’s call to creation care and stewardship of the earth, I find that relatively few are thinking about environmental impacts on the world’s poor or about broader environmental issues beyond the U.S. border. The connection between poverty and tropical deforestation has long been one of my hot button issues—first because the connection is so close, and second because the rural poor are some of the most forgotten, voiceless people in the world. But I have been told several times recently that people don’t link these issues to creation care:
“Sure we want to begin recycling, saving energy and reducing our carbon footprint, but tropical deforestation? Poverty? Shouldn’t you be talking to the missions committee?” Read more
Coming Up: Following Christ 2008 Conference
November 6, 2008
Many people don’t realize that Intervarsity’s Following Christ 2008conference –coming up on December 27-31 in Chicago–is for just about everyone! You don’t have to be in an InterVarsity group, you just have to be active in or care about the world of the university and professions. Registration is happening now for this incredibly exciting conference.
The theme of the conference for 2008 is Human Flourishing–”what it truly is, what’s wrong when it’s absent, and how God is calling us to both model and multiply it.” The conference website has a great essay on the theme of human flourishing. Plenary speakers
include Anglican Bisoph N.T. Wright, Andy Crouch (author of the new book Culture Making), Francis Collins (former director of the Human Genome Project), Anne C. Bailey (historian of the African slave trade), and others.
Rusty Pritchard, editor of Creation Care magazine and National Outreach Director for the Evangelical Environmental Network, will lead the conference’s “God’s Green Kingdom” track, addressing the connections between theology, environment, and human societies. The track will also feature Steven Bouma-Prediger, one of the world’s leading scholars of theology, ethics, and the environment, and Scott Sabin, the executive director of Floresta, an evangelical development agency focusing on microenterprise and reforestation.
The conference’s other multi-disciplinary tracks include “The Promise of Shalom” and
“Doubting Jesus,” plus a host of tracks centered on more specific disciplines and professions. You can go ahead and download the 1.8 Mb conference brochure here
or visit the conference website for more information.
“I think that because it’s so simple, people just don’t get it.”
November 4, 2008
Planting a tree seems so simple, and like such a small creation care step, that most of the time we neglect its importance. In reality, tree cover can mean the difference between life and death for many communities around the world.
Visit www.floresta.org to learn more about the importance of trees, and read here about World Vision’s reforestation initiative throughout Africa.
Put me in, Coach!
October 29, 2008
A colleague who used to work with me at Floresta told me that he became a Christian, in part, because of the despair he felt as an environmental studies major, as he learned about the dire state of our planet. The problems were just too big. All of the solutions proposed by science and government came up short. As far as he could see, there was no hope for the world, except in Christ. And of course, that is what we believe: that Jesus is the hope for the world.
Obviously you could look at many things and draw the same conclusion: injustice, poverty, disease, morality—it is hard to see hope, outside of miraculous intervention from Jesus. But we can always pretend that human nature is going to change, or that we will come up with a magic economic formula (microfinance, perhaps?) or drug that eliminates poverty and disease. Or that once we spread democracy, injustice will cease. With the environment, our ultimate failure is more obvious and possibly more immediate. It is hard to look at deforestation, or the state of the oceans, or climate change and not despair.
However, as Christians, we believe that we will win, that in fact we have already won. Jesus won the victory over death—and what is happening to creation is death—at Calvary. What then is this fight that we are locked in? As I have been involved in community development for the past fifteen years and have seen the importance of local participation, I have become more and more convinced that it is part of what this is about. God doesn’t need us to redeem the world. He has done it. He doesn’t need us to feed the poor, or fight injustice, or care for creation. Rather He allows us to participate in what He is doing in the world.
I think of all of the times that my eight-year-old and my-five-year-old ask to help me with something that I can much more easily do myself. Yet one of the most important things I can do for them is let them help. I think God lets us help, not because he needs us, but because it is good for us. By participating we begin to better understand the heart of God. As we serve the poor, we feel his passion for the lost and the oppressed, the widow and the orphan. We feel his anger at injustice as we fight human trafficking. And we feel His love for the things He has created: the mountains, the forests, the streams, the creatures and the people, as we work to protect them and serve them.
As I have thought about this, I am reminded of the movie Rudy, in which the title character dreams of playing football for Notre Dame. Rudy doesn’t have the size or the talent for it, but his sheer dedication and heart earn him a spot on the team—or at least a spot on the bench. Finally, in the last game, when the outcome is assured, the coach lets Rudy play and he plays his heart out. It becomes the stuff of legend.
That’s where I think we are. The outcome is assured, but nonetheless we get to be in the game. We get to participate in God’s plan of redemption, announcing that his Kingdom is near. I have to remind myself of this sometimes when, for example, I see the disparity between our tiny efforts at reforestation and the environmental degradation that is dooming so many people to hunger, poverty and death. I am tempted by despair. Instead I should remember the privilege I have of getting to be in the game and doing what God has called me to do, participating in His victory. Let’s play our hearts out, and, as Tony Campolo once said, “let’s be heroes!”
Scott C. Sabin is the executive director of Floresta, a Christian nonprofit organization that reverses deforestation and poverty in the world by transforming the lives of the rural poor (www.floresta.org).
From the Mission Field: Our AC Addiction
September 29, 2008
By Rick Burnette
These days you don’t have to drive too long before coming across a hybrid car. High gasoline prices are finally having an effect. SUVs are out and hybrids, as well as other high mileage vehicles, are suddenly very much in demand. We simply can’t afford the gas.
What about homes? Families are beginning to feel the pain of electric bills. Many, particularly lower income households in colder climes, are quite worried about how they’ll be able to pay the heating bill this winter.
But, from what I’ve observed in the South, folk haven’t yet reached the point of cutting back on their beloved air conditioning. To recommend as much would be tantamount to suggesting that Southerners stop drinking sweet tea. Read more
Christian Environmentalism: Debunking The Myths
May 9, 2008
Scott C. Sabin is the executive director of Floresta, a Christian nonprofit organization that reverses deforestation and poverty in the world by transforming the lives of the rural poor (www.floresta.org).
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
When I first got involved at the interface of Christian development work and the Christian environmental movement fifteen years ago, voices were few and the audience skeptical. Thankfully, that is rapidly changing. There is a ground-swell of Christians who see care for creation as a vital part of their walk with Christ. However, as I talk to people, I still hear three common myths, which I will address in turn.
MYTH 1: ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN WILL CAUSE YOU TO WORSHIP THE CREATION INSTEAD OF THE CREATOR.
I have always found this puzzling. Wilderness and nature have the opposite effect on me. My involvement has taught me about the incredible intricacy and complexity of God’s creation, reminding me of His attributes and my own humble place. “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:4). It is probably no accident that so many of us became Christians while at camp, where, as we learned of God’s love for us, we could look up and see that “the Heavens declare the glory of God.” (Ps. 19:1). Or where, as we sat in humility, like Job, somewhere inside us a voice asked “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4). For centuries, creation has been understood to be part of God’s general revelation, something that He called good, and which according to Paul, provides enough evidence of Him to leave us without excuse.
Indeed, I have never met a Christian who was tempted to worship creation. Instead I have met many Christian biologists and ecologists who have helped me to rediscover awe, wonder and mystery in creation, and to see the signature of the Creator in unexpected places. Far from straying from the Bible, one of the things that surprised me was how much these scientists used scripture and relied on it in their understanding of our role in taking care of the earth.
MYTH 2: YOU CAN’T CARE ABOUT BOTH PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT.
At Floresta, it was our concern for the poor and hungry that led us inevitably towards caring for their environment. In our affluence, Americans have often been shielded from the consequences of our environmental decisions. If water is scarce or contaminated we can pay to pipe it across the country and purify it. If soil is degraded we can pay for fertilizers and amendments. The cost of seafood goes up, but you can still find your favorite delicacy. Because we are buffered from direct feedback, we tend to forget that
the environment is our life-support system.
But the poor immediately feel the effects of environmental degradation, whether through drought induced by climate change, chronic diarrhea due to contaminated water, malaria epidemics exacerbated by deforestation, or myriad other examples. Any response to the needs of poor people that hopes to be sustainable must consider the environment. Conversely, in the developing world, any sustainable conservation effort must consider the needs of the poor. I hope to be exploring this relationship between poverty and the environment more deeply in future issues of this magazine. People and creation are part of the same system, and intimately connected
MYTH 3: DEEP DOWN THIS IS ALL ABOUT A POLITICAL AGENDA.
There are policy issues with immense bearing on the health of creation, which I believe that we should take very seriously. However, much of what is going on around the globe transcends politics, or defies easy political classification. For example, environmentalism is often depicted as being against private property. Yet at Floresta we have found ourselves advocating for property rights. Poor farmers who have the right to use wood and products from trees they plant will be much more likely to plant and care for them in the first place. Similarly poor farmers are more effective stewards of land that they are assured of being able to use in the future. But in other situations, government protection might make most sense.
The idea that stewardship and conservation are part of a liberal agenda seems ludicrous in much of the developing world. I remember the shock on our Dominican director’s face when I first tried to explain the suspicion with which many of our American donors regarded the environmental aspects of our work. The issues just don’t line up the same in Latin America of Africa. Being free of the political baggage that we carry here in the US, many of our brothers and sisters of in the developing world are way ahead of us in their understanding of stewardship. Americans who are not ready to change votes or party affiliations can still be good stewards and creation care advocates. There are dozens of lifestyle choices that have nothing to do with politics. All of us can live more simply, drive less, recycle, buy food locally, etc. In our churches we can bring attention to the scriptural basis for stewardship—many Bible studies exist. We can encourage our churches and workplaces to reduce their own consumption and waste. And we can support organizations like A Rocha, Care of Creation, Marah International, or Floresta, which balance the focus on politics by working directly in endangered or vulnerable corners of creation.
God has called all of us to be stewards of the earth and in so doing to love our neighbors. There is a place for all of us to respond to Him.
Don’t Write Off Tree Planting
April 24, 2008
A lot of attention, not all of it complimentary, has been given to the trend for celebrities and others to plant trees to offset their “carbon footprint.” While some congratulate this effort, others have likened it to the infamous practice of buying indulgences to offset your sins. All agree that it is, at best, a partial solution to climate change.
But the effort should not be so quickly discounted. Fighting climate change is only a small part of the story. There are many other good reasons to plant trees, especially in the tropics. Floresta, the ministry which I direct, began planting trees nearly twenty five years ago, when we realized that deforestation was a major contributor to rural poverty in poor countries. The link between trees and poverty may seem obscure at first, but there is a remarkable connection between the two. Though largely hidden from our sight and consciousness, farmers working at or near the subsistence level still make up a huge proportion of the world’s population. Many of them, working with crude hand tools, eke their living from rocky hillsides, while walking for hours to get water and firewood. Among the poorest of the poor, they lag in almost every area of human development. Their soil and their water are their only assets, the only things they have on which to build a life.
And their soil and water are dependent upon the health of their watershed—upon the forests upstream and the trees in their communities. Trees are vital for preventing soil erosion, and can even help to build the soil by fixing nitrogen, bringing buried nutrients to the surface and by contributing leaf litter and other organic matter to the soil. Where the trees have been stripped from the hillsides, massive soil erosion follows, robbing the poor farmer of one of her most valuable possessions.
Water, availability and quality are also dependent on the health of the forest. Absence of trees results in a decrease in the local rainfall. This is magnified by the fact that when the rain does fall, there is little to stop it from immediately running off before it is able to soak into the ground. Where the soil is protected by a canopy of trees to break the fall of precipitation, leaf litter to slow runoff, and roots to increase soil permeability, water is able to infiltrate and replenish local aquifers. On the other hand, on uncovered soil, water can simply be the engine for erosion and downstream flashfloods. If the water does not soak in, the water table will drop and the local environment will become drier. This is one of the contributing factors to desertification and the increasing incidence of drought in many places. The farmers of many countries can point to rivers that were once reliable sources of water but which today flow only during heavy rains—and at those times, flood higher than ever in the past. These farmers often spend hours a day simply carrying water to and from their homes. Where the land has been stripped of trees a desert is soon created. But it is a reversible process!
The trees also act as a filter. Studies have shown a direct correlation between the absence of forest cover and the presence of E. coli and other contaminants. This especially impacts the rural poor who cannot afford to have water piped into the home or to buy bottled water to drink. Instead family members, especially women, often walk hours to fetch water and additional hours to collect the firewood necessary to purify water by boiling it.
Moreover, as firewood becomes scarcer and its collection costs more time and money, people are less likely to boil their water or even adequately cook their food, increasing health risk and contributing to the downward cycle of desperation. Families who already have no safety net are forced to take greater risks with their well being. There is also a direct correlation between deforestation and a number of infectious diseases. Recent studies show a direct link between malaria and deforestation, and in some locations it has been shown to be one of the most important variables in the incidence of leishmaniasis and hookworm.
Ultimately, deforestation is one of the root causes of rural emigration, as people leave the unproductive countryside in hope of a job in the overcrowded cities, or perhaps in the United States. One of the reasons that we began planting trees and working with poor farmers in the state of Oaxaca ten years ago was the realization that much of our immigration problem in Southern California is rooted in declining opportunities in the mountains of Oaxaca—a state that has been referred to as the most eroded spot on earth.
But as we have happily found, this situation can be reversed. Land can become productive again. At Floresta we have seen rivers and streams restored, and farm productivity dramatically increase. Families, split by lack of opportunity and illegal immigration, are thrilled by the opportunity to stay together. God’s plan of redemption and restoration can be graphically demonstrated as we work together with the poor to reclaim degraded lands.
So don’t discount planting trees. By all means let’s make the big lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions. But let’s plant trees too. And as you plant trees to offset what you can’t change, make sure you that the organization you are working with is doing more than merely sticking trees in the ground. By finding an organization that is working in collaboration with the poor to plant trees and restore degraded lands, your tree planting can do much more than assuage your guilt. It can literally give sustenance and health to God’s precious children.
Scott C. Sabin is the executive director of Floresta, a Christian nonprofit organization that reverses deforestation and poverty in the world by transforming the lives of the rural poor (www.floresta.org).
