A Better Earth Day?
Pastor Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing MI has posted some comments on how Christians can celebrate Earth Day “better” over at his blog. This is a response to that post.
While I appreciate Pastor DeYoung’s sincere desire to “build a Christian foundation” (his very good image) under the concept of Earth Day, the ‘bricks’ he is using to build that foundation, most of which were purchased somewhat uncritically from Jay Richard’s Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, could have been baked a little longer.
Here are his ‘bricks’ and my thoughts in response:
1)”We must distinguish between theological principles and prudential judgments.”
This argument has been around for quite a while, and still astounds me. The idea is that while the Bible is clear that we have to care for God’s creation (at least we agree on this basic premise), taking actions in response to threats to that creation is a “prudential judgment” that ought not to be made.
Really?
Because some actions would be “prudent” we ought not to take them? Environmental concern is the only area in which I have ever heard Christians argue against prudence. We wear seatbelts. That surely is a prudential judgment. We pay a penalty in the present by purchasing auto, property and life insurance to cover ourselves for hazards that will almost certainly not happen to most of us. Prudence. We avoid smoking, and in extremely undemocratic fashion we ban smoking by others so that we and our children won’t have to inhale second-hand smoke. Why? Prudence – we would rather not get lung cancer or emphysema. Most of us would condemn a person who doesn’t buckle up, doesn’t buy insurance and exposes his children to cigarette smoke as reckless, foolhardy and negligent.
But acting to care for God’s creation is wrong because it is a “prudential judgment”? Please. This is just silly.
2) “People matter most.”
Well, of course they do.
But people cannot live without a wholesome, healthy, flourishing environment. One wonders, reading a statement like this, what Pastor DeYoung might have eaten for breakfast the morning he wrote his piece. One would expect it was plant or animal, and probably both.
It is a simple fact that we are part of God’s animal creation: We need to eat, drink and breathe to live. We cannot survive without the plants and animals that support us, the clean water they provide, the air they filter for us. We can’t even eat breakfast without them. It is also fact that much of the human suffering in the world is directly tied to environmental degradation. Haiti is exhibit #1. Add to that if you care to, Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia, Rwanda, Uganda, Bangla Desh, India, China and the asthma suffering children of America’s inner cities.
The most effective way to love and to care for people is to care for the world in which they live. This is the premise Care of Creation has been built on. Perhaps we can paraphrase James here: Show me how to love people without caring for God’s creation, and I will show you how (better and cheaper) we can love people by caring for God’s creation.
3) “People are producers, not just polluters.”
Again, yes they are. God gave us dominion over his creation and wonderful creative abilities by which we can work with the stuff of creation and do amazing and wonderful things. And there is no question that if Jesus tarries and God give us time, it is only by the use of these abilities that we human beings are going to be able to solve the serious problems we have created for ourselves by our abuse of God’s creation.
The problem with the “producers not polluters” principle is that it ignores the problem of sin. Human beings who are unredeemed sinners are in fact polluters – materially and spiritually. That’s a theme we repeat often here: “Environmental problems are sin problems.” And this idea ignores what I think of as the ‘mathematics of sin’: More sinners, more sin. An explosion of people (4 billion of the current 6.8 billion people on earth right now have been born since I was) means, necessarily, an explosion of sin – unless genuine, spirit-led evangelism keeps up. That is the spiritual reality behind the scientific phenomenon that we call the environmental crisis.
We need to build a better Earth Day.
I agree whole heartedly! But let’s do it biblically and logically:
1. Good theology must lead us to reasonable prudence in our lives and in our policies. The biblical call to mercy argues that we should care about the effects of our consumption on the poor. Our (biblical, surely) obligations to our own children and grandchildren as well as the rest of the not-yet-born demands that we act selflessly, not selfishly in our use of resources and our management of earth-systems.
2. Love for people must compel us to do all we can to heal and restore the life-giving and life-supporting properties of God’s creation so that there will be clean air, clean water, a healthy climate and food for all.
3. Recognition of the almost infinite capacity for sin and pollution in our own lives and those around us should drive us to repentance and evangelism, as well as to tree planting and watershed clean up.
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By Adolf Quast, April 23, 2010 @ 3:39 pm
I appreciate and concur with your response Ed. I probably would not have gone so far as to say Pastor DeYoung’s statements about “theological principles and prudential judgments” were “silly”.
By cm, April 26, 2010 @ 8:30 am
Help me out here. When I read Kevin DeYoung’s brick one, I hear him saying that there are theological principles upon which we base our thinking. And then, based on these principles, we must apply wisdom and prudence to the actions we take in response to environmental issues. (As Christians isn’t this the appropriate way to evaluate our response to any issue?) I don’t hear him saying that we should do nothing. However, in your response, you say that DeYoung advocates taking no actions at all in response to environmental issues. What am I missing?
cm
By Ed, April 26, 2010 @ 9:15 am
CM, thanks for the note. I am looking beyond Pastor DeYoung’s comment to his source, Jay Richards and others such as Cal Beisner. Most speakers and authors whom I have encountered who use this line of reasoning do so to argue against any environmental action until we can prove harm – and usually this means harm against humans, not the rest of creation. This is particularly true in the case of climate change but is also used for other things like mountain-top removal in coal mining, as Beisner quite famously tried to support in his conversation with Bill Moyers (see the PBS special ‘Is God Green’ from a couple of years ago). The normal definition of prudence would be to avoid an action until it was demonstrated safe. These folks have turned this on its head, arguing that prudence means we should continue our practices until someone can prove them harmful. At which point (Love Canal, Bhopal, the current oil spill in the Gulf) it’s usually too late. You are correct that Pastor DeYoung did not say all of this – however, and perhaps unwittingly, he is using code words that are used frequently to advance just this argument.
In response to Adolf’s comment above, “silly” might be a bit of a strong adjective – but I can’t think of any other realm in which this kind of reversal of meaning would be tolerated as a reasonable argument.
By Tom, May 6, 2010 @ 10:01 am
I am not persuaded that your article actually refutes Kevin Deyoung’s article. Deyoung makes three points with which I mostly agree. (Based on your concessions to points 2 and 3, you also agree to some extent.) 1)”We must distinguish between theological principles and prudential judgments.” Your response (The idea is that while the Bible is clear that we have to care for God’s creation (at least we agree on this basic premise), taking actions in response to threats to that creation is a “prudential judgment” that ought not to be made.) does not accurately state Deyoung’s point. Your astonishment and sarcasm (really?) are directed toward a position that was not put forth by Deyoung. 2) “People matter most.” (You say, “Of course they do.”) I’m glad you agree. It is not obvious to me that all (or even a majority) of those championing the “green movement” believe this (or apply it rightly). It is not superfluous for Deyoung to emphsize this point which you conceed. None of your response refutes the point. 3) “People are producers, not just polluters.” You spin Deyoung’s position by saying “The problem with the ‘producers not polluters’ principle…” You took out an important “just” when trying to rebut Deyoung. Your rebuttle does not rebut Deyoung’s point. It only rebuts one who tries to argue that people don’t pollute. (Who argues that?)
By Ed, May 7, 2010 @ 8:48 am
Tom, thank you for your thoughtful comment. You are correct – there is much in Kevin’s post that I do agree with. And I will concede that I may not have been completely fair with him in that much of my concern is not with him but with Richards and the Acton Institute – which most do not realize is a far-right wing libertarian think tank that has worked very hard to find a way to clothe free-market, private property rules all philosophies in the mantle of environmental concern. Read the Cornwall Declaration carefully and you will see what I mean.
Richard’s emphasis on prudential judgment and ‘cost-benefit analysis’ is exactly what leads to situations like the Gulf oil spill. The costs and benefits are always measured in human economic terms, and the conclusions arrived at – whether it is the cost of a coal mine ventilation system or CO2 mitigation – almost always benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and weak. Richards and DeYoung *say* that theology should trump economics, but it usually turns out the other way around.
My problem with the way the ‘people matter most’ argument is framed is this: There is no reason to even say this unless one is laying the groundwork for a decision or policy that imposes environmental harm for some kind of short-term human benefit. As in, people demand oil, there is oil in the ground right here, and people matter most… Or people demand cheap coal, I can get the coal cheaply if I blow up this mountain, and people matter most… Do you see my problem? It can be – and is – used to justify anything.
Finally, the question of producers and polluters. This is a really interesting one. I think it is a question of how seriously we are willing to take our theology, and in particular the doctrine of sin and the fall. Kevin says, “We must resist the temptation to think of humans as intruders from another world wrecking carnage in a pristine environment.” No, this is *exactly* how we have to think of ourselves. What happened to “There is none righteous – not even one”? I’m actually quite surprised that someone like Kevin who obviously has a strong Reformed perspective doesn’t see the place of original sin in this problem of environment.
Just as salvation begins with repentance, a godly response to the environmental crisis has to begin at the same place. Until we acknowledge that every time we touch creation with sin stained hands we spread the curse of our sin, we cannot begin the process of reversing that curse.