Touching God In The Waves: Part 1
July 28, 2008
Christian Buckley is a writer, businessman, and lawyer. He is the founder of Covered Images, Inc. and serves on the Board of Directors of Christian Surfers United States (christiansurfers.com) and Kor World Ministries (korministries.com). He holds a Doctorate in Jurisprudence from UCLA and a BA in History from the University of California Irvine. He lives in San Diego with his wife Bridget and two children Maeve and Brendan. He likes dogs, but does not currently own one. You can reach him at Christian@thinkmoretruth.com.
Photography by Aaron Chang.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1: 19-20 esv)
A Romans 1 Defense of Environmentalism
As a surfer, some of the most profoundly connective experiences I have had to God have come in the water. For me, the best time to surf is at sunset, often referred to as an “evening glass-off” session in southern California. At sunset during the late summer months, the wind is calmed and the surface of the water is stilled. The waves turn glassy, and as the sun drops beneath the horizon line of the ocean, the water turns mercurial in nature. Over the past twenty or so years, it has been during these evening moments on my board that I have felt enveloped in God’s creative love and power.
It should come as no surprise that, as the Chairman of Christian Surfers United States (CSUS), I am a fan of the ocean and have a general desire to protect and enjoy it. I am a lifetime member of the Surfrider Foundation, and in my younger years I worked as a California State Beach Lifeguard, protecting and educating people in and around the ocean.
It might, however, come as a surprise that I neither really consider myself an environmentalist in the contemporary sense of the word, nor do I fully agree that the Bible, at least in the Old Testament, provides an obvious basis for environmental action by Christians. Spending the past several years both as a businessman and lawyer, I have struggled with the place of social investment of any form in the life of a believer, frequently trying to reconcile massive temporal injustice and suffering with the New Testament’s call for believers to be eternally focused and unencumbered by earthly matters. For that reason, I am perhaps an unexpected and yet apt writer in this setting.
As a Christian, I make social investments. I actually make a lot of them. I think it is important to do so both personally and spiritually, but it is not absolutely important in the same eternal sense that true spiritual regeneration is. It is contextually important. I realize that Christ did create, by his mere existence and doctrinal providence, social change. He did, quite frequently, relieve suffering, feed the hungry, cure the sick, and help children. He actually restored life to the lifeless. However, I also realize that Christ did not set social investment and change as his primary or even consistent agenda. He came to seek and to save the lost. He was born to live perfection and die perfection. He came to provide the sole means to an eternal relationship with God. (See Luke 19:10, John 14:6 and 17:3, Acts 4:12, 2 Cor. 5:21.)
Strangely enough, this is where the case for Christian environmentalism begins for me. For a person to accept Christ as savior, he or she must first become aware of the creator and sustainer God. I believe that for this generation, Romans 1:19-20 describes the purest mechanism for this initial connection: His creation.
In this passage, Paul makes it clear that because God reveals himself to each of us in and through His creation, we are without excuse concerning the knowledge of His existence. When God rested on the seventh day, he left in his creation enduring reflections of his perfection, power, brilliance, and goodness. Stated simply, creation reveals unambiguous markings of God’s creative imprint.
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2 Responses to “Touching God In The Waves: Part 1”
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I love your title… as I always find myself literally touching the waves as I ride them… few things give me more joy than simply touching a wave as I ride it.
I love your post.
J
[...] post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 appeared [...]