Eight or nine months ago I got an email from a guy named Mark Davis.  Could I give him a call.  I was travelling – out of the country, I think – and the message got buried.  He emailed again.  Then he called.  I thought, Okay, this guy is serious – let’s find out what this is all about.

Mark is a large animal vet in Florida (think James Herriott in the Florida sunshine).  He is also, like my colleague Craig Sorley, a missionary kid who grew up in Africa.  He has a passion for Africa’s wildlife that matches Craig’s love for Africa’s birds and trees.  He is also a phenomenal photographer.

Anyway – Mark is involved in a film project to save the critically endangered Black Rhino.  Midway through the project he got hold of my book, Our Father’s World, and decided he needed to turn the film from a general nature appeal to an appeal directed at churches, using the force of the biblical arguments.  And he needed someone to talk on film about some of these issues.

Would I come to Florida?

I would.  And did last March.  A delightful day and half with Mark, his videographer and family.  The film is still in process, but Mark has given us permission to post some of the footage of me answering his questions.  These are on YouTube, but we’ve also set up a series of pages on this blog to give you access to them, and to add your own comments if you like.  Start here, (there’s also a tab at the top left) and then look below the first clip for links to five others.

Let us know what you think, and share with your friends.

October  16 – three weeks from this weekend – 4,000 delegates will gather in Cape Town South Africa from 200 countries around the world.  They will be convening the third Lausanne Consultation on World Evangelization.  These meetings happen approximately every 15 years, with the first being called by two of the great evangelical statesmen of our time, Billy Graham and John Stott, in Lausanne Switzerland (hence the name) in 1974.  I am honored – and a bit surprised – to be attending this conference both as a delegate and as a presenter.  I’ll be doing a seminar on (naturally!), ‘Mobilizing Your Church to Care for Creation’.

The Lausanne ‘movement’ has given the modern evangelical church several gifts.  Among these are the ‘Lausanne Covenant’, which has become a de facto “evangelical statement of faith”, a creed for a movement that tends to avoid such, and the Lausanne theme:  “The Whole Gospel from the Whole Church for the Whole World.”

You will not be surprised that my conviction is that creation care is – and must be! – a key component of the ‘whole gospel.’ I will be elaoborating on this conviction by posting a series of “Countdown to Cape Town” articles over the next three weeks.  Note that some of this material is excerpted (recycled!) from portions of my book, Our Father’s World – you can order the book here to get the whole argument in one convenient package.    Stay tuned and let me know what you think.

And of course, pray for these meetings.  We live in historic times.

——————————–

Countdown to Capetown I: Diagnosis Sin

I am personally committed to the task of mobilizing the church to respond to the environmental crisis for one reason:  I believe that God has called all of us to this task, and that it is a central part of our mission as Christians and as a world-wide church.  Let me put this in more theological terms:  I am convinced that God’s redemption brought to us in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross is more than human salvation.

For some of you, this is a bit of a stretch, so let me explain myself.

To understand my thinking, let me take you back to Genesis 3 – the story of our initial fall from grace and into sin.  You know how it starts – Eve and the Serpent, discussing the one and only command God has given his creatures:  ‘You may not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden…’  But she looked, she ate, she gave to him and he ate, and then…

We are told that they “heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God…” (Genesis 3:8)  They heard the sound of God in the Garden; what I hear is the sound of relationships shattering.  Like dominos, they fall one after another:

a) Their relationship with God was broken. Implicit in their relationship with God was his right to command them, and their obligation to obey.  Having dispensed with their side of the arrangement, they could not face him, and so they hid.  Separation.  Alienation.  Because they were created to live with – and within – God, disruption of this primary relationship led immediately to inner turmoil:

b) Their relationship with themselves was broken. Adam says to God, “I was afraid because I was naked…” (v. 10)   Pages have been written on this short phrase.  It could mean many things; at the very least, it shows that people who had been at peace with themselves are now filled with guilt and shame.  There’s an inner turmoil evident here that was absent before Adam disobeyed.  Adam, and Eve, is no longer at peace with himself – an inner relationship has been broken.

Because each of these sinners could not live with themselves, they could not live with each other:

c) Their relationship with each other was broken. It doesn’t take long for the first marital argument to break out:  “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (v. 12)  Whether the discord is between spouses, parents and children, neighbors on the street or heads of state about to go to war, it all started here.  Shattered community.

Being unable to live with each other, it is not surprising that they were no longer able to live in harmony with other members of God’s creation:

d) Their relationship with the rest of creation was broken. God pronounces his curse on the serpent, on the woman and on the man.  In pronouncing judgment on Adam, God says,

Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.It will produce thorns and thistles for you,and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food,
until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken;
For dust you are, and to dust you will return. (v.17-19)

This is presented as a criminal judgment, but Adam’s doom is also the logical outcome of what has gone before.  He was created by God to live in harmony with the rest of creation. That harmony depended on an ongoing relationship with the Creator.  He broke that relationship, and disharmony – disease, thorns, thistles – follows as surely as night follows day.

Thus begins our history in sin… and the story of our miserable race.

Thus also begins the story of our redemption…  [Stay Tuned.]

[Note: This article is excerpted and revised from my book, Our Father’s World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation, chapter 4, “Diagnosis: Sin”.  Order the book here.]

It was a brief and on the surface completely unremarkable conversation. Two conference speakers complimenting each other on their talks, discussing points each one appreciated in the other’s presentation.

But this encounter was somewhat unusual and possibly quite special. The scene played out at Kansas State University, in the midst of an academic symposium on sustainability issues in Africa. I was one of the participants in the conversation, and had, the day before, presented a talk on ‘mobilizing the African church to respond to the African environmental crisis.’ The other speaker was a representative of a prominent and important botanical garden, and had just presented what I considered the best talk of the conference on dealing with biodiversity loss in Madagascar.

As it happens, Madagascar is one of the richest – and one of the poorest – countries in the world. Rich in plants, animals and insects that are found no where else. [Your favorite zoo animal, the Lemur, is found only on Madagascar, for example.] 90% of the animals there are ‘endemic’ – they occur only on this one, large island. But Madagascar is poor – the people who live among this rich abundance are among the poorest in the world. And both groups – the plants and the people – are under great pressure. Plants and animals are going extinct. People are going hungry. Which one do we help?

We two agreed – we have to help both or we will end up helping neither. My talk – mobilizing the church – meshed perfectly with my friend’s approach to his work: “People are a large part of the problem, but people have to be part of the solution as well…” and we went on to discuss possible ways that we might be able work together to achieve a goal we both want: A solution to the pressures that are squeezing the flora and fauna and the people of Madagascar.

So what was unusual or remarkable about this conversation? Well, I’m a preacher – a confirmed evangelical Christian. The whole conference knew that because of my talk the day before. And he is a scientist, specifically a botanist, and a “devout atheist” (his words). He has no belief in God but he has a passion for the plants of Madagascar and a very real concern for the people who live there. We come from such different worlds that many people – from each of our worlds – would have wondered what we even had to talk about, let alone how we could discuss the potential of working together.

Two worlds – science and faith – met today, shook hands, and agreed that we can help each other.

That is no small thing.

[to be continued, I'm sure...]

Cross-posted at Sustain Lane.

Alan Paton wrote his novel in 1946, published in 1948.  It is set in South Africa.  What is startling about the book is that the first two pages could have been written about Kenya – and could have been written yesterday.

The lessons from today’s reading are painfully clear:  1)Environmental degradation is not a new problem.  Abuse of God’s creation is, apologies to Paton, as old as the hills.   As ancient as human nature.  If you’ll allow me to quote myself in Our Father’s World, ‘environmental problems are sin problems.’

And, 2)Why don’t we learn?  If it was obvious that people were destroying the very land they needed to live on more than 60 years ago, why do we keep acting surprised?  Why do we think we can solve this with more fertilizer or another loan from the World Bank?

Here’s the reading.  (Pick up the book here)

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills.  These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it…

The great red hills stand desolate, and the earth has torn away like flesh.  The lightning flashes over them, the clouds pour down upon them, the dead streams come to life, full of the red blood of the earth.  Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man.  They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children.  The men are away, the young men and the girls are away.  The soil cannot keep them any more.

The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil.  It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof.  It is well-tended, and not too many cattle fee upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil.  Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator.  Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men.  Destroy it and man is destroyed.

Where you stand the grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil.  But the rich green hills break down.  They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature.  For they grow red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, and the streams are dry in the kloofs.  Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it.  Stand shod upon it, for it is coarse and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet.  It is not kept, or guarded, or cared for, it no longer keeps men, guards men, cares for men…

Did you read this far?  Then it’s time to close the lap top or turn off the monitor, get yourself outdoors for a bit, and do two things:  If you can see good healthy soil, ground that still has the capacity to ‘keep men’, rejoice and give thanks to God for his mercy.  And at the same time, weep and repent for what we have done to God’s creation, and for those now suffering and dying because ‘the soil cannot keep them any more.’