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.
