It’s exactly twenty years this year since I became an “official” commentator on the creation and the Christian faith. Then living in Fullerton, California, I had just completed a two-year contract as a staff writer for Biola University. A few years before that, I was director of communication for Bibles for India—during which time I did a great deal of research on the New Age Movement and the influence of Eastern religion in America. What distressed me in particular was the way that the big nature agencies like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society were giving lots of coverage to Eastern thought and suggesting that it might provide the best “spiritual” underpinning for grasping the mystery of the natural world.
A one-time member of the Sierra Club, I was particularly stunned by an official Sierra Club “Environmental Health Sourcebook” titled Well Body, Well Earth published in 1983. It pretty much wrote off Christianity as having any significance in dealing with the world’s environmental problems and suggested that Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American mysticism, and Transcendental Meditation along with communion with Gaia, the spirit of the earth, were more apt to give us a true understanding of the mystery of existence and our relationship to the earth. One chapter even provided prayers that you could offer to Gaia. The very next year saw the publication of the bestseller Out On A Limb by Shirley MacLaine in which she told the story of her conversion to Eastern mysticism.
My reaction to all of this was to think to myself, “We have let secular humanism explain to us the meaning of the universe for decades, and now we are turning to Eastern religion to give us the explanation.” There was no room any more for a Creator God who spoke all things into exist
ence and continues to maintain the integrity of the cosmos. It was then that I realized what a prophet Francis Schaeffer had been in his book Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology, in which he warned that if the Church did not become an active force in the issue of caring for creation, pantheism would become the religion of the Environmental Movement. So in further conversation with myself I asked, “Why don’t we have a Christian nature agency that is entirely based on the biblical worldview and honors our Creator from the start?
Out of that thought, with long and prayerful consideration and the help of many financially and organizationally, I was able to found the Christian Nature Federation in 1989. The story of that three-year endeavor could fill a book, but the upshot is that it could not make it financially, and we had to close up shop in 1992. One reason that it failed, among several, was my fundamental mindset that CNF would be a nature appreciation society that recognizes the biblical Creator, but would not deal with environmental issues. I had no inkling that God would step into the endeavor and change me, change my heart, and change the direction of the organization to one committed to creation care. And as many of my friends from that era have since said, CNF and its message came ten years too soon. Because the New Age Movement and secular science had made caring for creation either an Eastern concept or a totally godless endeavor, the Church simply was not ready to accept creation care as a legitimate aspect of the Christian worldview; so our constituency and our support just faded away.
Now, however, our caring for God’s creation is rising to the top as an important part of living biblically in our world—and as a part of our message. And, fortunately, the Sierra Club and secular scientists are now looking to followers of Christ to provide both the worldview and the hope needed to address an increasingly degraded creation—a hope expressed passionately by N. T. Wright in his book Surprised By Hope and in dozens of other Christian books, magazines, websites, and theological journals. Joseph Sittler expressed it well almost 25 years ago:
A believer is an evangelist primarily by who he is and how he lives—not by what he says. What he says is important; but unless his speaking tallies with what he is and does, he had better keep quiet. [See my article "Caring For Creation, or Presenting the Gospel"]
Twenty years down the road, much of what I dreamed of for CNF has become a reality through my work with RBC Ministries and now with this specific blogsite. God has indeed been faithful to His promises.
See you outdoors!
Dean
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:31 am
Amen, Dean. Wonderful. I believe God has certainly used you to help me grow significantly in better understanding and wanting to live according to God’s calling for us, in this area.
And good to hear of the influence Christians are beginning to have in the world, in this.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:14 am
Dean, your path to the present has so many of the same markers that many of us have encountered along the way. The frustration with other Christians’ apathy and misunderstanding of stewardship (which unfortunately still exists,) the feeling of being alone with deep concerns, the need to express our heart for God’s creation and continually being misunderstood. It was as if no other Christians around us realized that appreciation of the natural world had joined art, literature, music, and scientific inquiry as a field which Christians had once seized to glorify God before the world, but had now forfeited; that the followers of Christ had settled for mediocrity and creative endeavors which only mimicked and lagged behind the present culture. We were chastised as being “worldly-minded” if we even criticized this. But as you said, God is faithful and He has raised up many, like you, who are continuing to inform and unite those whom God has called. We all just thought we were alone in this. Thanks for reminding us of the truth.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 am
Dean, I guess its too bad that CNF didn’t make it too long, but on the other hand a wise and sovereign Father always knows what He’s doing, and for one thing, if the older agency would still be going strong today, I for one might not know about it, and without this blog, I would be missing an important emphasis. In other words, I’m really glad you’re here, and am blessed by these moments we spend meditating on these important matters.
Was pleasantly surprised by Sierra Club’s book “Holy Ground”. Don’t think I would be worshiping with each of the contributors on Sundays but I believe we might could have some pretty important discussions that could lead to working together.
Somehow, I believe our Father would be greatly pleased with that, and who knows, He just might open the door with some of those folks to the love of our wonderful Savior.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:17 am
Very well put, Linda!
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:56 am
When chiefly secular agencies enter the world of organized religion, there tends to be a lack of understanding of the fine points of difference within the various visions of faith. What has been encouraging about the Sierra Club is that its executive director, Carl Pope, has constantly sought to be instructed by the Christian creation care community. When he asked how the Club could best serve people of faith, we replied that their being faithful to their mission through good science and honest journalism is what is best. Then we can use their findings with a sense of confidence. Their dabbling with Eastern and New Age philosophy was not one of their better moves. I have been with the book’s editor, Lyndsay Moseley, on a number of occasions. She is a Christian and extremely dedicated to her work as liaison between the Sierra Club and the evangelical community.
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Dean, since I’ve been reading the Wonder of Creation I have been enlightened and encouraged. I grew up hiking, camping and climbing in the Washington’s Cascades. When the environmental movement became politicized in the ’80′s, my disenchantment set in. It wasn’t a direction that I wanted to go, and I backed away from this “extreme” environmentalism. What with raising a family and work, I had plenty to keep me busy.
So it was good to hear that someone else felt the same way about the course of things. And now you say that the Sierra Club and Audobon are including a Christian perspective? Wow! I guess miracles really do happen. It’s going to take some time to get my head around that idea.
Thanks again for your blog site.
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I’m not sure about the Audubon Society on this. My only direct knowledge is of the Sierra Club. One of the reasons for this turnaround is pretty simple: The Christian worldview and understandings about the coming restoration of the natural world in the Kingdom of the reigning Messiah is the only one that provides hope.