Environmentalists are ratbags
This is the second of a Easter trinity of thought-blogs on "thecology" – my attempt to blend ecology with theology.
Over history, the church as a whole has become brilliant at condemning those outside the "norms" of traditional doctrinal thought.
Or in fact pretty much any new idea or movement.
Working somewhat backwards through time, the church condemned the digital revolution, the sexual revolution, rock music (including Elvis), African music, post-modernism, modernism, Darwinism, the Enlightenment, the abolishment of slavery, coffee houses and perhaps most famously, astronomy.
Let us not forget that it was that "great" thinker Martin Luther (who brought about the protestant movement away from the Roman Catholic church), who was most critical of Copernicus when the astronomer declared that in fact the Earth revolved around the sun, not visa versa. Describing Copernicus as "a fool who went against Holy Writ", Luther wrote in Tischreden, "There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must needs invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth."
The church, of course, like any conservative body, will tend to hang onto the old, at the expense of the new. It wasn't just Marx who recognised that anything new threatens the old, and therefore must be extinguished if there is not to be revolution.
Funnily enough, when I reflect on Jesus of Nazareth and the way he encountered the conservative Jewish power structure, he was also seen as the radical element with crazy ideas who had to be crushed. The early church pretty much picked up the baton where he left off, and as a radical element within society, set about trying to change it for the better. The church I believe Jesus left behind, was one that was a counter-cultural freedom force to the archaic and oppressing power structures of society, not a way of adding to the oppression, and the restricting of ideas.
How does all this tie in with modern environmentalists being ratbags?
The modern church is a very eclectic sisterhood, but on the whole it is undeniably a very conservative element in society. When environmentalists, who usually side with the politically left, push for radical change in the way the world does things (such as, shock horror, turning away from a dependence on fossil fuels, stopping the cutting down of forests for palm oil, or encouraging some farmers to destock so that precious landscapes can recover), the church as a whole will tut-tut from the sidelines. Those who chain themselves to trees, or bulldozers, or get upset when churches continue to use polystyrene cups for their after-service coffees, are dismissed as ratbags, and not really interested in looking after their fellow humans. "After all," the argument in some heads seems to go, "God put us in charge of this world to 'rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals' [Genesis 1:26], not for them to rule over us!" Like most on the conservative side of politics, "jobs" and "the economy" become more important than the vulnerable pink-tailed worm lizard or the pollution and destruction that we are causing today. How many churches have bike racks outside or encourage the use of public transport? How many churches when they are updating or rebuilding facilities think progressively about the environmental impacts of their building?
No, unfortunately, environmentalists are generally considered "ratbags" with a different and hence conflicting agenda to the mainstream church. They may be tolerated, or even treated with well-meaning good humour and grace, but are rarely listened to or considered modern-day prophets.
Yet, any decent glance at the heart of scripture, reveals a God who desires for us to care for all of his creation. "I brought you to a garden land where you could eat lush fruit. But you barged in and polluted my land, trashed and defiled my dear land," Jeremiah thunders in 2:7-8 (The Message).
It's interesting that Darren Aronofsky's modern take on Noah includes such fundamental ecological messages at its heart. Perhaps, if more of us understood the radical nature of Jesus of Nazareth and his desire for us to be society's change-makers, then such an environmental message wouldn't have been such a shock to the church.
In the meantime I, for one, am more than content to be one of the church's known ratbags.
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