Archives For How Shall We Live?

Ms. Coyote: Interview with Barbara Waller

Nathan Aaberg —  October 29, 2014 — Leave a comment
Barbara Waller by the native plant garden of First Baptist Church (Waukegan, Illinois)

Barbara Waller by the native plant garden of First Baptist Church (Waukegan, Illinois)

There are many Christians who are living with compassion towards God’s earth and working to foster a better relationship between people and nature. And what they do is an outward manifestation, a good fruit, of the work of the Spirit in their hearts. By sharing their stories and insights, I am hopeful that you will be encouraged and inspired by the goodness that a whole faith can bring.

 My first interview is with my friend Barbara Waller. She was gracious enough to sit down with me recently to talk about a summer learning program (Cool Learning Experience) she has been organizing and leading in Waukegan, Illinois, through the First Baptist Church. This program serves 3rd through 8th graders in this economically depressed area, engaging them in science learning experiences focused on the environment. Through the program, they also encounter the natural world in a variety of settings.  And if you’re around the kids at all, it’s clear that they’re just plain having fun. Known to her campers as Ms. Coyote, Barbara has worked tirelessly to build this camp in partnership with senior pastor Keith Cerk. Barbara has also been an effective ambassador for the program, inviting a multitude of generous partners in the greater Chicago area to share their services and resources. She is a gracious, warm, energetic, modest woman who loves God and cares for God’s earth deeply.

 Q: Can you tell me about the Cool Learning Experience program and how it started?

BW: Cool Learning Experience started in concept in 2007 at First Baptist Church in Waukegan when our denomination, American Baptist Churches USA established a children in poverty initiative. That year, one of the senior pastors and I participated in the denomination’s national conference for leaders from local churches to explore ways to provide outreach ministries to support children in poverty as an expression of our faith. We came back, and we thought, “Why not bring a summer learning program to our community?” As a church we decided to offer the program to middle elementary age children in the summer months when children generally experience the greatest learning loss and when many parents need a safe place for their children to be engaged in learning. In July 2008, First Baptist launched it as a three week, all-day, nature-based summer learning program to children in 4th and 5th grades.  With an all-volunteer staff, we served an ethnically and racially diverse group of 10 children, most of who came from families reporting incomes at or below the federal poverty level.

Truly for me, and I believe for Pastor Keith, too, it was a walk of faith.   After he and I read Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, we knew immediately any program we offer must be nature-based. We were convinced that providing opportunities to experience the awe and wonder of nature while engaging children in fun learning outdoors would best support our mission to foster the well-being of children in every way – emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual. We decided to co-direct the program. This allowed us to draw upon Pastor Keith’s skills and passion for engaging people in exploring the wonders of nature and my experiences and passion for developing and implementing summer learning programs. We decided on a full day program to better serve those parents needing an organized program that would accommodate their workday schedule. They needed more than a half-day or 9-to-3 program.

Children examining a rare prairie wildflower as part of the COOL Learning Experience summer program.

Children examining a rare prairie wildflower as part of the Cool Learning Experience summer program.

N: How has the program grown since 2008?

BW: We grew from a daily maximum attendance of 10 children the first two years to maximum attendance of 73 in 2012 and 2013. In 2008, we served children in 4th and 5th grades. In 2014, we served 3rd – 8th graders. The program expanded from three weeks in 2008 to eight weeks in 2013. Teaching staff has grown from one part-time certified elementary teacher in 2009 to a 2014 staff of three full-time teachers, three teaching assistants, one administrative assistant, and five part-time counselors.   The continual growth in volunteers from teens to senior adult has been most amazing. We have grown from an all-volunteer staff of 5 in 2008 to 45 regular volunteers in 2014, and this does not include our many faithful parents who volunteer in various capacities as needed. We are very pleased to have more partners join us each year, creating even more diversity in our faithful supporters. We experienced the same with the cadre of volunteers who give thousands of hours each summer.

N: I understand the program engages the children in learning in nature in a number of ways.

BW: Yes, the goal is to provide an inter-disciplinary, multi-year curriculum. Since 2012 our theme has been exploring water, land, and air. Thanks to one of our funders, we developed a curriculum which integrates science, math, technology geography, arts and creative writing to offer hands-on learning focusing on water, land and living things over a three year period. We treat air as an integral component essential to each system as well. We explored water in 2013 and land in 2014. Next year we will explore the living things in the diverse ecosystems of water and land. The curriculum is designed for delivery in six weeks of the eight-week program. Children are engaged daily in hands-on learning experiences in the outdoor classroom of nature around us, such as our butterfly and raised-bed gardens as well as local ravines, prairies, woodlands, local waterways, and Waukegan Harbor. Field trips to local and regional sites also support the written curriculum in significant ways. Visits to the Chicago Botanic Garden, Lake County Forest Preserves, Volo Bog, Prairie Crossing Learning Farm, and Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin have become standard trips each year. These repeat visits bring deeper learning for the children.

N: Can you share a story of a child who was impacted by Cool Learning Experience?

BW: During a trip to Volo Bog in 2013, a fifth grade boy suddenly grabbed me as we were following a naturalist into the bog and walking on a rickety boardwalk. In a fearful voice he said, “Ms. Coyote, she’s going to drown us. I don’t want to go!” He was very frantic and insisted on not moving another step. I said, “Come on, it’s going to be OK.” And literally within five minutes after spotting a turtle, he turned around and said to me, “Ms. Coyote! I can’t believe this. This nature is awesome. Nature is beautiful.” It seemed like a spirit of calm overwhelmed him. He truly enjoyed the rest of the walk as we went throughout the bog pointing to another turtle and some frogs. He was full of excitement when he saw a blue heron. That was a life-changing moment in his life. Since then I have never seen him express fear when exploring new places in nature. As a matter of fact, he now encourages other hesitant children.

NA: All of the camp participants have nature names. Can you explain how you chose your nature name of Ms. Coyote?

BW: You know what? It was by default. I selected it in 2008 when Cool Learning Experience participated in the U.S. Navy Starbase Atlantis program at the Great Lakes Naval Base. As part of this program, all of us, including the navy instructors, chose a name to adopt from a prepared list. After our children and staff picked their names, there were only two names left.  Coyote was one and I chose it because the other didn’t appeal to me. Interestingly, I’ve learned much more about coyotes since then, and I’ve learned that the coyote is an extremely adaptable animal. For many years I have thought of myself as having an adaptable personality. I attribute this primarily to living the first 21 years of my life in the rural, segregated South. You learned to adapt. It was necessary for survival in some pretty hostile environments. As I read more about the coyote’s qualities of adaptability and survival, I thought, “That’s me. That name fits me.” So, I now embrace my nature name with pride.

Participants enjoy the natural world in a variety of places (like Skokie Lagoons) in the Chicago area.

Participants in Cool Learning Experience enjoy the natural world in a variety of places (like the Skokie Lagoons in this photo) in the Chicago area.

NA: Can you tell me more about your faith journey?

BW: I’m grounded in the sacred texts known as the Bible. I remind myself daily of the awesome price was paid for me to be a free person inside and a transformed person for the better. That is very humbling. God knows all about me and loves me and loves all of the other billions of people on this planet.   Knowing and experiencing His deep everlasting love makes me feel special, and at the same time I feel such a sense of responsibility. If I believe Scripture to be God’s truths and I’m grounded in it, then I’m called to be transformed and to be an agent of transformation. My daily walk with God – freely choosing a discipline of daily prayer, studying the Bible – leads me on a path of service to humankind out of His deep everlasting love.

As I said earlier, I grew up in the country in the segregated South. I am grateful that my parents were people of faith. I witnessed my parents show love and forgiveness in the midst of unjust treatment and acts of hatred. You know, there is much truth in that old saying: children learn more by what we do than by what we say. I saw my folks love those who mistreated them and others in our community. I have a memory of my mom saying, “You can never hate.” I never saw them hate other people no matter how much injustice they experienced. As I grew older and reflected on that life, I realize that attitude was rooted in their faith, in their sense of who they were as children of God. And we caught it because they taught us well! I know that the God that I serve is a God of love, a God of forgiveness and compassion and grace and mercy who calls me to be likewise.

NA: It’s very clear from your life that you care a great deal about God’s earth. Why? How does taking care of God’s earth relate to your faith and your walk with God?

BW: I have loads of fun memories growing up in the country surrounded by wild places to explore, creeks to fish in, wild berries and plums to pick, lightning bugs to catch at night under star filled skies, and much more. My childhood was a time when we were immersed in the natural world. Nature offered us endless fun adventures, wonders, and peaceful places. I still remember falls in Memphis, Tennessee. I would lay out under the trees and on the leaves. There’s something about the fall sun in the South.

Nature also offered us food to sustain life. I strongly believe I learned some foundational life lessons growing up in the country where we depended on the land for growing vegetables and raising animals to provide food for our family and others in need. I remember when it was time to kill the hogs, there was always a man designated to shoot the animals. As a child I didn’t ask why this man had that job. Years later, I realized their reasoning. He was the marksman and better skilled than others. My parents and others didn’t want these creations of God to suffer needlessly. So, for them it had to be done as humanely as possible.

They were also mindful of how they use other natural resources of nature, especially water, wood and, coal for cooking and heating. I remember my mom saying, “Waste not, want not.” Honestly, this was drilled in us. So there was never waste of water, food, wood, or anything. I learned early that there were neighbors who had less than we, and you just didn’t waste because there were many needs in our community. Just as God had instructed his chosen children throughout scripture how to care for others, like gleaning the fields – all of those things we just did. We didn’t question it. I learned caring for others was the righteous thing to do.

And caring for the earth was a part of caring for others. You see my folks were depending on the land to provide vegetables and fruit to feed their children. They knew if they didn’t care for this land, it wouldn’t continue to care for us, producing enough quality food. They were thankful for hogs and chickens to sacrifice for food to sustain human life, so they acted humanely. I read in one of Michael Pollen’s books something like, “Food is not a product of industry. It’s a gift of nature.” I love that statement. Food produced from our land was indeed a gift of nature that sustained us. How could you not take care of the land? I observed much through the senses of a child, but when I became an adult those observations became instructive and life shaping. My folks understood God as creator of all things – land, water, plants and animals. He created it for our use and pleasure. Yet, they knew to respect and value all these creations.

Scripture tells us He gave humans dominion over all living things. As I now understand Scripture, dominion does not mean we can do whatever we want to His creations. No, we are called to be respectful and responsible for all God created. God has entrusted all that He created to our care. I have dominion and responsibility for my children but it doesn’t mean I can abuse them or leave them home unattended when they were infants. I couldn’t feed myself first. No, you care for them first. So God has given us an awesome responsibility.

I’m not of the mindset that we can say, “Well, I can mess this earth up because we’ll get a new earth anyway.” In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, we read of God giving humans this awesome responsibility of dominion and at the end of the Bible in Revelation we read of His plan to create a new heaven and a new earth. In the end God is going to bring it all together according to His will. Now, the question is what have I done in between the beginning and the end? And I believe that’s what I’m going to be held accountable for by our loving God who created it all.

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Mourning Elephants

Nathan Aaberg —  September 20, 2014 — Leave a comment

I hope you have heard the story of the mourning elephants. In brief, two different herds of elephants traveled many hours across the Zululand brush in South Africa to stand vigil outside the home of Lawrence Anthony who had passed away on March 2, 2012.

Anthony had saved many of these elephants. He had accepted many of them as his charges at the Thula Thula game reserve he had created when other reserves no longer wanted them and were ready to shoot them because of their rogue behavior.  He had helped, through love and patience and the offering of a place of sanctuary, to restore their spirits to the point he had become known as the “elephant whisperer.” (There is a book of the same name by Anthony that is well worth reading. You can also read his obituary in the New York Times and a post at Belief.net.)

Reports say that both herds appeared at the family compound not long after Anthony passed away. Dylan, Anthony’s son, said of the elephants, “They had not visited the house for a year and a half and it must have taken them about 12 hours to make the journey. The first herd arrived on Sunday and the second herd, a day later. They hung around for about two days before making their way back into the bush.”

Elephant herd traveling to Anthony family’s compound after Lawrence Anthony died (photo credit: Anthony Family)

In a short post, I cannot do justice to the full story of Anthony’s life and his work with the elephants.   In addition to his work with the elephants, for example, he also helped rescue and protect animals in the Baghdad zoo in 2003 at great personal risk. There is one storyline from The Elephant Whisperer book, however, that stands out.

The first herd of elephants he accepted from another reserve was led by its matriarch Nana. She was enraged and determined to leave Thula Thula and take her herd with her as she had been repeatedly doing at the previous reserve. At one point, Nan and her herd actually did break out after destroying the generator that electrified the enclosure fence with 8,000 volts. Anthony was able to round the herd up and return the elephants to safety in Thula Thula just before locals and wildlife authorities arrived with rifles to kill them.

Anthony saw that, despite the experience, Nana was ready to escape again no matter what the consequences. This was when Anthony did another remarkable thing. As his book describes it:

“Then, in a flash, came the answer. I would live with the herd. To save their lives, I would stay with them, feed them, talk to them. But, most importantly, be with them day and night. We all had to get to know each other.”

It didn’t always go easily. There are frightening encounters. At one point, in the dark of an early morning when the herd seemed ready to break out, Anthony stood between Nana and the fence, placing himself in grave danger to appeal to Nana to not leave when it was entirely in her power to do so. He was ready to sacrifice his life to make the attempt to save her and the herd. He implored Nana not to go, saying: “You will all die if you go. Stay here. I will be here with you and it’s a good place.”

Anthony described what happened then:

“Then something happened between Nana and me, some tiny spark of recognition, flaring for the briefest of moments. Then it was gone. Nana turned and melted into the bush. The rest of the herd followed.”

Things got better. Other places began to send their rogue elephants to Anthony as well.

At the end of Anthony’s life, those elephants and their families returned to the compound without the benefit of reading an obituary or receiving an email. They somehow knew. They mourned him as they are known to mourn their own.

There is much to ponder about this story.

It reminds us of what Christians and people of many other faiths know – this world is not simply a world of material things interacting on a material level. There is a spiritual dimension to this world.

Even more fundamentally, this story reminds us that humans are not unique in our capacity to love, suffer, and share in some way the spiritual dimension of the world.

We spend far too much time looking for ways to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the life of God’s earth. We live in a universe that is somehow sustained by God and that sings to God and that has its own direct relationship with God. It is, in short, a universe that is loved by God. Let us glory in being part of that universe.

We should be grateful, too, for Lawrence Anthony’s example of the special role we are called to play in the world with our unique capacities.

For far too long, Christians have used the idea of “dominion” to justify a cruel and violent rule over God’s earth. What we have not realized is that the self-centered dominion seen in human history is not God’s idea of the role.  The dominion we should model ourselves after is the dominion God has over us. This is seen in its purest essence in Jesus.

Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11 NIV).

Jesus exemplifies what God meant by dominion. Before humans disgraced what dominion meant, it meant a loving authority and concern for one’s charges to the point of self-sacrifice. Like that of a loving parent. Like that of a loving shepherd.

So remember the elephants. Remember that elephants mourn. Remember that the daunting yet rewarding work of caring for God’s earth is part of the abundant life that God offers us.

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Finding a Church (or, Am I a Zealot?)

Nathan Aaberg —  September 16, 2014 — 2 Comments
©2010 Gospel Gifs

©2010 Gospel Gifs

It began with a breakfast with one of the pastors of a church that I’m considering having our family attend.

It was a warm, wide-ranging, honest conversation. There was much that he said about his church and how he said it that appealed to me. I eventually mentioned my convictions related to Christianity and God’s world. To my relief, the pastor didn’t disagree with me but said several interesting things.   One was that his wife had long desired for her faith life to include God’s earth and that she had had profound spiritual experiences with youth and other believers in the outdoors.

This sounds even more promising, I thought.

The next was not so promising. There had been a person at the church who had been very focused on the same things I am. Because he had been zealous and militant about them, however, the congregation had been turned off by him and by his message. Out of zeal and intolerance, he shut down any effort by the congregation’s members to enter into an open conversation about the topic and to explore all of its implications. Even the pastor’s wife, who would otherwise been energized by the idea of adding this dimensions to the church’s life, ended up being scarred and turned off by the experience.

By this story I believe the pastor was being as open and honest as he could be about what the congregation’s posture was toward the whole range of topics related to how we live in God’s world. I should not, in other words, expect great excitement or interest. Instead I should tread carefully on the topic as it would have some painful memories and emotions associated with it.

I must say that, to his credit, he did not dissuade me from my convictions nor did he suggest that the church would reject any dialog on the topic.

And this is where writing this piece becomes more difficult.

The obvious conclusion is that this is a cautionary tale about the damage to a church family by a believer who comes on too strong and with too much judgmental fervor on any particular topic. A person shouldn’t join a church in order to change it. The church’s traditions and approach to the faith should be honored and respected. And one’s sensitivity to one element of the Christian faith and Christian community life should not be expected to become the primary focus of a church one joins.

Zealotry is antithetical to being a contributing member of a faith community.

But where does a strong commitment to a whole conception of God and the life God wants us to live end and zealotry begin? What are we to do when we are convinced that the integrity and witness of the faith are compromised by how the church is treating (or ignoring) a particular issue?

Let’s consider an extreme example. If you were looking for a church to join in the South in the early 1800s, would you only be looking for a church with the right beliefs and with a warm, friendly congregation? Or would you also be considering what was believed at that church about the compatibility of slavery with God’s purposes? Would you pay attention to whether the church did or did not warmly welcome African Americans to participate as well?

The fruit that a church bears out of its beliefs and convictions says a great deal about those beliefs and convictions.

In the end, I realize that I’m torn between the desire to find a church home for my family and my desire to find a church where a consideration of God’s world is part of its spiritual and cultural fiber.

So does that conviction make me a zealot?

Zealots tend to be oblivious to how intense and disruptive their narrowly focused convictions are. They are not forgiving. They are not practical. They don’t see the whole set of values that need to be brought to bear on any situation.

And Jesus clearly did not make concern for Creation a litmus test on whether a person was worth loving and being with. Jesus did not even explicitly preach that concern for Creation was a fundamental element of following Him. You’d be hard pressed to find many churches throughout history that have given concern for God’s creation much standing.

In the end, however, I don’t think I’m a zealot. I do question myself. I respect the fact that there are many virtues and priorities that guide the Christian life and that we, as individuals and churches, must try to find paths that get everything as right as possible which is a difficult task. I don’t expect any church, all of which are composed of imperfect people like me, to get everything just right for my tastes or even to be in full accord with all that God expects. I am open to discussions about my convictions.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that a whole Christian faith includes concern and consideration for God’s world.

So what do I practically do in terms of finding a church? Here are the choices I see:

1.  Keep looking until I find a church where there is a consideration of Creation and where key elements of the faith are also taught.

2.  Look for a good, welcoming church that fits our family and focuses on other key elements of the Christian faith.  If it is considerate of Creation in even small ways, that’s a bonus.  If it doesn’t, I should just accept the community as it is while being ready to encourage the church (to the degree it’s willing), to gradually integrate its faith life with compassion for God’s earth over time.

3.  Team with others to start a new church or ministry which believes, among many core things, that its members should bear good fruit in their lives from their faith and that the good fruit should include kindness and mercy toward God’s world.

The first option, I fear, would essentially mean that my family would not be going to church or would have to travel very far each Sunday. I’ve visited the websites for many of the churches in the area over the past five years and it’s nearly impossible to find a church where Creation is even on the radar screen in terms of how the church defines its beliefs and what matters.

The second option is probably the most realistic in terms of finding a church fairly soon and in fairly close proximity to home. I’m sensitive to the fact that if everyone expected to find a church that was perfect and that lined up exactly with each person’s finest nuance of beliefs and principles we’d end up with millions of one-person churches. Some effort must be made to focus on the essentials of what a Christian church should be. One of those essential points is worshipping God with joy and awe and gratitude for God’s grace through Jesus Christ.

The reality is that all of the weight of centuries of unconcern for Creation expresses itself in the theology and messages and culture of today’s churches. And what’s more, the culture of our civilization exerts a strong gravitational pull upon our churches. That culture assumes that nature is strictly there for our purposes and must essentially accommodate itself to us. That dominant culture deems it subversive that people (much less communities and governments) would voluntarily moderate their desires and their convenience to allow God’s earth to flourish. In light of those factors, the odds of finding a church with a whole faith are very, very small.

The best that can be hoped for is to help move a church incrementally towards a concern for Creation in ways that make sense to the church community. The zealot can, as the pastor’s story revealed, do more damage than good to the church and to the righteousness that she wants to inspire others to pursue.

The problem I have with the second option is this: after more than a decade of meditation and learning and prayer I cannot escape my conviction that a whole faith inspires a conversion of our spirit into compassion and hunger for what is right in every aspect of our lives.  Not showing compassion and not trying to doing what is right and just for God’s Creation actually impairs and taints the rest of all that we try to do.

Life is short. Time is short. Time is against the natural systems of God’s earth in the face of what humanity is doing. People are being harmed by what is done to God’s earth. Living creatures are being cruelly harmed and destroyed on an epic scale by what is being done to God’s earth. We are dishonoring God by failing to be the shepherd-like stewards of what God has entrusted to us.

So that leads me, reluctantly, to look hard at the third option.

A radical option. It also sounds challenging on a multitude of levels. Could a church or ministry like that be created without losing other essentials of the faith along the way? And what would my children’s experience be? Would I be in any way competent to do so? Could I handle the criticism that would come our way? Would anyone actually show up???

I need to wrestle more with this. I feel untethered, unrooted, and hungry for community with other followers of God. But I see the world in a different way and am unwilling to go along to get along. Perhaps this is how the prophets felt? On the other hand, perhaps there are more nuanced options and opportunities I haven’t considered?

I know I must decide and move forward. I’ll share the journey here with you and welcome your wisdom.

 

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William Wilberforce’s Whole Faith

Nathan Aaberg —  September 6, 2014 — Leave a comment

For at least 15 years and probably longer, I have been trying to reconcile the loving heart a Christian faith calls us to have with the violent treatment of God’s world by our civilization and with the complicity or unconcern of many Christians. I have become convinced that the Christianity we often see and experience is neither a whole Christian faith nor the whole Christian life God desires.

And I can’t be quiet about that any more. I can’t accept that any more. So I begin this blog.

So what does a whole Christian faith look like?

The movie Amazing Grace, which dramatizes William Wilberforce’s work to abolish the slave trade in England, begins with an incident based on a true event in Wilberforce’s life. In the opening scene, Wilberforce and a friend are traveling in a carriage in a driving rain. Wilberforce is exhausted and sick from years of efforts in British Parliament that had been fruitless to that point. They hear terrible sounds outside. A horse is being whipped mercilessly by two men. The horse struggles¸ suffers. The men whip harder. Despite his friend’s entreaties and despite his ill health, Wilberforce gets out of the carriage and stops the abuse.

Would you and I?

We should.

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William Wilberforce

Like Wilberforce, we should feel compelled by our Christian faith to open the doors of our carriages and do our part to stop that violence and move our world towards the Biblical vision of the peaceful kingdom. Like Wilberforce, our whole Christian faith and life should include compassion and mercy for the whole world and an active commitment to stop cruelty and violence to the whole world.

My hope, desire, and prayer are that more Christians will come to a whole faith that includes a concern for the world around us. My hope, desire, and prayer are that this concern and compassion will translate into ways of living that bring life and goodness to the world rather than violence and diminishment.

And as I write this first blog, I could think of no better way to highlight some of the themes that you’ll see in posts to come than to meditate on the lessons we can learn from Wilberforce’s life:

Christian faith changes everything: His conversion in 1785 and the counsel of a Christian friend led him to devote his life to loving his neighbor by wrestling with his country’s practices towards African men and women from 1787 to 1825. It was a thankless, draining quest that exposed him to derision. He ultimately died before the fruits of his labors were completed in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, but his role in passing the Foreign Slave Trade Act of 1807 (which outlawed the involvement of British ships in transporting slaves) laid the groundwork for abolition. Wilberforce gave his life to God, and his heart was transformed. He received a calling. Although he was not perfect by any means, he answered that calling with all of his life out of love for God and his fellow man.

One’s heart is either full of compassion or it isn’t: Interestingly enough, Wilberforce also helped found the first anti-cruelty society in Western civilization and spoke in support of anticruelty legislation that passed in 1822 after two decades of struggle. Wilberforce couldn’t ignore cruelty and violence to African slaves while ignoring cruelty and violence towards animals.

Narrow Bible readings vs. hearts open to God’s Spirit and Kingdom: You would be hard pressed to find a verse in the Bible that specifically calls upon believers to jettison the institution of slavery. There are slaves throughout the Bible. Neither Jesus nor Paul or anyone else in the Bible directly challenges that institution. Yet, there is no question in my mind that the evolving moral awareness of the world, driven by God’s Spirit, made it a godly thing to eliminate slavery. Thankfully, many Christians became convinced of that.

However, there have been churches and Christians that have justified slavery and many other hideous things their country or civilization have done by selectively using Bible verses to reinforce their self-serving preferences rather than being open to the guiding, challenging Spirit of our loving God. Too often churches and Christians have fallen into the same stance toward the non-human world. They use a narrow theology and a narrow reading of Bible verses to justify a dominion that is antithetical to the loving, humble, patient, and self-controlled character the Spirit of God offers and is ready to fill us with. And if they don’t explicitly justify cruelty and violence, churches and Christians will suggest the question of how we treat God’s world is a minor one. Or they will assert that caring for God’s world is a dangerous path that could lead to paganism or worse.

Overlooked threads in the Bible: The whipping of the horse in the movie brings to mind the complex story of Balaam’s ass in the Hebrew Testament book of Numbers. This story tells of the pagan prophet Balaam who beats his donkey three times when the donkey disregards Balaam’s directions on where to go in order to save him from an angel sent to kill Balaam (it is a complicated story). In Numbers 22:28, the Bible says God opened the donkey’s mouth, and the donkey speaks, asking Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Curiously, it is the donkey that can see the angel at first and not Balaam. Have you heard of that story? I hadn’t until I began reading the Bible closely. And what I’ve found is a profound presence of God’s Creation in the Bible. It’s a seam that runs through it that the dominant theologies we hear from pulpits largely ignore. The thread is sometimes ambiguous, but on the whole the Bible leaves no doubt that all of nature is part of God’s redeeming purpose.

Justice is more than just individual choices: Wilberforce’s conversion didn’t lead him to be convicted that he personally needed to be nicer to the African slaves he met and that would be enough. His conversion led him to address a systematic, abusive, violent, hateful institution that was completely incompatible with God’s love in a systematic way with countrywide implications. It’s time Christians acted in the world at a wide enough scope to change the institutions of the world that are abusive and violent towards nature.

Community is needed: Wilberforce worked together with other people to abolish slavery and had close friends who he turned to for support and encouragement. He also formed the anti-cruelty society in partnership with others. I have often felt alone in having the convictions I am trying to articulate in this blog within the Christian world. I hope this blog will be a way for you and I to learn of other Christians and churches that are already living out a whole faith. I hope, too, that this blog can connect Christians who share these convictions with each other.

For too long, we have not had a whole faith. We have had a faith that has so emphasized salvation as a blessed escape from this world that we’ve forgotten that God loves this world. We’ve not seen that the incarnation of Jesus into human form is a powerful theological statement of the sacredness and value of this world. We’ve been blissfully unaware or unconcerned about how this world is treated. And we’ve been deeply suspicious of anyone who does show concern or asks us to be humble and compassionate towards the living things we share this world with.

This needs to change.

In many ways, humanity’s dominion of the world is more perverse and counter to God’s desire for a peaceable kingdom than ever before. Yet, at the very same time, the seeds and stirrings are there in the world today for a transformation as revolutionary as the abolition of slavery. This transformation has the potential to change humanity’s dominion of the world from being defined by selfishness and greed to one of generosity, selflessness, creativity, and love.

In short, it has the potential to move closer the world closer to what God showed humanity it could be and should be in Jesus. Our Christian faith should naturally inspire us to be part of this transformation. In fact, if we are truly to be the salt of the earth, Christians should be proactive leaders in this transformation and play the same kind of role Wilberforce did in the movement to abolish slavery.

I hope you’ll join me in exploring what that looks like. I hope you’ll join other Christians who are working to preserve this world for people and for the other living things with which we share this world.

I hope you’ll seek a whole faith.

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