If you’re like me, you’re captivated by economic, political, social, theological issues. I like to contemplate the discovery of grand plans and heroic actions that will save the world, the economy, the society, the church. Whenever my mind goes off into the ether of supposed all-encompassing solutions to global or national crises, I find that it’s important to be brought back to the earth—the earth, in fact, in my own backyard. ["Roadmap" image source]

Wendell Berry is just the right guy to knock me off my high horse, which he does so aptly in his classic essay “The Gift of Good Land.” In the essay Berry takes a number of cues from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. These lines are the key lines:

[How] apt the mind or fancy is to rove
Unchecked, and of her roving is no end;
Till warned, or by experience taught, she learn
That not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime Wisdom.

Berry elaborates on the uselessness of knowing “at large of things remote from use, obscure, and subtle” in reference to world hunger:

As is characteristic of industrial heroism, the professed intention here is entirely salutary: nobody should starve. The trouble is that “world hunger” is not a problem that can be solved by a “world solution.” Except in a very limited sense, it is not an industrial problem, and industrial attempts to solve it—such as the “Green Revolution” and “Food for Peace”—have often had grotesque and destructive results. “The problem of world hunger” cannot be solved until it is understood and dealt with by local people as a multitude of local problems of ecology, agriculture, and culture.

He reminds us that the local, daily acts of skillful stewardship and self-restraint are the solution to global problems:

The great study of stewardship, then, is “to know/That which before us lies in daily life” and to talk about skill. In the loss of skill we lose stewardship; in losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the great neighborhood of Creation. It is possible—as our experience in this good land shows—to exile ourselves from Creation, and to ally ourselves with the principle of destruction. . . . And once we have allied ourselves with that principle, we are foolish to think that we can control the results. The “regulation” of abominations is a modern governmental exercise that never succeeds. If we are willing to pollute the air—to harm the elegant creature known as the atmosphere—by that token we are willing to harm all creatures that breathe, ourselves and our children among them. There is no begging off or “trading off.” You cannot affirm the power plant and condemn the smokestack, or affirm the smoke and condemn the cough.

That is not to suggest that we can live harmlessly, or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want. [Bread making image source]

This seems to suggest that there’s a lot more meant by the beginning of “The Lord’s Prayer”:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread (Matthew 6:9-11).

My prayer: “Lord, make me more skillful in attending well to the daily things.”

While spending a few days thinking through the meaning of Nicolai Berdyaev’s declaration that “beauty will save the world,” I bought Joel Salatin’s new, guilt-inducing book Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World. I bought it in part because Joel was speaking at Calvin College’s January Series yesterday—a lecture I was pleased to have been able to attend.

Much of what Joel preaches has major implications about how we vote, how we live, and mostly how we eat. (He calls himself a “Christian, libertarian, environmentalist, capitalist farmer.”) This, of course, is not a forum for endorsing particular politicians, policies, or products; so we won’t go there. But what Joel teaches about “normal nature” is certainly apt for discussion here. His view, in a nutshell, is that in countless ways modern living, farming, manufacturing, doing business, and eating has gone a long way away from the way nature works—the way God made the earth and human bodies to function. His plea is for us to understand exactly how God made the natural world to function and live in accord with that understanding.  We need to know what is normal in God’s world and live by what is normal.

In my contemplating Joel’s words, an enigmatic statement made by Henry David Thoreau finally became clear for me: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” First, we need to recognize that by the word “world” he (and Berdyaev) means the natural world—the earth, not godless society. Second, we need to know the common primary definition of the word “wild”: “Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed.” This means the way God made the natural world to function on its own—normal.

When we live in accord with “wild” nature—nature as God created it—we help to maintain its integrity and its capacity to sustain us all. When we destroy that capacity by foolish farming, by over-consumption, and by nature-wasting and nature-twisting industrial and commercial activity, we are in a sense telling God that we know better. We are listening to the serpent. We are continuing to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are eating what will kill us. We become pro-death, not pro-life.

“The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” We need to think long and hard about this statement as well, which, if you can believe it, is the motto of the state of Hawaii! Righteousness means right behavior toward both people and God’s good, living earth.  I suppose an appropriate summation of Joel Salatin’s message is an earnest, non-sarcastic “Get a life!”

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? (Ezekiel 34:18).

[Joel Salatin image source]
[Hawaii motto image source]

I have to confess that I have a lot of anguish of soul over what I preach and how I live.  This is especially so in the area of living a creation-careful life.  Like everyone else alive in the US today, I’m a child of what could be called the Power Age of America.  I obtained my driver’s license in 1958, the era of “muscle cars.”  Though my first car was a gutless Studebaker, a hand-me-down oil burner we called the “Purple Turtle,” my college car was a huge De Soto Firedome with a massive V8 engine. [Car photo source]

Driving over-powered cars everywhere; horribly inefficient furnaces pumping out enough heat to keep our Michigan homes at 70 degrees all winter long; air conditioning to keep cars, homes, offices, and stores at 70 degrees all summer long; Florida orange juice every morning; chicken from North Carolina three times a week; beef from Colorado a few times more each week, lots of tomato soup from California; cereal from nearby Battle Creek made from corn, oats, and wheat from who knows where.  Hot, glowing TV sets burning for hours a day.  Those are the comforts and conveniences I became accustomed to—and virtually all of us believe we are now entitled to.  And it’s all come at a price—to God’s good creation and to our physical, emotional, and spiritual life. [Tomatoes photo source]

Sure, we’ve changed our ways—some.  But not nearly enough.  Same with our children and grandchildren.  We still love our power gadgets, our creature comforts, our conveniences.  And some of us feel guilty about it—but do precious little to make the major lifestyle changes that will really change us and help us to make the difference we’d like to make. [Stove photo source]

So I daydream about bailing out of the whole power structure and living with the family on some sustainable farm where the grandkids—actually all of us—will not have time for much TV or toys because we are doing “the chores.”  But how do you actually make something like that happen?  That’s my struggle.

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? (Ezekiel 34:18)

So I’m watching several people these days and seeking to gain motivation, inspiration, and insight from them: My nephew Vaughn and his family doing homeschooling and living on a sort of mini-farm in Texas, the former emergency room doctor Matthew Sleeth and his family who gave up the up-scale life for a more creation-sustainable life, and Joel Salatin, owner with his family of the creation-careful Polyface Farm in Virginia.  These are all followers of Christ who have many of the same beliefs and convictions that I have, but are actually doing a lot more to live out those beliefs and convictions.   [Joel Salatin photo source]

[Joel Salatin will appear at Calvin College's January Series on Tuesday, January 17, from 12:30 to 1:30.]

Do you want to learn and consider with me?  Take a look at some of these links and surf around from each of these spots:

A story that includes Joel Salatin from Christianity Today.  Here
Joel’s Polyface Farm: Here
A YouTube movie about Joel: Here
Dr. Matthew Sleeth’s story: Here
Dr. Susan Emmerich’s story and documentary: Here

Susan Drake Emmerich is one of those persons who, if you allow her in your life, will change who you are—for the better. Susan spent ten years in the federal government. As a former U.S. delegate to the U.N. and U.S. negotiator for the Department of State, she was a negotiator at the 1992 Earth Summit, Biological Diversity Convention, Global Climate Convention and the Chair of the Secretariat for the International Coral Reef Initiative. She also worked for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior as a Presidential Management Fellow.

I met Susan some twenty years ago when she was with the U.S. Department of State and I was trying to keep the fledgling Christian Nature Federation afloat. As founder and president of CNF, I had become a strong advocate for Christian involvement in caring for creation, moved by many factors, which included my reading of Francis Schaeffer’s important little book Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology. Susan had been influenced by Schaeffer as well. Over the years since then, our lives have intertwined in ways that affirm the wonder of God’s providence.

A major part of Susan’s story since our first meeting has been told in a PBS-style documentary that is both heart-warming and discomfiting, spiritually challenging and encouraging. It begins when she was a graduate student in Environment and Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was looking for a dissertation topic dealing with the interconnection of environmental stewardship, faith and conflict resolution. After Larry Schweiger [now president of the National Wildlife Federation] of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) told her about the conflict between watermen and environmentalists in the faith-based communities of Smith and Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay, she knew she had her topic.

Susan’s hypothesis was that faith-based problems require faith-based solutions. She wanted to test whether a faith-based community could transform their own actions toward the environment, the economy, and their neighbors and bring them into better accord with their professed belief system. The mayor and pastors of both churches on Tangier understood the gravity of Tangier’s fishery and overall economic situation and wanted to do something to resolve the building animosity toward CBF. They granted Susan’s request to conduct research on the causes of the conflict and the social forces that could inspire change.

Swain Memorial United Methodist Church

The results of the four-month initiative were amazing. Out of a love for God and the need to be accountable for their actions on the water, more than fifty Tangier watermen and men committed to biblical stewardship by making a covenant with God called The Watermen’s Stewardship Covenant. Moreover, a handful of women took the Women’s Stewardship Pledge that addressed consumption patterns. The covenants were a public commitment to God’s principles of stewardship, adherence to civil laws and contentment as set forth in the Bible.

Faithful Christians can make a lasting difference in their communities by visibly working as stewards of God’s good earth!

KEY SCRIPTURE:
[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Col. 1:15-20).

RBC’s Day of Discovery TV ministry has produced a shortened version of Susan’s story which can be viewed online here.  But be sure you watch the trailer to the documentary to get a dramatic introduction to this encouraging account.  Consider obtaining this DVD and its accompanying materials for your church or Bible study group.

At long last, the evangelical ship seems to be swinging around on the issue of environmental degradation being a legitimate concern for Christians.  A few years ago Christianity Today magazine conducted an Internet poll in response to this question: “Should evangelicals lobby on global warming?”  Some 10 percent still believed there was no global warming; 18 percent felt the science was still unclear.  But, surprising to me, 33 percent said, “Yes, it is our job to care for creation.”  Some 20 percent more felt that caring about the climate was an aspect of loving your neighbor or at least caring about it as a social problem.

Also telling is the declining number of those who say, “Our priority should be evangelism.” Around 14 percent affirmed that position.  As an evangelical who writes and speaks on the wonder of creation and the care of creation, I’ve often been asked the question, “Isn’t evangelism—saving human souls—more important than caring for the earth?”

The idea that preaching the gospel should be the purpose of Christian living is probably the main reason that Bible believers call into question the validity of evangelical concern for the material creation—the earth.  The problem is that the question “Isn’t evangelism more important than caring for the earth?” is virtually meaningless as it stands.  This can be illustrated by asking another question: “Isn’t evangelism more important than good parenting?”  Whereas the first seems to call for an obvious yes, the second does not.  In fact, most evangelicals with children would likely answer no to the second question.

The reason is this:  Christians have spiritual-interpersonal responsibilities that relate to our gospel mission as members of the universal body of Christ—the church; but we also have what I call our material-creational responsibilities, which we share with all mankind (meaning that these responsibilities were given to all mankind in the beginning).  The material-creational responsibilities that all people have in common are these: being fruitful by having children and then caring for and protecting them; working so that we might obtain healthful food to eat and clean water to drink; protecting ourselves and our offspring with adequate shelter and clothing; and being caretakers of the earth and its fruitfulness so that it can continue to provide us and all other creatures God made and loves with what we need in order to live and remain healthy.

As Christians, of course, we want to be both health-promoting and healthy servants of God.  Our material-creational responsibilities are implicit in the foundational chapters of the Bible’s book of Genesis, and it can be argued convincingly from these Scriptures that these responsibilities come before our spiritual-interpersonal ones.  The reason is this: if these were ignored, very little evangelism would take place at all—simply because weak, diseased, or dead people are poor evangelists!

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8).

Evangelical Christians commonly hold that evangelism is primarily the preaching, teaching, and sharing of the words of the gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son [Jesus], that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Yet it is not likely that any of us ever spend the bulk of our time doing this.  We spend most of our waking hours carrying out our material-creational responsibilities.  And that is the way it should be.

In fact, when we carry out these responsibilities in a way that demonstrates the love of God for both the world of people and the world of nature that He created, we are “evangelizing.”  Living Christianly within the light of the gospel with its good news about the restoration of the good cosmos when Jesus returns is likely to be just as important to the cause of evangelism as proclaiming the specific words of the gospel.  Can Christians who ignore the basic material-creational mandates implied by our Scriptures—like caring for our families and for the creation—be “evangelicals” in the fullest meaning of that term?

I like the way Joseph Sittler put it:

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.