Sustainability and the Church

In my work as a campus planner, the issue of sustainability has gained considerable momentum as the hot-button topic of this decade. According to the United Nations General Assembly 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, sustainability is defined as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Sustainability has taken on an air of urgency in recent years as many in the scientific and political communities have come to view the growing human population, with its associated social, environmental, and economic impacts, as being almost certainly unsustainable.

The Society for College and University Planning (or SCUP) annual international conference now includes many sustainability sessions for campus planners, architects, and consultants, and is never lacking of advice on how to go "green". As of this date, 650 university presidents in the United States have signed the President's Climate Commitment, committing to model "ways to eliminate global warming emissions, and by providing the knowledge and the educated graduates to achieve climate neutrality." In the evangelical Christian community, college students and churches are increasingly introducing Creation Care programs, and Christian leaders across the country are signing the Evangelical Climate Initiative. The elephant in the room, of course, is the strained relationship between the largely conservative evangelical movement and the environmental movement, frequently cited as being on the "liberal" agenda. As a result, many Christian leaders in higher education, such as this author, find themselves in the uncomfortable position of being convinced of the urgency of the sustainability issue, while at the same time trying to avoid any association with the left. This is a false controversy, and easily overcome through reframing of the questions to arrive at a more balanced approach.

In order to gain a more balanced perspective, the evangelical community (particularly the American community) must start at the local level to develop sustainable mindsets. This would require a wholesale change at many levels in each individual church community, followed by a network of communities into a sort of macro-community. Each community could begin be asking itself questions related to social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Some of these questions are admittedly very difficult and strike at the core of theology and church organization:

• Social: Is the way we structure our churches (i.e. church growth resulting in mega-churches) a sustainable model? Does our theology lend itself to large families which contribute to population growth?
• Environmental: Are our church buildings sustainable? Can we reduce church commutes through a different congregational model? Are we mistaking social structures (e.g. driving to church and eating out afterwards) for spiritual virtues ("fellowship") without considering other means to achieve the same end? Are we using local resources whenever possible? Does our eschatology promote an uncaring attitude toward our planet?
  
• Economic: Are we locally committing our own resources? Are we constructing buildings/programs which are financially dependent on (unsustainable) future growth?
  

In his post "A church In the Green", Ooze contributor Chris Cocca imagines what a sustainable church would look like:

People get together each week in some reclaimed space or free space in their neighborhood. There is no pastor. There is some kind of “Admin” or some similar open source analogue. Each week, the liturgy (literally, “the work of the people”), the readings, the music, the things that are shared and said, the prayers…each week these emerge from whatever is brought by the gathered. Some people bring things intentionally, things they’ve written beforehand or worked on for a while. Other people write poems and prayers or make art or music that is shared in response to what’s been going on in real time. The music is done by whoever brings instruments. Communion is shared every week, and the elements are whatever people bring (out of respect for the recovery community, maybe we nix alcohol). You don’t come expecting to be talked to but to converse. You don’t come to hear one or two people’s opinions but to build an offering. You come to hang out and live.

One could wish that this scripture from Genesis 1:28 (KJV) could be interepted differently than it often is:

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

It seems that the age of subduing and dominating the earth expired long ago. Of course, the authors of the Books of Moses could not have conceived of a spherical, fragile planet teeming with seven billion human beings in a mere 3,500 years. Does the church have the courage to admit that old ideas have passed away, and it's time to make all things new?

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On Poker and Freethought

slacktivist: Weak

"A vast number of my fellow evangelicals and my fellow Americans have come to define themselves primarily by what they are against, by that which offends them. I'm sure that many of them are, indeed, sincerely offended and sincerely opposed to the many things at which they take offense. But I am equally certain that many are less sincere and that some are wholly insincere, and I fear that the least sincere among them have taken charge."

The Slacktivist here discusses a behavior I have experienced firsthand, and which the InternetMonk has referred to as the "Tyranny of the Offended". Happily, in my own denomination, I have witnessed a deliberate move away from from the posture of being "against" and toward a more gentle attitude. But the question becomes this: for the broader American evangelical community, how much identity is invested in what we are against, and would the church even be recognizable if we let these labels fall away? For many some people I know have known, the lines they have drawn in the sand define them as Christians and serve as a very effective wall to keep outsiders out. Indeed, for peitist and holiness movements, this kind of understanding is the very foundation of the faith (notwithstanding, of course, their salvific doctrines).

It's interesting to me that the people in my circle of influence worry less about offending the weak in faith than they do about offending the powerful; people who would otherwise step outside the boundary of sanctioned behaviors and actions (for which they hold little personal conviction) most often do not out of deference to offended "powerful". Shouldn't the powerful, the best-gounded in the faith, be the most tolerant and understanding of all? Ultimately, could our separatist attitude end up actually offending the weak (whose definition?) when well-meaning Christians hesitate, or even refuse to meet them on their own terms? It seems to me to be an upside-down system.

A few of my friends in our faith comunity have joined me in living on the fringe in a number of ways. You will never find me engaged in active evangelism, but you will find me shoulder to shoulder at a poker table with people who are very different from those I work and attend church with. You will find me in freethinkers meeting, having a candid conversaton with an atheist and learning something profound in the process. You might occasionally see me reading Darwin's "Origin of Species", or Dawkin's "God Delusion". I have set aside any fear of offending the powerful, and instead choose to accept and engage "the least of these", who may actually have something to teach me after all. Humanity is a two-way street.

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The Art of Scripture

It has been many months since I have posted any original essays here. I could make the excuse that I’ve been too busy to write, or that I can’t think of anything to write about. The truth is that like most people, I have had the time to do pretty much whatever I choose, but have chosen to spend it in other ways. As for having topics to write about, there is an abundance of thought running through my mind each day, and I have imagined a hundred blogs in the months that have passed. So why haven’t I written?

If I were to answer that question honestly, I would have to say that I’ve been avoiding the inevitable. My recent philosophical and spiritual journeys have carried me far beyond the familiar territory of the evangelical Christian village where I have lived most of my life. As I’ve pondered the sights along the way, and stopped in awe to take in the unfamiliar, expansive landscapes, I’ve come to understand the richness and diversity of the human experience in the vastness of time and place. Mind you, this does not diminish the significance of my tiny village, my place of origin. Rather, it establishes the context of my former habitat, and reveals to me the larger canvas upon which is painted the masterpiece of human existence. I have become aware of my own myopia, and the dramatic change in perspective requires time for the eyes to adjust. And so for the last several months, my focus has been in flux as I have awaited a moment of clarity. These moments are coming now as night and fog give way to new vistas and overlooks.

So what is inevitable about this? Well with changing perspectives come changing beliefs. And it is inevitable that new ways of thinking will at some point either fortify or raze former building blocks of thought. Without the benefit of the larger context, the myopic view of truth may seem sufficient, and may be all that is required to be a faithful citizen of one’s village. But with the larger canvas in view, old assumptions inevitably must be examined in light of new information and evidence. Previous assumptions based on universal truths will prove to be useful in the larger context. Assumptions which thrive on narrower view, to the exclusion of the larger canvas, may be shown to be less meaningful or relevant than previously believed. One example of this which has been on my mind of late is the nature and role of scripture.

With few exceptions, the circle of people with whom I have closely associated for the past 35 years would describe themselves as evangelical, or “born again” Christians. This particular worldview has been a persistent thread running through my life. Among the non-negotiable doctrines of the evangelical Christian church is a view of the Christian scriptures, the Bible, as the literal, inspired, inerrant word of God. Many, many books have been written examining this treatise, and I have no intention of either supporting nor critiquing this central idea. I’m simply not qualified. The truth is, however, that something like 30% of American evangelicals believe in some variety of biblical literal inerrancy, and they do so despite overwhelming evidence that their view of the origin and context of scripture bears little resemblance to its true origin and context. Far from being a neatly bound, annotated, gilded-edged, harmonized love letter from God, the Christian scriptures are a not-so neat, often ambiguous, rough-around-the-edges, often self contradictory collection of writings which have survived nearly two millennia in the hands of various human beings, all of whom had an agenda in mind, however magnanimous. To be sure, it is a beautiful, inspiring, and often transformative work. To me, the prevalent literal, reductionist view of scripture does harm to the bible and degrades its value. I find it much more useful to view the Bible as art. And this requires one to take a less myopic view, to take a few steps back and view the canvas as a whole.

Consider for a moment an art professor in a college art class. His fifteen young students are sitting at the perimeter of the studio. At the center of the studio, atop a low platform, reclines a model lightly draped in white satin. Now each person reading this will have already formed a picture of this scene in their mind. Some may have envisioned a dark, beautiful nude female form, others a statuesque, modestly attired greek-god type. In any case, the students in the studio have the benefit of actually seeing the model there in front of them, and they have been charged with interpreting this form through whatever media they wish. Now it can be said with some certainty that this is not the first class to view the model and artistically interpret it. In fact, this prestigious university may have held similar art studio sessions two centuries prior, with students gathered around a model, brush in hand. It is a true statement that each student’s interpretation of the very model they see in front of them will be different than every other student’s work. In fact, it would be safe to say that the work of this class as a whole will be very different than the work of a similar class of students two centuries ago. Why? We intuitively understand the answer: each student is painting in the context of their own experience, bias, and worldview. If the model is a nude woman, some students will take liberty to paint the naughty bits a bit more modestly. Others will paint the figure more true to form, or their work will be more impressionist or abstract. It is safe to say that none of the paintings will render the model with the same true, honest result that a photograph would, nor should they.

So why is this the case? Could it be that the artists work is not intended to render with the exact duplication of a photograph? Wouldn’t the artist wish to put some of himself into his work, to allow the viewer some space to experience the work through their own interpretation? And more importantly, is the painting less valid as a representation of the subject than a photograph would be?

It is clear to me that if God inspired scripture, he used artists, not photographers, to create the picture. The Bible consists of sixty six writings by forty authors over a period of 1,500 years. And yet apologists for biblical inerrancy and literalism will offer any explanation, no matter how ill-supported, to insist on their assertion that we are looking at a photograph rather than an ancient human interpretation, however inspired. All of the artists of scripture were influenced by their context: their drive for ethnic or religious survival, their deeply held values and ethics, and their own personal or cultural world view. Do these influences invalidate the value of the scriptures? To the contrary. For me, the diversity of viewpoints, of vistas found within scripture only serves to enrich the value of these sacred works. The literalists’ reduction of all scripture to direct, God-breathed tenets at best creates a wealth of contextual conundrums, and at worst calls into question the nature of a God who would dictate such a book. It’s safer to assume that God, such that he exists, alone is inerrant, and any human effort to describe that reality will naturally fall short of that highest status. Yet these descriptions, human as they are, still provide a spectacular view and tell us much about the human condition and humankind’s aspirations to become something greater that we are or ever have been.

As Robert Price wrote in his book The Reason Driven Life, “An ambiguous, inerrant scripture is no better than an errant one”. This is to say that a literal, inerrant interpretation of the bible creates ambiguities and conflicts which are unnecessary, and which do the Bible a great injustice. This is as if an art critic, intent on learning everything he could about the aforementioned model, set forth to reduce the students’ art work to their barest elements. He would analyze the paint chips, learn everything about each artist, and attempt to “harmonize” the differences between each piece in an attempt to establish a composite picture which accurately describes the subject in photographic detail. This is an absurdity, since each piece was intended to interpret the subject on its own merit. And yet this is exactly how scripture has been treated by literal reductionists ever since the reformation began.

And so my journey continues. I’m relieved to find that what I thought was a map for my journey is instead an inspiring, insightful travel guide. I’ve learned that the map is the territory, and a rich and awe-inspiring territory it is.

A Generation Rejected

I was twice saddened this morning as I attended my church service. Each year on the anniversary of the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision, our church chooses to recognize the loss of a generation of children by solemnly marching people bearing a single rose across the platform, starting with those born in 1973 and progressing to a mother carrying the newest born baby, who drops the last rose in a bassinet. The purpose of this demonstration is to bring to our awareness the “human face” represented by the loss of 40 million children in our nation since 1973. This alone is heartbreaking.

As I pondered this loss, I began to consider the rhetoric in which people on both sides of this issue have engaged. I thought about the litmus test that is now applied to Supreme Court nominees (have we forgotten the No Religious Test clause?); the insistence by the right that Roe v. Wade be overturned; the left’s view of all who consider life sacred to be bigots, or worse, enemies of freedom. And I thought about the 40 million mothers and their families who faced a crisis in their lives and chose the only solution they felt was available to them. And I have just one question: where was the church?

I don't mean this as an indictment of the church, and I mean no disrespect to the thousands of Americans who have fought the good fight in defense of the unborn since 1973. But it is only to say that from the perspective of the average person who watches the evening news, much more energy is expended by opponents of abortion in political activism and national "dialog" than in doing the hard work of immersing themselves in the lives of the marginalized to the extent that they can be agents of change as these difficult decisions are being made. As the groundswell of abortion has gained momentum, have Christians and others who consider life sacred matched this momentum with their counter-momentum of compassion? Or have we accomplish little more than heaping guilt upon the souls of these broken-hearted mothers, while at the same time pouring millions of dollars and hours into fighting political causes? Here's a wake up call: Roe v. wade will likely never be overturned as is hoped by many, and if it were, the church is in no way ready for the crisis that would ensue.

As I have read the gospels in the New Testament, I have never encountered a challenge from Jesus of Nazareth to engage political powers of the day in order to accomplish social change. Jesus and his contemporaries had much more to protest than do Americans. The tyrannical rule of the Roman emporor and his puppet "kings"; the absolute suppression of all dissent and execution of dissenters; crushing taxation carried out by unscrupulous collectors who pocketed fortunes for themselves; and the total absence of political, personal, and religious freedom. Why didn't Jesus speak against these social injustices? Why didn't he organize political action campaigns and raise funds from his followers in order to fight such tyranny? The answer is clear in the gospels: such is not the Kingdom of God. There is little doubt that his followers expected Jesus to advocate political insurrection and social liberation, but such was not his calling and purpose; neither is it ours. Instead, amazingly, Jesus' followers watched as he immersed himself in the lives of the marginalized and disenfranchised. This ministry was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, who said of Christ:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

Jesus was totally invested in all those who surrounded him, and influenced them in a way that liberated them in the midst of their seemingly hopeless lives. Such is the Kindgom of God.

And so the question remains: what is the role of the Church in the present conflict, and what of the crisis that would ensue if Roe v. Wade were reversed? As for the latter, consider this: for the past fifteen years or so, between 1.3 million and 1.5 million children have lost their lives each year through abortion. During the 1990's, about 120,000 children were adopted each year, or something less than 10% of the children whose lives were ended prior to birth. Even at this rate, a 1997 survey found that 6 in 10 Americans have had a personal experience with adoption (see adoption.com). A reversal of Roe v. Wade, apart from the political firestorm which would continue for decades, would undoubtedly increase tenfold or more the need for compassionate and selfless people willing to care for a rejected generation. Almost every family in America would be impacted. Have we invested our time and resources into the existing adoption infrastructure and counseling services such that this influx would constitue anything less than an unprecedented and unmitigated human and social crisis? Are we demonstrating a committment to mentor our nation's youth, and guide them toward abstinence and healthy relationships such that the need for abortion would be a relic of the past? It would not be overreaching to suggest that the current human and financial resources expended in the fight against abortion are grossly misplaced, and all social support mechanisms (including the church) would be overwhelmed if a reversal were successful.

As for the role of the Church, it is clear. Set aside everything which would hinder compassionate, unfettered ministry to the thousands of women and their families each day who face the worst of all decisions. Support every organization, regardless of affiliation, which will join the cause in providing real choice to these victims of our culture. Mentor our youth and help them see a higher path, and provide them with everything they need to make the right decisions for their lives. Stop sending mixed "moral" messages or supporting those who do. And most importantly, come to know the true spirit of Christ, and administer grace as he would have us administer it. No judgement; no condemnation of wrong; no rejection of those we think have sinned.

The current state of affairs on the pro-life / pro-choice front is tragic. Christians and other people of faith have a responsiblity to care for the wounded and set the captives free, not to continue to wage war. Let's defend the lives of the living as well as the unborn, and preach the good news to the poor: that there is a better choice.