Archives For Church & Beyond

The Next Gathering – Saturday, January 12

Nathan Aaberg —  December 15, 2018 — Leave a comment

You are warmly invited to the second gathering!

Earlier this year, we held the first gathering at the Riemer Family Farm in Brodhead, Wisconsin. This event brought together Christians like you who believe that tending and defending God’s Creation are an essential part of the Christian life. Coming together made a big difference. It lifted our hearts and redoubled our energy. It can do that for you, too.

Have you felt isolated because you hold the conviction that loving God and your neighbor while accepting violence against God’s earth is illogical and contradictory? Does your awareness of the worldwide wounding of Creation make you feel overwhelmed?  Have you wanted to share your excitement about the incredible complexity and beauty of God’s earth and not had other Christians in your life who would understand?

Then this gathering is for you. Here are the details:

Date: Saturday, January 12th

Location: Vernon Hills, Illinois

Time: 11:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Lunch: Potluck

These gatherings are still a work in progress as we figure out how to best use this time together. But our intent with each of these events is to:  (1) open our hearts more fully to God; (2) reinforce our individual commitment to tending, defending, and renewing God’s earth; (3) learn from each other and encourage each other; and (4) explore what ongoing connections and common action we can do together. You will hear the ways other Christians are living and working to renew God’s earth. You will be able to to share your convictions, your struggles, and your successes with a warm, supportive group.

If you would like to join us, please let me know at naaberg19@gmail.com.

We will cap attendance at 25 so the gathering can be as effective and intimate as possible. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have, too, and will share more details about the event.

And if you’re too far away to come to this event, I’d also be happy to talk to with you sometime to share how we’ve been organizing these gatherings and what we’re learning along the way. Just reach out to me by email as well.

Why not organize your own gathering where you are?

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Isolated No More – The First Gathering

Nathan Aaberg —  October 14, 2018 — 2 Comments

Group of people from the gathering walk down Riemer Road

I’ve known for some time that I needed to take a step beyond this blog. Intentions became actions when I organized a gathering of fellow Christians who care deeply about God’s earth on a Sunday late in September. I thought you’d like to read about it.

Thanks to the hospitality of Jen and Bryce Riemer, we gathered at the Riemer Family Farm in Brodhead, Wisconsin. Our potluck featured delicious food: fresh salads, Indian lentils, meatballs made from the pasture-raised animals of the Riemers’ farm, Asian pears, zucchini bread, and chocolate chocolate chip cookies made by the Riemers’ daughters.

While we ate and for awhile after, we shared our faith journeys and how our lives have been shaped by the conviction that God’s earth is of great value and importance. All of us were hungry to do this. All of us also shared the rewards and challenges of living out this conviction.

The attendees included a couple who have been running an ecologically-minded tree care company for decades, the director of community relations from the Au Sable Institute, an artist who is also the volunteer steward of two natural areas in Lake County, a land manager for a forest preserve district, a non-profit staff member working to promote sustainable farming (me), an occupational therapist who also gardens organically and teaches tai chi, and an organic grain farmer.

Later, I shared ideas I have on what collective action we could take going forward. In the discussion that followed, there was general consensus that we need to start with gathering together as a network. Through this network we can find ways to inspire each other, support each other, and even take action together. We closed this portion of the event with heartfelt prayer.

Jen and Bryce then led us on a tour of their farm fields where land long farmed in corn and beans is being converted to perennial pasture for rotational grazing of livestock. Rotational grazing on well-managed pasture has a multitude of benefits. It is good for the land and water, for habitat, for the health of the animals, and for the quality of the meat.

About 400 yards away, we could see a massive dairy factory farm’s new metal structures and barren earth. As this industrial farm facility gears up to full operating capacity, it will eventually house 6,000 cows. These living creatures of God will be kept inside 24/7 365 days a week to maximize efficiency and productivity. The contrast with the Riemer’s farm could not have been more stark.

For three years, the Riemers had led the local fight against the startup of this dairy Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) to try to prevent the damage to community and environment that they bring. This fight was ultimately unsuccessful. Its operations, which are not even at full scale yet, have already forced a neighboring family to move because their their children couldn’t breathe.

Yet, the Riemers have shown amazing grace and are seeing other opportunities to grow sustainable, humane, God-honoring farming out of the situation.

A highlight of our touring was when we passed the trees on the edges of the Riemers’ fields. Clouds of monarch butterflies flew up from the branches of the trees and all around us. The trees offered shelter for the monarchs as they rested together during their long southward migration. This was a fitting benediction to the day.

Thoughts and Insights

Several thoughts and realizations emerged from the gathering and from our conversations:

* The vast majority of people (and not just Christians) are profoundly disconnected from Creation and how it works.

* A feeling of isolation is common for Christians like us. The Au Sable director shared how many of the friends of Au Sable that he had been visiting have started crying when asked why they supported the Institute. They cried because Au Sable is one of the few outlets they have for being part of a Christian community that values Creation.

• We have felt the judgment of other Christians. Stories were told of other Christians suspiciously assuming that if one cared about God’s earth and acted to protect it then one was almost certainly on the road to becoming an earth worshipper and abortion rights supporter.

* Why is it that secular scientists and advocates are the ones mobilizing people to address the destruction being done to God’s earth on an epic scale and not churches and Christians?

* Sharing the message that God’s earth matters to God should be done with patient grace. Zealous judgmentalism will not help.

* Despite the many challenges, we were also reminded of the power of God to change hearts and transform lives. We heard of a Christian farmer who is now in the process of transitioning his 2,200-acre operation to organic methods. He chose to do this, in part, because of his children’s interest and desire to see Creation treated well.

*Our time of fellowship was deeply meaningful. One participant said, “I don’t want to leave and never see you all again.”

Another gathering is in the works. If you are in the Midwest and would like to be invited to the next one, please email me at naaberg19 at gmail.com. If you’re not in the Midwest, know that we hope to share what we learn from these gatherings. We would hope, too, that other groups of Christians will organize similarly elsewhere.

I don’t know where this is going exactly. But, with God’s help, it will keep going.

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A Letter to the Pastors of Sonny Perdue and Scott Pruitt

Nathan Aaberg —  May 11, 2018 — 2 Comments

I’ve noticed that by and large the culture of Christians who care about God’s earth is one of love, kindness, patience, and thoughtfulness. A byproduct of this culture, however, can sometimes be the tendency to avoid speaking truth in love to other Christians who cause needless harm to God’s earth. 

So how do we respond to Sonny Perdue and Scott Pruitt?  These two prominent Christians are in positions of leadership at the nexus of economy, government policy, and God’s earth. From what I have seen, they often advance and maintain policies counter to our convictions. Their decisions, their actions, and their inaction dwarf any smaller efforts of ours.

Will we continue to be polite and courteous and avoid the elephant in the room? Or do we speak up in a way that contains truth in proportion to the scale of the harm being done? And how do we do that while still being Christian?

The open letter below to the pastors of Sonny Perdue and Scott Pruitt is my best attempt. I chose to address the pastors because I believe that churches hold responsibility for the way their members, especially prominent members, live out their faith.

Dear Pastors Nick Garland and JIm Perdue:

I am having a hard time understanding something. I hope you can help me.

You are the pastors of Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator for the United States, and Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture. These members of your churches profess their Christian faith sincerely and prominently. Secretary Perdue even described this opportunity to serve our county as a call from God.

What I have a hard time understanding is how they came to believe that serving Jesus in their lives of leadership meant going along with policies that serve powerful economic interests at the cost of harming vulnerable people and spoiling God’s earth.

Can you help me understand that?

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt standing at podium

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt (photo courtesy of US Environmental Protection Agency)

I know those words sounds harsh and judgmental. I would guess that you and your congregation feel pride that members of your churches would reach such high levels of accomplishment. You are probably already dismissing me as one of “those” Christians.

But please hear me out. I want to speak what I believe is the truth in love. I believe it is important for Christians to see God’s will done on earth. I believe it is especially important that Christians who are prominent live out a whole Christian faith their words and deeds that is an attractive testimony to the Christian faith.

Secretary Perdue recently called a jury award in the case of people around a factory farm in North Carolina “despicable.” As you may know, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) holds thousands of farm animals together in factory-like buildings. Agriculture industry leaders point out these factories give our economy cheap meat. But what is not considered in the cheap prices is the cruelty to God’s animals. Nor do the cheap prices make up for the large streams of waste generated by the confined animals that often pollute streams and foul ground water that neighbors downstream need for drinking.

Sonny Perdue, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (photo courtesy of the USDA)

Did you know that most antibiotics today are not consumed by people but are given to animals, especially those in factory farms, because they promote unnaturally fast animal growth? This overuse is leading to the outbreak of strains of bacteria, like Staphylococcus aureus (known as MRSA), that are resistant to antibiotics. This is leading to the painful deaths of thousands, like 18-month old Simon Macario in Chicago.

CAFO farms also generate awful smells that cause misery to their neighbors while reducing their property values. Oftentimes, the neighbors of CAFOs are poor and minorities who find it harder to get justice and protection.

CAFOs are just a symptom of our industrial agriculture system. This system has generated great productivity. It has also compromised our public health and God’s earth and emptied out our rural towns. In many ways, as John Ikerd has pointed out, this system has put priority on faith in the market economy over faith in God and over concern for the wellbeing of our neighbors and God’s earth. I have not seen any indication that Secretary Perdue has wrestled with these questions and our country’s industrial approach to agriculture.

For his part, Administrator Pruitt has consistently looked to weaken restraints on business that have otherwise protected people and God’s land, water, and wildlife. A recent example was his decision to exempt Foxconn’s planned 20-million square foot electronics plant in southeastern Wisconsin from rules in place to reduce the emission of smog pollution that harms people’s lungs. This was despite the recommendations of his staff. Pruitt has also shown a consistent tendency to favor powerful industries, even to the point of ethical transgressions.

What you and I have in common is faith in Jesus. Through this belief and trust, the Spirit begins to transform every dimension of our hearts and our lives.

One of the concepts that Jesus taught was that fruit in the form of words and deeds revealed the condition of a person’s heart. Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt profess their Christian faith emphatically. But I see the fruits revealed in key policies they are responsible for to be counter to the God I see in the Bible.

As I know you know, there is a consistent theme throughout the Bible of God’s concern for the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized. These were the people to whom Jesus reached out. Prophets spoke against powerful people like Ahab and Jezebel who misused their power to rob vulnerable people of their integrity and what had been promised them by God. In Psalm 104 and in Job we also see God concerned with and revealed in all of Creation, the Creation that God included in this covenant with Noah in Genesis 9.

So I have sincere questions for you:

Do you believe that what your members are doing in their public roles as it relates to God’s earth and vulnerable people is God’s will?

If yes, is that because of the concept of dominion you teach? Have you considered the nuances of the whole Bible as it relates to our relationship to God’s earth? Have you considered God’s model for dominion over us as seen in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection?

If yes, is that because you believe that God would never allow things he cared about to be destroyed or harmed? Am I wrongly reading Jesus’ response to the Tempter in Matthew 4:7, which shows that God does not exist to save us from purposeful folly?

Will you address Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt and urge them to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit and demonstrate their first allegiance to God’s ways rather than to the interests of the powerful?

Are you concerned that the actions and words of Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt might be the reason people who naturally respond to the beauty of God’s earth are being turned away from coming to faith in Jesus? Could these people know in their hearts the truth that it is wrong to do unnecessary violence to the beauty and complexity of God’s order in Creation?

Francis Shaeffer wrote, “Thus God treats His Creation with integrity: each thing in its own order, each thing the way He made it. If God treats His creation in that way, should we not treat our fellow-creatures with similar integrity? If God treats the tree like a tree, the machine like a machine, the man like a man, shouldn’t I, as a fellow-creature, do the same thing – treating each thing in integrity in its own order? And for the highest reason: because I love God – I love the One who has made it! Loving the Lover who has made it, I have respect for the thing He has made.”

If you look closely you will find that many of the policies of the Department of Agriculture and of the EPA under Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt do not have respect for the things God has made.

What does God make of that?

Above all, can you help Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt question the assumptions behind their policies?

They are in a unique positions to lead good stewardship of God’s earth and to reveal to millions of people what Christian stewardship really looks like. They could be amazing witnesses to the regenerative and restorative power that God offers us and offers the world.

You are their pastors. You are in unique positions to counsel them, open their hearts in humility and sensitivity, and give them the courage to consider carefully what kind of lives God would want them to lead. Without doubt, It takes courage to go against the principalities of this world who tempt bright and charismatic people with riches and crowns.

I know that Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt are probably very decent people in many respects. I know, too, this letter likely challenges how each of you and your churches read the Bible. It may challenge how you think about the connection between Christians, the economy, and the role of government. And I want you to know I know I don’t live out my Christian faith perfectly. I have failings. You could build a cabin with the logs in my eyes.

Nevertheless, please be open to whatever measure of God’s truth I have been able to include in this letter.

I hope, too, you will pray with me for the day when Christians are known for wholly transformed lives that testify to their love of God through their love of their neighbors and their energetic efforts to prosper the life of God’s good earth.

Sincerely,

Nathan Aaberg

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Back to Church for the Easter Weekend

Nathan Aaberg —  April 8, 2018 — Leave a comment

As I wrote earlier, I stopped going to church a while back for a variety of reasons. With my son back from college for spring break, however, my wife and I agreed that we should attend both a Good Friday service and a service on Easter Sunday.

Because of my conflicted feelings about church and my absence from services for a while, I had a heightened senstiviity to what I experienced at those two services. I want to share just a few of my feelings and perceptions.

We attended the Good Friday service at a church we had gone to in the past. I was struck by the power and creativity of the service. It brought together Scripture, music, poetry, and even physical sensation.

We had, for example, our hands washed ceremonially upon entering the sanctuary. And for most of the service we held a smooth stone in our hand as a reminder of our sins. As the service ended, we dropped it in a bucket before a large, rough-hewn cross near the altar.

There were a variety of sounds. Piano and organ music. We sang hymns. The sound of a whip snapping cruelly was heard at one point. We cried out, “Crucify Him!” at another point.

And the music, sounds, and words were offset by moments of silence for reflection on heart-challenging questions.

What struck me most were the gestures of warmth from a number of the congregation’s members, despite the fact that we had not attended regularly there in some time. Smiles from across the aisle. Strong handshakes. People making the effort to come over to us even though it was out of their way. Hugs.

Isn’t this a blessing of the highest order?

We went to the church of some friends on Easter Sunday. It, too, featured creativity and beauty. We first gathered outside on the lawn for opening prayers and words. As we moved into the narthex, we received candles, and these were then lit. We entered the sanctuary and used our candles to light the candles on the altar, on the window sills, and other places. This modestly-sized sanctuary became filled with nearly a hundred small flames giving out gentle, cheerful light. Holiness and hope.

There was great joy throughout the two-hour service in the songs and message. Songs. Clapping. A full-immersion baptism preceded by the singing of “Down to the River to Pray.”

There was one intriguing common element between the two services.  In both services, the beginning of Genesis was read and given prominence.

This was encouraging. By drawing our attention to the amazing goodness of the Creation and the tragedy of the Fall, the two churches drew attention to the full context of Good Friday and Easter. The story and truth of the Bible begins with all of creation in harmony and peace. In the Bible and in the world around us, we see what the Fall has brought – sin and brokeness causing pain to people and to all of Creation on an epic scale. Yet the Bible ends with a new heaven and a new earth where all of creation is again in harmony and peace with God.

Jesus – his life, his words, his death, and his resurrection – is at the heart of all this. God, our loving God, cares for people and all of Creation. Easter should remind all Christians of this. It is truly good news. Awesome news.

Was the note of all Creation being part of the salvation story part of your Holy Week? I hope so.

And I end this post admitting that there is a certain wistfulness in my heart after attending those services.

I long to have a community of faith where Creation matters and where worship and fellowship are part of the rhythm of our family’s life.

 

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I Couldn’t Go to Church on Sunday

Nathan Aaberg —  February 28, 2018 — Leave a comment

I couldn’t go to church this past Sunday. And I’m not sure when I will go back.

For many of you, this may seem extreme and even wrong, so I want to try to articulate why it has come to this.

It all starts with my conviction that a Christian theology that does not include Creation is fundamentally and significantly incomplete. The title of the book by theologians Howard Snyder and Joel Scandrett I am now rereading says it all – Salvation Means Creation Healed.

The back cover promotional text includes this summary statement: “The Bible promises the renewal of all creation – a new heaven and earth – based on the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For centuries this promise has been sidelined or misunderstood because of the church’s failure to grasp the full meaning of biblical teachings on creation and new creation.”

I am sensitive to the fact that Christians throughout the centuries have fallen into schism and division because of disagreements over fine points of theology that people outside of the Church would have found incomprehensible.

But this, to me, is different.

Church services tend to avoid even a passing reference to God’s Creation and its intrinsic value. Or, if it is referenced, the theological context is one of Creation being provided strictly for human needs and wishes.

I am tired, too, of churches not working proactively and systematically to build the character of Christians so that they live out the fruits of the spirit in every dimension of their lives. Christians will, of course, never be perfect but a systematic effort should be made to grow and to make ourselves vessels of God.

I am convinced that the way a church and its members interact with God’s earth on a daily and ongoing basis should be filtered through an ethic of restorative stewardship. We should be doing our best in every way to offer God’s love to people around us and also to promote the health and vitality of God’s earth. In how we use the land and in what we choose to eat, for example, we should be honoring God.

I am heartbroken by and furious at the diseased, degraded, and wounded condition of God’s earth.

Industrial chemicals are found in the breast milk of mothers and in newborn children. Plastic are filling the oceans. Factory farms are causing misery for people and animals in rural communities. Species, like the North-Atlantic right whale, are on the verge of being snuffed out forever. Disruption and devastation from climate change grows.

Where are the churches? Where are the churches that see all this as an affront to God and are working passionately to equip members to do something about it?

This is not politics. This is a question of our core values.

In Luke 14:5 we hear Jesus ask, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?”

A child or ox that had fallen into a well would cry out in distress. To block out those cries and to ignore the plight of the child or ox would be the height of callousness. To do so would contradict the character God calls us to have. To be able to ignore a child or ox’s plight would be the fruit that revealed a heart completely untouched by God.

All of Creation has fallen into extreme distress. But we don’t listen. We choose not to see.

Christians should be the leading edge of dedicated, energetic, innovative guardianship of God’s earth. They are, in fact, playing just this role when it comes to rotational grazing and regenerative farming. But this is largely the exception.

Churches are either blessing the forces that are depleting God’s world or avoiding the topic out of fear and lack of conviction.

I heard a story of a couple in a rural community who had to leave their church because they couldn’t handle the hypocrisy and trauma of being served communion by their neighbor who had built a factory farm on his land and then destroyed the stream running through their land by releasing liquid animal feces from the manure lagoon into that stream. Where was the church in teaching that such an action was a a harmful sin to his neighbors?

My wife, who has long shared my concerns for the state of God’s earth, does have concerns about the direction I’m headed. She calls attention to the fact that we may be letting our 16-year old son down by not taking him to church and giving him the experience of being in a community of believers. (Please see her comments at the end of this piece to get her perspective.)

That is a valid concern. I am committed, however, to continuing to ground him in the Bible. We have already read through Genesis and Exodus together and are now working our way through Leviticus.

Is it possible that I’ve become so focused on one issue that I am becoming a source of divisiveness and am ignoring a Christian’s wider obligations?

I have reflected on this, and I will continue to do so.

But I also have to ask where is the concern that Christian equanimity toward the destruction and diminishment of God’s earth might actually be turning people away from Jesus? Is God really our master or is the bounty that comes from a money-focused, corporate-dominated economy the actual focus of our lives? Maybe this is temptation at a systemic, cultural, epic scale?

A recent poll found that Christians are no more concerned for the environment than they were 20 years ago, and that concern may actually be declining.

It is hard to explain to a non-Christian why people who believe God created earth feel free to degrade it and to lift restraints on how it is treated. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Christian numbers are declining, especially among Millennials?

My wife asks how churches will be more thoughtful about God’s earth if there aren’t voices within those churches calling for a change of direction. That’s also a good question.

On the other hand, I don’t sense much openness to this topic at all. What’s more, tacking on some token words in the occasional service is not enough. A different kind of Christian community is needed. New wineskins are needed.

I’m at a stage in my life where I’m listening to my heart and convictions more closely. Guilt will not overwhelm them. I need fellowship with others who share similar outlooks and who want to take action.

Have you wrestled with these same questions and feelings? Do you have advice for me?

I would very much like to hear from you.

 

Mayumi’s perspective:  I became a Christian 12 years into our marriage. Before that, I had been reluctant to become a Christian from our early years of courtship and into our marriage mainly because of how Christians disregarded and mistreated God’s Creation. Growing up in the Catholic church as a child in a small town in Wisconsin, I felt the presence of God in nature and not in any man-made church. Now the tables have turned. In the past, Nathan had encouraged me to go to church, and I was sometimes reluctant. Today, I am the one who believes we need to commit to a church community and be a voice within the church for whole faith living. I want our son to experience being among a community of believers, despite the fact that any church will share the good and bad aspects of our fallen humanity. I want our son to experience and be exposed to things that we can’t offer just at home with a Bible or with our own modeling: strong, healthy marriages and close family and friendship ties that support and encourage each other in the Christian walk. I want him to recognize that we can help to change and grow other Christians to include the care of God’s Creation. This is directly related to loving God and loving our neighbors. 

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