Population Control and the Environment

Birthrates continue to drop in the West. In many countries, the birthrate among citizens in well below the replacement rate. This means that, without immigration, the population of a nation will begin to shrink rather than grow. Some believe a reduction in the overall population of humans on earth would be a good thing.

There are many reasons that people are having fewer children. Some cite economic concerns, career interests, and avoidance of the responsibilities of parenting. Others cite the prevalence of entertainment that distracts and seems to replace the need for human relationships. But some people are not having children because of concerns about the environment.

In a 2019 article in the online magazine, Outside, one author celebrated his recent vasectomy. He claims that his choice of voluntary sterilization was necessary, “because there are simply too many humans on this planet.” He argues that reducing the population is absolutely necessary, “and getting there voluntarily will be an awful lot less painful than doing it with war, famine, and natural disaster.”

Throughout much of its history, the environmental movement has tended toward negative attitudes about human reproduction. The embrace of population control as a goal by many environmental activists has served to make agreement between many Christians and non-Christian environmentalists difficult.

Christians should be concerned about efforts to reduce or control human population because they often lead to violence against the most vulnerable.

The Environment and Population Control

Historically there has been a strong connection between environmental movements and population control. At the tail end of the eighteenth century, Thomas Malthus, an English clergyman, proposed delaying marriage and other means of reducing birthrates as a way to slow population growth. One of his major concerns was that a growing population would expand beyond the capacity of the agriculture of the day. This, he feared, would increase suffering as many people would starve because there was simply too little food.

In 1967, Paul Ehrlich published his famous book, The Population Bomb, where he predicted impending environmental catastrophe if the number of humans on earth continued to rise. Tillich’s thinking was used by a congressionally appointed team, the Rockefeller Commission, to argue for government funding of abortion, sterilization, and other forms of birth control. The measures recommended were voluntary, but they were to be state sponsored.

Are Kids Bad for the Environment?

For the sake of argument, let’s assume for the moment that climate change is strongly influenced by human activity. For many environmental activists, this assumption leads to the logical conclusion that fewer humans would be proportionately better for the world.

The Cross by Michael Craven. Used by CC License. http://ow.ly/RDIe30aJ2tm

However, that conclusion does not necessarily follow without additional assumptions. In making this argument, proponents of voluntary population control are assuming that consumption patterns would continue exactly as they are now.

This is an example of an over-simplified argument leading to a seemingly inarguable conclusion. In fact, it is theoretically possible that, if consumption patterns of humans were sufficiently changed, the earth could support population growth at an even greater rate. Even accepting a strong correlation between human activity and climate change, it is unnecessary to embrace an unbiblical, negative view of humans for the sake of the environment.

The Goodness of Humanity

As Christians, we should actively oppose worldviews that denigrate the value of humans. Genesis 1:26–27 affirms that humans were made in the image of God.

The first command God gave to humanity was to be fruitful and multiple. Humanity was called to “fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:28, ESV)

Part of God’s original design for the created order was for it to be filled with humans, made in his image.

Humans and the Environment

Genesis 1:28 which affirms the dignity and authority of humans, is also interpreted by some environmentalists as the verse that has enabled the abuse of the environment in the West. Such an interpretation is based on the belief that filling the earth and subduing it entails misusing the earth.

Given the track record of humans in Western nations influenced by Christianity, there seems to be some merit to the connection between a biblical worldview and the abuse of creation. However, consistent message of Scripture is that humans are to be responsible stewards of the earth. Even in Gen 1:28, the assumption is that by filling and subduing the earth, the created order will flourish in a way that supports the growing number of people made in the image of God.

The Danger of Population Control

Population control is dangerous because it tends to most significantly impact the most vulnerable. The near total abortion rate of babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome is Iceland is one example of voluntary population control that has led to humans, made in the image of God, largely eradicated because they were considered defective.

China’s radical one-child policy, which has since been somewhat relaxed, created a significant demographic problem for the nation. Culturally boys were valued more than girls, in part because they were perceived to have more potential to earn more and support parents in old age. Therefore, couples practiced sex-selective abortions, often choosing to abort baby girls. The result is a gender imbalance, with approximately 118 boys born for every 100 girls.

Population control tends to lead to the elimination of those considered less valuable by society, whether that is due to perceived defects, sex, race, or some other characteristic. A culture that values humans as made in the image of God should resist movements that promote population control as a legitimate goal. That goal has proved costly to those who can least defend themselves.

Conclusion

As citizens of the Kingdom of God, Christians must learn to think rightly about the good of humanity and the image of God. Despite the effects of the fall, Scripture consistently affirms the dignity and value of every human being. Population control movements tend to impact the most vulnerable more significantly. Therefore, Christians should be careful not to celebrate movements that make reducing the population of humans a central goal, even when those controls are implemented voluntarily.

A Connection Between Higher Taxes and Freedom of Thought

Is economic freedom important?

There is a slice of American society, many of whom are on the political right, for whom economic freedom—usually characterized by a desire for a libertarian or near anarcho-capitalist society—is an ultimate good that is good in and of itself.

In response, some on the left, especially young people who have lived in the extreme prosperity of the modern West, see economic freedom as an evil to be curbed through “more effective” redistribution of wealth through violence (think the Bezos guillotine protests) or, at the very least, expansive government programs fueled by high taxes.

For some, high taxes are a comparatively small threat when the “major threat of the far right” is concentration camps and a rather pointless, though exceedingly bloody battle in World War I.

One certified blue-checked media personality recently commented: “Seems poignant that the major threat of the far left is higher taxes, while the major threat of the far right is, well, Dachau or Verdun.”

This is, no doubt, a flippant comment in a larger conversation (albeit one that occurred in public), but it is illustrative of a tendency of some to minimize the powerful effect of growing concentrations of power, whether in government or in corporations.

There is no question that there is more than an undercurrent of hostility toward civilization on the far right. However, it remains an open question whether the “major threat of the far left” is something a bit more significant than higher taxes. The violence of Antifa and some of the riots from the summer of 2020 caused by agitators from the far-left indicate that on both poles there is cause for concern.

The Value of Economic Freedom

But the question remains whether higher taxes are really an insignificant threat.

I think it is entirely possible to believe that higher taxes are not “the major threat of the far left” while still believing them to be a significant threat to a healthy society. Of course, that belief would depend on recognizing the value of economic freedom.

Economic freedom is necessary for human flourishing, but it is not sufficient for human flourishing.

An entirely free market (which the U.S. is very far from) would not make people holy and happy. In fact, as we’ve seen through the rise of modernity, economic freedom can leave people nearly as miserable (and sometimes more so) than certain forms of totalitarianism.

In the end, economic freedom does not produce happiness. However, economic freedom does enable, for those who are virtuous and especially in a (basically) virtuous society, the ability to thrive and fulfill the unique calling of being human.

The qualified value of economic freedom can be seen by the effects of its absence.

Alternatives to Economic Freedom

If, as some versions of socialism propose, the government regulates the amount of money a person can earn, then the government fundamentally has the power to police much of human activity.

All human activity is not economic. However, a great deal of human activity is economically engaged. Even “free” activities like worship depend on the economic ability to (a) afford leisure time (i.e., time not directed toward economic productivity) to gather for worship, (b) the ability for a community of like-minded individuals to cooperate and pool resources to fund a house of worship, a vocational pastor, and to support ministries that serve the common good. The economic support for these non-economic goods is enabled by some degree of economic freedom. One must have disposable income to support ideas and communities that one prefers.

Consider further that if the government holds the keys to all wealth, even through well-intentioned redistribution programs funded by confiscatory taxes, then they hold the keys to all ideologies. If disagreeing with the powers that be (especially if those powers are in favor of increased economic control of citizens) can lead to having funding choked off through job loss or increased taxation (which might be in the form of taxation of despised charitable groups, like churches, or preferential treatment of certain charities through access to grants, etc.), then freedom of thought and speech are greatly restricted.

To be clear, the political right has often made mountains out of molehills here. Bad policies like the Affordable Care Act and the Green New Deal are not usually going to lead directly to the forms of economic control that full-on communism has. They will, thus, be unlikely to immediately exert totalitarian control over human thought.

But such soft-totalitarianism isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Though the Affordable Care Act, for example, does not necessarily entail totalitarianism, the seeds for it have been made evident by the coercive power that has been used in the name of the ACA.

Although the law itself does not actually require funding birth-control or abortifacients, the overriding concern of the regulators responsible for administration of the Affordable Care Act has been coercing, through economic and legal means, groups that object to those medical technologies to fund them. It’s not enough to ensure that workers are medically shielded from significant emergencies; many on the left are insistent that conscientious objectors be forced to fund certain ideologically preferred treatments. For example, there has been a near-pathological focus by the Left on attacking the Little Sisters for the Poor by every means available to demand they fund abortion and abortifacients in strong opposition to their conscience.

For those watching the message is clear: “Fund the ‘medical’ services we prefer or stop existing in the public square. We are willing to use the force of law to force you to comply.”

The same voices that are attempting to claw back economic freedom from people are the ones that seem to be also bent on enforcing ideological homogeneity around their preferred theories. “Cancel culture” is a real thing. Now imagine if the thought leaders that have the power to enact “cancel culture” also have the ability to cut non-preferred individuals out from government benefits.

There may be no edict that declares that one must voice allegiance to ideologies like “white fragility,” but if only meager subsistence is possible apart from government support and if support from the government requires public support for particular ideologies, then the connection between economic freedom and the more basic freedom of conscience (or thought; or speech) becomes apparent.

This seems unthinkable in contemporary America, but dramatic shifts toward public tolerance of contrary ideas has happened rapidly within the history of the past century.

Economic Freedom and Free Thinking

Economic freedom is not sufficient for free thought or the flourishing of society, but it is necessary.

In an essay for a series entitled, “Is Progress Possible?,” C. S. Lewis notes this correlation between flourishing and economic freedom:

“I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has ‘the free-born mind’. But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society [the rising democratic socialism in the U.K.] is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of the Government who can criticize its acts and snap its fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that’s the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone’s schoolmaster and employer? Admittedly, when man was untamed, such liberty belonged only to the few. I know. Hence the horrible suspicion that our only choice is between the societies with few freemen and societies with none.”

Or, consider Vaclav Havel’s lengthy essay “The Power of the Powerless,” in which he recounts the soft-totalitarianism of the Soviet ruled Czechoslovakia, where a rebellious act by the green-grocer could be merely not putting up the most recent socialist propaganda in the midst of his produce. The government that controls the economy controls the ability to think and speak.

Threat of Higher Taxes

So the threat of higher taxes is not, perhaps, the major threat from the far-left. Their recently demonstrated willingness to storm cafes to demand people make hand gestures to support their cause, to throw their food on the ground, and to harass them for daring to have quiet conversation with a friend or family member that doesn’t specifically advocate some twisted idea of “justice” are a much deeper threat. Along with that threat is the increasing violence of Antifa, whose methods look more and more like the sort of jackbooted thuggery that they claim to be resisting.

But the threat of an unending expansion of government along the lines proposed by some on the far left, including the outlines explicitly found in proponents of the Green New Deal, are real. It’s more than just higher taxes, but the ability to control the economy to stifle differing opinions.

It seems like hyperbole or slippery slope argumentation to some, but based on the words and behavior of the far left, the less unlikely such attempts to grasp power appear. The most virulent elements on the right and left are still marginal, though they tend to get disproportionate amounts of attention due to the nature of clicks and social networks.

The deeper question for those concerned about the negative effects of the polarized left and right is how to find common cause, create space for cooperation toward mutual concerns, and carve out appropriate space for conscience among increasingly divided understanding of good. That will require a more careful navigation of the significant dangers of the far left and right than simply labeling every disfavored policy on the left “socialism” or denying any concerns about freedom from the right as “selfish individualism” or “fear mongering.”

Breaking Bread with the Dead

The life of the mind is a topic of growing significance as the pace of change, with its assaults on our mental stability, continue to accelerate. Some sources estimate there are more than 2 million books published worldwide each year. And that volume of content is in addition to the newspapers, magazines, blogs, tweets, and emails that also vie for our time.

Along with the flash and glamour of new publications, our attention is also directed to “old books,” which are often celebrated as “classics” that are critical to becoming properly formed as humans or derided as elements of a “racist patriarchy” that must be resisted by any means and at any cost.

In three books, written through the last decade, Alan Jacobs has drafted a series of books that wrestle with the life of the mind, the nature of reading, and value of ancient literary history. This is an odd series. Each book comes from a different publisher, has a distinct thesis, and wrestles with a different topic. There is no thematic unity and little hope of a boxed set, which seems to be the hallmark of such sequences in our day. The progression of topics, too, does not seem as unified as one might expect.

And yet, Jacobs admits that these books are in a series, and that they are related, as disparate as they may seem. The careful reader will, indeed, find that there is a connection between them all. Not a connection that requires reading the books in sequence, but that these are markers, perhaps, staking out the boundaries of a mind alive to the unity of the world and its possibilities. The series is by no means complete, so it will not surprise me to find another short book set out to help readers navigate the modern world, published in a few more years.

Jacobs is, by profession, a teacher of literature. He has also done significant work as a cultural critic. In this he is much like C. S. Lewis, a thinker with whom Jacobs has demonstrated significant interest and expertise. It is not difficult, as a result, to find echoes of Lewis throughout Jacobs’ work, especially in this latest book, Breaking Bread with the Dead, which shares a common theme with Lewis’ essay, “On the Reading of Old Books.”

Breaking Bread with the Dead obviously comes out in favor of reading old books. But read in context with The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, it is abundantly clear that Jacobs is not advertising the “checklist” approach of slogging through “Greats,” which is a quest to max out your score on Facebook quizzes and a recipe for gobbling a gourmet feast without savoring the marinated centuries between works—in other words, it represents the sin of gluttony. Rather, he is arguing that reading old books is necessary to understand our times and to live in them.

Jacobs clearly states this goal toward the end of his introduction,

To open yourself to the past is to make yourself less vulnerable to the cruelties of descending in tweeted wrath on a young woman whose clothing you disapprove of, or firing an employee because of a tween you didn’t take time to understand, or responding to climate change either by ignoring it or by indulging in impotent rage. You realize that you need to obey the impulses of this moment—which, it is fair to say, never tend to produce a tranquil mind.

This book is an essay that wanders toward a single goal, rather than an argument with chapters neatly divided into segments of support and refutation. It is a literary essay that seeks to deal with the questions of the day. One of the most pertinent questions for our tiny historical moment is whether one dare to read authors whose social and moral views differ—whether greatly or radically—from our own.

Jacobs begins by examining the problem of presentism, which is the tendency to see our particular cultural moment as the moral apex of humanity and to denigrate all who have ever had a differing opinion. Thus, the reading of Robinson Crusoe must be abandoned because it is racist, sexist, colonial, and a bunch of other bad things that are native and irrevocably attached to old, dead, white men. Jacobs argues that in order to properly understand our own moment, we must interact with minds that came before our moment, even when they do, in fact, have racist, sexist, and colonial ideas.

The concept for engaging with those we disagree with is represented as “table fellowship,” which is obviously conveyed by the title of the book. Jacobs understands this has the center of the book: “sitting at the table with our ancestors and learning to know them in their difference from, as well as their likeness to, us.” He argues that reading even those with whom we disagree—by inviting them to our table—we open ourselves up to a greater understanding of their time and ours. But at the same time, since we invite these sometimes-scraggly guests through the practice of reading, we control the interaction, so that when they get to rowdy we can, with little effort, simply disinvite them from the meal by closing the book and moving to another guest.

Breaking bread with the dead offers us challenges to our own worldview—exactly the reason many activist “academics” want them “cancelled”—and force us to examine our unexamined assumptions. They also force us to wrestle with the reality that our morality du jour has some of the same barbarities of a previous age (albeit with a different shade of lipstick) and that it sometimes is a positive logical outcome of a trajectory we might find in older literature, if we but take the time to consider it. Reading old books helps us to understand ourselves and our time better.

As morality has become increasingly unpinned from any sense of permanence or overt morality, the pace of change from one absolute standard to another has become exhausting. A group of racist trolls on a social media site turn the “OK” symbol into a symbol for “white power” and suddenly everyone who uses the symbol, with its long-standing cultural significance, is now complicit in white supremacy. Unless, of course, someone who is of the right color or political affiliation uses it, in which case it means what it has consistently meant. The tyranny of the present undermines every sense of peace. As Jacobs argues, reading old books is the best way to remind ourselves of our own finitude, the temporary nature of our culture’s moral conclusions, and deepens our souls to better understand those who differ from us. In other words, breaking bread with the dead helps make us more human and reminds us of the humanity of others.

Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

By Jacobs, Alan

Buy on Amazon

NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi - A Review

It seemed like a no brainer to understand that communism is evil when I was young. I remember the excitement of the Berlin Wall coming down, though I was still in elementary school when it happened. But a generation has arisen that has no memory of the Soviet bloc and whose greatest concerns seem to be that capitalism has worked too well for some people.

There is no replacement for experience. But the best way to keep the memory of socialistic oppression alive is to study history, retell it, and ensure apologists for economic collectivism do not control the narrative.

Gary Bruce’s book, The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi, is a book that accurately presents the reality of the East German secret police and the work they did to suppress freedom, oppress their people, and punish dissent.

This book is not as flashy as some history books, but it is impressive in the quality of archival work Bruce did. The one thing that the East German government seems to have mastered is paperwork, and they left a huge volume of it for historians to dig through. Bruce’s book combines both archival research and interviews to provide a look at the work of the Stasi from the perspective of the full-time employees, the informant network, and those who were impacted by both the other groups.

The Stasi did not work like the Nazis and the Soviet oppression of East Germany was quite different than that of the National Socialist party of Adolf Hitler. Of course, Hitler came to power by promising economic prosperity and largely delivering on that promise. The Nazis maintained control by force and popular enforcement by patriotic citizens. In contrast, the Stasi maintained control for the Communist Party by gnawing fear and a carefully maintained network of amateur spies within the East German population.

This book begins with a chapter explaining the geographical setting of the book. Since this is a volume derived largely from archival work, it cannot cover everything that happened. Bruce drills down to two industrial districts in East Germany, both of which are reasonably close to the West German border. Chapter Two details the work done by professional Stasi workers, which is really boring. The wrote absurdly detailed reports about routine goings-on, which were probably read by no one. However, those reports could be used, if needed, to justify charges and oppression of anyone who crossed the line at a later point. The banality of the work of the Stasi agent is depressing and almost worth pitying, if the effect they had were not so evil.

Chapter Three talks about the work of the Stasi informants. These people were amateur, secret agents who worked for the Stasi. Some of them believed in communism. Others were essentially blackmailed into participating in the oppression of other citizens because they or a loved one had history or an offense that could be charged against them. It is easier to have sympathy for the blackmailed than the volunteers. It is interesting to read how the Stasi cultivated their informant network and instructive for understanding contemporary surveillance. The fourth chapter discusses those who were targeted by the Stasi, which largely included anyone who raised signs of dissent or, especially, those who attempted to escape. One of the most significant truths of communism is that it requires force to keep people in.

The final two chapters discuss the experience of those not under direct surveillance of the Stasi. They were often the place where people would go to complain about pollution, unsafe work conditions, or other failures of the communist regime. The Stasi provided security services to ensure festivals did not cause dissent. The Stasi were everywhere, but they were often seen as an ineffective bureaucracy, which was more likely to succeed in making life difficult for those who dared to speak out than for the average citizen than in fixing the real problems in the area. Chapter Six outlines the events leading to and immediately following the fall of the Berlin wall, including the attempt of the Stasi to escape the anger of the citizens who had lived under their thumb.

Collectivist economics continues to increase in popularity because people do not remember the malaise of life within the Soviet regime. The Firm helps retain the memory of the work it took to keep the population within East Germany, especially highly skilled individuals who could have done much better by escaping. Bruce does this in an even-handed way. He is positive toward the medical system of East Germany, though recognizing that they often lacked treatments and tools that were common in the West. He recognizes that many people had a moderately fulfilling life. But what readers cannot escape is that life was always controlled. There was a constant knowledge that freedom was limited and that the mere suspicion of a desire to escape could well lead to having one’s life turned upside down. These are the necessary side-effects of collectivist economics, which should give us pause as we consider our nation’s future.

The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi (Oxford Oral History Series)

By Gary Bruce

Buy on Amazon

Why Should Christians Practice Creation Care?

One of the most basic questions that we must wrestle with when engaging in any activism, political or otherwise, is why it matters. I firmly believe that Christians should be engaged in positively caring for creation, but that belief is meaningless unless built on a solid foundation. This post will explore some reasons Christians should work to care for the environment.

Creation Belongs to God

Perhaps the most important reason to participate in creation care is that all of creation belongs to God. Psalm 24:1 states, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” When we care for creation, we are showing that we value something that belongs to God. Just as we might honor a parent by caring for the car we were loaned, we should honor God by caring for his creation that we are privileged to live in.

One of the most prevalent defenses of poor environmental stewardship is the idea that humans have a right to use their resources in a way that pleases them. Private property rights are vital to a healthy, economically just society. However, Christians should understand that property is always a stewardship under God’s ownership of creation. Humans have been given a very special place in the created order, but that does not permit us to be wasteful of God’s resources or intentionally harm what God has made.

In fact, beyond simply ensuring that we do not harm God’s creation, we should also encourage others not to harm God’s creation. Since creation belongs to God, the proper use of it is a duty for Christians and a means that we can show that we live under an authority other than our own.

Part of Dominion Over Creation

A second reason for Christian engagement in creation care is that Christians are uniquely equipped to strike the balance on the proper utilization of creation because they more properly know the Creator. The balance between use and abuse of creation is important. It is what keeps populations from turning a forest into a desert on one hand or preventing human flourishing on the other.

Creation care is one way of giving evidence of human dominion over creation. In Genesis 1:26 and 28, God gives humans authority over creation. Psalm 8:5–8 explains that the dominion God has given to humans is quite an honor; it includes authority over the rest of creation. Humans have been given authority over creation that is subordinate to, but representative of God’s authority.

If Christians really believe that God has given humans as special place in creation as rulers, then that place includes both the rights and duties of authority. Humans have the right to utilize creation to survive and to flourish. However, good rulers also take the welfare of their subjects into consideration. Thus, the same mandate that gives humans license to use creation for their benefit also requires humans to take the good of creation into account.

Restoration Reflects the Gospel

A third reason for Christians to participate in creation care is that improving the environment can represent the restoration of the gospel. It is important to be precise on this point. The gospel is not primarily concerned with people picking up trash, but the act of picking up trash is a microcosm of what the gospel does. In one sense, when Christians care for creation, we show what the gospel looks like in the physical world.

In Pollution and the Death of Man, Francis Schaeffer writes, “The church ought to be a ‘pilot plant,’ where men can see in our congregations and missions a substantial healing of all the divisions, the alienations which man’s rebellion has produced.”[1] As he describes it, local congregations and denominations should be showing what it looks like for the gospel to be worked out practically, so that the God-human division, the human-human division, and the human-nature division are shown to be healed.

Christians have a unique contribution to the restoration of the proper relationship between humans and the created order because we recognize the value of it without worshiping it. The church should be an example of what the New Heavens and New Earth will be, to the best it can be achieved.

Seeking the Common Good

A fourth reason Christians should engage in creation care is that a healthy environment is universally recognized as a sign of the common good. Novels and movies use scenes of environmental degradation to indicate political and social blight. In Cormac McCarthy’s book, The Road, the landscape is depicted as a burnt-out wasteland, which gives readers a sense of the hopelessness of the whole story.[2] In the story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and journey to the promised land, there is a strong contrast between the desolation of the wilderness and the richness of the promised land.

Jeremiah 29:7 points toward God’s vision for his people’s pursuit of the common good: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” It is not too much of a stretch to shift from the “good of the city” to the “well-being of the environment in which people live.” Just like Israel during their exile into Babylon, Christians are called to seek the good of their communities in multiple ways, including pursuing creation care.

Personal Benefits from Environmental Health

A fifth reason to engage in creation care is that it often leads to personal benefits either directly or indirectly. A healthy environment is good for everyone but many of the practical ways that humans can reduce their impact on the environment also return benefits to the individual seeking the reduction.

For example, since we know that driving produces pollutants that can build up and harm the environment, reducing excess driving is one way of caring for creation. At the same time the driver reduces the number of miles she drives, she also reduces the money that she spends on fuel and car maintenance leading to a personal benefit. Even more directly, if the driver decides to walk or bike to destinations, then she gains the benefit of exercise. Similarly, when a household commits to putting on an additional layer of clothing in the winter and turning the heat down a few degrees, they both reduce the pollution emitted to the environment for their heating needs and reduce their expenses.

Many of the environmental problems in the West are tied to overconsumption, excessive travel, and a focus on convenience. By curtailing some of these extras, individuals have the potential to benefit their financial and physical well-being, as well as reduce their impact on the environment.

Topic of Cultural Concern

A sixth significant reason for Christians to engage in creation care is that it is a topic of significant concern in the surrounding culture. The church is not called to respond to every fad in the surrounding culture. However, the continued concerns in the world about the health of the environment seem to warrant a response.

The primary mission of every Christian and the local church should always be the gospel of Jesus Christ. As discussed above, creation care provides a means for Christians to show what the gospel looks like. Care for the environment can be a vital part of contextualizing the gospel message.

Tim Keller defines contextualization as “giving people the Bible’s answers, which they may not at all want to hear, to questions about life that people in their particular time and place are asking, in language and forms they can comprehend, and through appeals and argument with force they can fell, even if they reject them.”[3] The world is asking questions about how to deal with damage done to nature in the past and in the present.

Christianity has answers, through the gospel message of Scripture, to explain what the desired goal of environmentalism should be. Therefore, Christians are missing an excellent opportunity to demonstrate gospel-fueled restoration to the surrounding culture when they ignore creation care.

Topic of Concern for Christian Youth

A seventh reason to engage in creation care is to show children growing up in the church that Christianity offers a sufficient, comprehensive worldview. Periodically, Christian news outlets publish articles exploring why so many young people who were raised in the church walk away from their faith when they gain some level of independence. This is a legitimate concern for many parents and church leaders. It raises questions about how effective the church has been in communicating the gospel to the next generation when they seem to be walking away from Christianity in large numbers.

One possible cause for this trend is that Christian parents and the church have not been effective in demonstrating the plausibility of the Christian worldview.[4] The dominant thinking of culture has shifted to emphasize the importance of individualistic choice of a religious tradition. Young adults are even less likely to hold to traditional family beliefs unless they have adopted them on their own merits.[5] It weakens the plausibility of Christianity in the eyes of young people when believers do not appear to have an answer to major issues within the culture. As the church seeks to reach its own children, it shows young people the sufficiency of Scripture and the all-encompassing nature of the gospel.

Opportunities for Evangelism

An eighth reason to participate in creation care is that it may provide opportunities to cooperate with non-Christians in a common cause. For many Christians, one of the biggest challenges to sharing our faith is that we do not spend enough time around non-Christians in social settings. Our opportunities for evangelism are often limited to the grocery store line, the sidelines of a kid’s soccer game, and water-cooler conversations. Christians should be grateful for these forms of contact, but we should also seek deeper engagement with our neighbors that can allow for casual conversations that turn into evangelistic conversations.

The relative absence of gospel-centered Christians from environmental movements, as well as the overt hostility of some environmental movements toward Christianity, has allowed organizations primarily concerned with care for the environment to be dominated by non-Christians. One reaction is to see the organizations and their adherents as enemy agents. That strategy has been implemented by many conservative, orthodox Christians for the past century in the West.[6]

Instead of resulting in a purified church, showing the pure gospel light to the world around, attempts to separate from non-Christian organizations has largely led to Christians losing an opportunity to influence the trajectory of culture. It has also led to fewer interactions between believers and non-believers, which has allowed sub-cultures to flourish that fundamentally misunderstand the gospel or be ignorant of its meaning.[7] Environmental activism is a field that has been largely dominated by non-Christian influences, which makes it a primary place for Christians to engage with the lost, verbally proclaim the gospel, and provide a small-scale demonstration of what gospel restoration looks like.

Environmental Problems are Worse for the Poor

A ninth reason for Christians to be engaged in creation care is that it provides a means for caring for the poor indirectly.[8] When Paul summarizes the decision of the Jerusalem council about his ministry and the gospel he was preaching, he notes that they urged him to “remember the poor.” (Gal 2:10) While social ministries cannot replace the gospel, they are a key part of showing what gospel redemption looks like in the world. Creation care is beneficial to the poor because the impact of environmental degradation is typically hardest on those with the least economic resources.

Images of poverty often coincide with environmental squalor. For example, entire communities exist in many countries to live near and dig through landfills. The Recycled Orchestra, made up of impoverished children from Cateura, Paraguay brought this reality to the public eye several years ago. Clean water, clean food, and clean air are problems for poor communities that are often pushed to the least healthy areas on the edges of cities. As environmental conditions get better, so do the lives of the poor.

Christians Have Been Blamed for Environmental Degradation

A tenth reason for Christians to pursue creation care is that Western Christianity has frequently been blamed for environmental degradation. The most famous proponent of this myth is Lynne White, whose essay, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” form the basic foundation for the understanding of many non-Christians about the relationship between Christianity and creation.[9]

 White’s thesis is that the Christian doctrine of creation, which he represents as being dualistic, has shaped Western Civilization. He argues that western Christian theology devalues creation, and that the idea of dominion, as presented in Genesis has enabled the abuse of the environment through the rise of modern science and the Industrial Revolution.

White’s argument does not stand up to careful scrutiny. However, one of the best ways Christians can counter White’s anti-Christian thesis, which is popularly believed by many environmentalists, is to demonstrate the Christianity has the best answer to contemporary environmental problems.

Summary

There are likely many more reasons for Christians to be concerned about creation care. However, these ten reasons should be enough to set aside concerns that caring for the environment is an extra that Christians can ignore if it is not convenient. These reasons should also help show that opposition from non-Christians or improper pursuit of environmental health should not be a roadblock to engagement in creation care for the common good.

[1] Francis Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (Downers Grove: Crossway, 1982), 5:47.

[2] Cormac McCarthy, The Road (New York: Knopf, 2001).

[3] Tim Keller, Center Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 89. Emphasis original.

[4] Barna Group. “Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church.” Barna.com. https://www.barna.com/research/six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church/ (accessed 1/13/19).

[5] Alan Noble, Disruptive Witness (Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 36–41.

[6] For example, James Wanliss, Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion, not Death (Burke, VA: Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, 2010), 25–79.

[7] For example, Corinna Nicolaou, A None’s Story: Searching for Meaning Inside Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 3.

[8] Michael Rhodes and Robby Holt, Practicing the King’s Economy: Honoring Jesus in How We Work, Earn, Spend, Save, and Give (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2018), 220–30.

[9] Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” in Ecology and Religion in History (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 15–31.

Animal Farm, Economic Freedom, and Human Flourishing

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an important piece of literature for our age.

Though the main target of the satire no longer exists, this is a book that should find its way back into the curricula of upper elementary, middle, and high schools. There are a whole lot of young adults that are living in a fairy tale, hoping for communism, that would benefit from reading it seriously, too.

Based on history, however, I think that the importance of Animal Farm is greater than when Orwell wrote it and that it is useful in understanding human nature and why we should be very careful how we view each other and the role of the government.

There are several reasons why Animal Farm deserves a more prominent place in American curricula.

Why is it Important?

First, it is simply a good story, written well, and entertaining. The book is satire, but the characters are sufficiently plausible that most readers will acknowledge they’ve met that person before. It helps that the story is about animals. One of the reasons Animal Farm should be more broadly read is because it is a masterpiece.

Second, it is a brilliant example of how imaginative fiction is much more effective at carrying ideas than essays. Those meager writers who mainly write in the world of non-fiction should be blown away at how powerful Orwell’s depiction of communism captures the absurdities of that political and economic system. I have read some of Orwell’s non-fiction essays (he is an excellent essayist, too), but his 1984 and Animal Farm are much more compelling.

Third, Animal Farm provides a gateway for children to understand totalitarianism. As a child toward the end of the Cold War, I sometimes wondered how it was that the Communists could get and maintain control, if they made people so miserable. Orwell shows the way in a manner that even a child can understand.

It is interesting, however, that Orwell’s satire seems to have implications beyond his original intention.

Broadening Applicability

One of the more interesting facts about Orwell is that he was a socialist. The man lived in voluntary poverty in France for a time, had a deep sympathy for working class people in the U.K. (who were largely getting a raw economic deal), and as a result viewed socialism as the economic program most likely to help people out.

The intentions were good, but Orwell failed to account for the fact that whether socialism comes in through revolution (as with Animal Farm) or by popular vote, as he preferred, it tends to end in the same place: human misery.

One of the central tenets of socialism, perhaps the very core of it, is that the collective controls the means of production. There are, as proponents of socialism argue, multiple ways that this could happen. In the Soviet bloc, ownership was by the government. As the U.K. flirted with socialism, it was public ownership of certain industries while private ownership remained for others, under government scrutiny.

Although there are some Jacobin types on the far left who lobby for full on communism, most of the advocates for contemporary socialism view themselves as arguing for some sort of economic control by the people, funneled through a centralized planning system, but always being governed democratically.

Again, the intentions are (nearly) always to make life better. People that want socialism don’t want Venezuela, and they typically don’t believe they will get it.

Animal Farm, I think, helps show what the process of centralized control will always tend toward the abuses of the animals on Animal Farm and by the government in Venezuela.

Orwell wrote Animal Farm to mock the Soviet Union and, perhaps, to show that real socialism wouldn’t end up there, but there is little empirical evidence of a nation implementing broad economic socialism while maintaining both economic viability and a reasonable amount of personal freedom.

Those arguing that “real socialism” won’t end up like Animal Farm, are really just unthinkingly chanting, “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Just like the sheep chanting against two legged humans, most of the advocates for socialism (or raw capitalism, for that matter) haven’t given enough thought to the system to deserve to comment. Additionally, they mistakenly believe that it is the number of legs that determines the goodness, rather than the way that power is structured. Their end goal is wrong.

Economic Freedom as a Goal

Economic freedom is important, but it should never be an end to itself. This is why so many of the arguments between contemporary socialists and capitalists is unhelpful. Economic freedom is always relative, always situated within a particular context and community, and should always remain a means to an end.

The end of economic freedom should be to enhance human flourishing.

As I understand it, human flourishing is the ability for individuals to flourish within the web of families and communities as we live out our calling to be the image of God. Others may want a more naturalistic description of that, but I’ll stick with my own worldview.

True human flourishing isn’t found in a universally level distribution of GDP across the community or in absolute personal autonomy. It must have the individual and community as complementary elements, with both playing a function.

Oddly, many of the contemporary conceptions of socialism in the United States believe they can get both absolute personal autonomy and total collective cooperation at the same time. One of the privileges of being a fringe idealist group with (so far) very little control of policy is that you can propose preposterous solutions without having to ask whether it is even possible for them to achieve the stated ends.

The trouble with popular forms of capitalism that put personal autonomy as the golden calf at the center of the platform is that capitalism requires a cooperative community to function, so the very end they pursue promises to undermine the ends they want to achieve. The trouble with socialistic proposals that see the collective as the solution is that the collective always concentrates power to a few who will use it undemocratically “for the common good” and that abuse of power inevitably demotivates the hard workers who are being deprived from the fruit of their labor for someone else’s vision of good. This is the inevitable end of socialism.

Animal Farm may have started with a revolution, but it shows the likely end of all collectivist economic systems. By using anthropomorphic animals, Orwell enables the reader to look beyond the caricatures and have sympathy or antipathy toward parties that would be impossible were they humans. The book enables important conversations as we consider the likely end of socialism, which makes it an important resource for having real discussions with a generation that seems to be lurching toward a false belief in the innocence of the collectivization of power.

Animal Farm

By George Orwell

Buy on Amazon

C. S. Lewis on Christianity as a Means to an End

The genius of C. S. Lewis is, perhaps, most clearly evident in his devotionally rewarding, theologically rich, and whimsical book, The Screwtape Letters. Those brief snippets of supposed letters from a senior devil to a junior one get at many of the issues that were wrong with Christianity in his day, which happen to be remarkably similar to those that are wrong in our day.

In Letter 25, Screwtape writes to Wormwood:

“The real trouble about the set your patient is living is that it is merely Christianity. . . . What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity AND.’ You know––Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring.”

Depending on who reads that paragraph the object to the right of the “And” will vary. It could be social justice, anti-racism, prosperity, comfort, political conservatism, or doctrinal orthodoxy (when pursued for its own sake). In other words, this isn’t a “left” or “right” issue, it is one that can impact all Christians and often the “And” is adopted in the name of making Christianity purer and more proper.

In Letter 23, we get prelude to the “Christianity And” discussion:

“We do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything––even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy [God] demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that ‘only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilisations.’ You see the little rift? ‘Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.’ That’s the game.”

To be clear, Lewis prized actual social justice. Many casual readers of Lewis would be surprised at just how much he wrote on particular social issues of his time in a wide range of periodicals. In some areas he was quite advanced for his time and in other areas he sounds like the dinosaur he claimed to be. But the man was always arguing toward truth from Christianity. He was not attempting to use Christianity as a means to gain something else. This prevented him from falling into the trap of “Christianity And.”

The temptation in reading a moralist like Lewis is to look at what he wrote and say, “Boy, he gave those other guys a good drubbing. Wait until I post this quote on social media.”

The proper response to reading Lewis on these issues, especially in The Screwtape Letters, is to ask that more significant question, “In what ways have I fallen into the trap that Screwtape outlines.” If we are honest, we’ll probably find that we have been at least somewhat guilty at some point. As we pursue holiness, our task is more to knock off the rough edges of our own sanctification than to point out the problems of the other folks.

---

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

Buy on Amazon

Playing with FIRE - A Review

The Financial Independent, Retire Early (FIRE) movement has gone from a fringe group on a tightly networked series of blogs to a broader, more socially acceptable movement of people that are looking for a way out of the hustle and bustle of the modern economy.

In reality, the movement has been around for decades, with one of its earliest proponents being Vicki Robin, who collaborated with her partner, Joe Dominguez, to write Your Money or Your Life in 1992.

There are now multiple variations of FIRE, but the gist of the FIRE movement is to seek passive forms of income through various investments that will enable someone to live without having to rely on income from a regular, salaried job. In its most common form, FIRE leads its adherents to become frugal, saving a large portion of their incomes and investing them.

In the “traditional” FIRE movement frugality serves two purposes: (1) It enables one to save an invest a large portion of one’s income to create a source of future, passive income. (2) It reduces the overall living expense that one has, thus also shrinking the investment income one needs to truly retire early.

There are numerous stories that are regularly published by FIRE advocates that record the success of individuals that have been able to retire in their early thirties or forties. There are cases where individuals have been able to retire in their twenties, too.

Of course, there are also a number of reports of people who have attempted FIRE that have had to step back into the workforce for a variety of reasons, including the high cost of living in their chosen home, medical expenses, and others.

In 2019, recent convert to the FIRE movement, Scott Rieckens, decided to make a documentary of he and his wife’s beginning steps toward FIRE. The film includes a number of interviews with many of the key voices in the FIRE movement. Alongside the documentary, he also released a book that contains mostly the same information, with some more in-depth examples.

For those wondering what the FIRE movement is, both of Rieckens products are helpful. This provides a basic understanding of what FIRE is all about. It also provides a window into the motivation of many, like the Rieckens family, for pursuing FIRE: to have more time for family and leisure activities.

As something of a personal finance junkie, I’ve read a lot of the internet material on FIRE. It is a truly intriguing financial philosophy, but one that has particular dangers, especially for Christians.

Movie/Book Review

The Playing with Fire documentary and book, however, are not particularly compelling apologies for the movement. The concept, as presented by Rieckens, is more about the decision to be “counter-cultural” than it is about the mechanics of FIRE. Also, notably, the Rieckens’ vision for FIRE is to step out of the workforce in an arbitrary timeframe of 10-years, meanwhile holding onto the basic framework of a middle-class lifestyle. Additionally, Playing with Fire describes the early stages of the quest for FIRE, rather than presenting a vision of what the FIRE lifestyle looks like ten years after stepping out of the workforce or what it looks like to work through the years it takes to get to one’s FIRE number.

The book and documentary do include interviews from individuals who have been FIREd for an extended period of time, but in the attempt to tell a compelling story about the decision to become FIRE Rieckens neglects to sufficiently reveal why one should strive for it. The reason the Rieckens family gives is to have more time to care for their toddler daughter (which Mrs. Rieckens states will be their only child), though the math of a 10-year FIRE horizon shows that the decision is being made on the hope of seeing more of the child’s teenage years, rather than the time-intensive formative years.

In the end, individuals that already have done their research on the FIRE movement will find little of new value in Rieckens’ products. The FIRE concept is, after all, exceptionally simple. And, those who are pondering FIRE may come away with more questions than answers.

For those that aren’t aware of the FIRE movement, it’s a well-constructed documentary and the book is accessible prose. Renting the film from a streaming service may well be a decent way to spend an evening on the couch at home, but it is a beginning point, not an ending point.

Playing With Fire

Starring Pete Adeney, Brad Barrett, Jonathan Mendonsa, Vicki Robin, Jl Collins

Buy on Amazon

Human Goodness and the Perfectibility of Society

Humans were created good in the very beginning. They were good in every way. After God created the whole universe, including Adam and Eve, he looked at it all and observed it was all “very good.” (Gen 1:31) But the first humans made a choice to defy God’s command and they ate of the forbidden fruit. As a result, everything in creation was touched by a curse to remind humanity that the way the world is is not the way the world was meant to be. (Gen 3:16–19)

It didn’t take very long for sin to show itself in human society in powerful ways. One generation after Adam’s sin, one son murdered another in a fit of jealousy over God’s affections. (Gen 4:8) A few generations later Lamech uses his freedom and power to unjustly kill a man as disproportionate revenge for wounding him (Gen 4:23-24). Not too many generations, Scripture records, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen 6:5)

Despite the wickedness of humanity and the corruption of creation, God preserved eight of his people on a boat constructed because of Noah’s faithful obedience to God’s command. After the flood, God released those eight people and the animals back onto the earth and made a covenant with both the humans and the rest of creation not to destroy it again. (Gen 9:8–17) But despite God’s grace, the old story repeated itself over and over again. Humans fell into patterns of sin that included oppression, violence, and greed. These are patterns that seem to repeat themselves down to the present day.

And yet, despite their continual disobedience, humans remain good in God’s sight. So good, in fact, that he came himself in the form of a human with the name of Jesus.

Jesus came to restore the goodness of humans and to bring salvation from sin, but the process of redemption is ongoing. Though all creation witnessed moral perfection in the person of Jesus Christ, all of creation continues to live under the effects of Adam’s sin. Even those who have been redeemed by Christ’s blood on the cross still regularly fall short of the moral goodness that God demands.

One of the central purposes of government is restrain evil. As the apostle Peter notes, we are to understand that “governors [were] sent by [God] to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” (I Pet 2:14)

The government is necessary as a means to prevent the powerful from oppressing the weak. Among the things necessary for a healthy society are the rule of law and enforcement of property rights. These are proper roles for the government.

The worst documented humanitarian abuses in the world have occurred when government has moved from the role of attempting to restrain evil to creating a perfect society. According to C. S. Lewis, this impulse is common among many forms of modern government, as he noted in his essay, “Is Progress Possible?,”

“The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good–anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. . . . We are less [government leaders’] subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.”

The pursuit of social improvement requires that government become engaged in social interaction. In order to move from obedience to the law to moral improvement, there must be an allegiance to the power of the government.

In modern forms of government that are seeking to perfect (or at least enhance) the moral fabric of society, that allegiance is often sought in the name of superior information, which often goes under the name of science. If government is to improve society and improvement is measured by science, then good must be scientifically measurable and the theories of advancement offered by science must be obeyed absolutely.

As C. S. Lewis writes, “I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent.”

If science is seen as the means to determine policy, then a party need merely control the direction and flavor of scientific research and publishing to change the direction of society and reinforce control. This is what is happening now in China. It is what happened through the German propaganda during WWII.

Human sin is exactly the reason why therapeutic structures of society are bound to be unhelpful, because it gives the state or community to continue to shape and reshape human behavior according to whatever the contemporary consensus is and by whatever means are socially approved. It seems like tenderness, but, as Walker Percy once wrote, “tenderness leads to the gas chamber.” Sin corrupts everything and ensures that even movements begin with good intentions don’t usually end there.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

Buy on Amazon

Holiness and the Culture War

What if we’ve been thinking about the culture war all wrong?

There are multiple ways to be wrong about the culture war, but I’ve come to believe that many of us are thinking about it counterproductively.

Some people deny that there is a culture war. Somehow the changing moral compass of society, which is now attempting to “cancel” people for holding centuries ago positions that were held by the vast majority of people a decade ago. An essay written more than three decades ago, and on which someone’s view has changed, is enough to cost a senior executive a job. There is a culture war and no amount of compromise will ever be enough to stay within safe boundaries.

Other people see the culture war as primarily a political battle. If we can elect the right politicians we can get the right rules and everything will be well with the world. This perception has become a cancer among many believers with orthodox theology, who have sold out their public credibility to lobby and defend the indefensible time and time again.

What if, however, the culture war is primarily spiritual and the stakes are not just our physical prosperity but our spiritual well-being?

This is the argument that Peter Kreeft makes in How to Win the Culture War: A Christian Battle Plan for a Society in Crisis.

Kreeft begins the book by stating nine things we must know:

1. that you are at war
2. who your enemy is
3. what kind of war you are in
4. what the basic principle of this kind of war is
5. what the enemy’s strategy is
6. where the main battlefield is
7. what weapon will defeat the enemy
8. how to acquire this weapon
9. why you will win

In nine very concise chapters, Kreeft helps readers to know these nine things. In 120 pages, Kreeft does more than many other people do in volumes dozens of times longer.

This is an important book for this day, although it was written in 2002. It is far from Kreeft’s best book, but it is one that should be read more widely because it carries a necessary message for many of today’s Christians about the war raging around us.

Kreeft obviously believes that we are in a culture war, otherwise he would not have written a book that purports to be a manual for winning one. It would be an ironic twist, much like the message of the classic movie, War Games, to argue that the only way to win the culture war is not to play. However, that is not Kreeft’s argument.

We are in a culture war. The issues of our day are primarily related to sex. Of course, the distribution of wealth is an issue, but anyone watching the news can see that in the West the controversies are primarily about sex—abortion (which is an attempt to have sex without consequences), normalizing sexual dysphoria, redefining marriage, accepting polyamory—all of these issues are about sex. Kreeft argues that sex is a major focal point because it is a point of contact between the soul and the body. This is why even in peaceful protest about racial injustice, some culture warriors feel it necessary to expand the issue from one of ethnicity to one of sexuality.

The spiritual nature of sex is, of course, hotly debated. But Scripture reminds us that to consummate a marriage is to become one flesh. The emotional damage caused by hookup culture is another reminder, though, that even those that reject the transcendent rationally experience it emotionally.

That sex is the focal point of the culture war is no surprise to anyone paying attention, but explaining the spiritual nature of sex as a driving cause for its centrality helps readers to understand the nature of the culture war. We are in a spiritual war. Few orthodox Christians would deny that. Many people, however, shy away from talking about spiritual warfare in reaction to the cheesy Peretti novels of the 80’s and 90’s, as well as attempting avoiding some of the excesses of charismatic theologies. But Scripture indicates that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12, ESV)

Ephesians 6 often gets interpreted as a passage to individuals, which is encouraged by the armor metaphor that Paul uses. Each individual must put on the armor of God, but one warrior cannot alone take on an entire culture. There is both an individual and a corporate aspect to Ephesians 6; we need to encourage both understandings.

And, though many Christians love their Bibles, believe that we are in a spiritual war as Ephesians 6 tells us, many of us are still fighting the culture war as if it really about bathrooms, student aid, and marriage certificates. Those are just tinsel trophies in a cosmic battle where the well-being of our souls in on the line.

What would change if orthodox Christians acted on their belief that this is primarily a spiritual battle and not a physical turf war?

First, we would accept that our political positions are not the determinant of our spiritual state. There will be Christians who, for various reasons, fall on either side of the bipolar catastrophe that is the American political system.

Second, we would be much less willing to compromise our morality to promote (not to say vote for) and excuse sin in those who claim to be our defenders in this world or promoters of our vision of the good life politically.

Third, we would recognize that the sinner on the other side of the bathroom debate should not be the target of our scorn. Even the white-suburban rioter who throws a brick through an immigrant’s window in the name of “racial justice” is not our enemy. Rather, they are a victim of the culture war having been deceived by the common enemies of all humanity: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Fourth, we would understand that our part in the culture war is first to be sanctified. Our first priority is not to determine whether masks are a precursor to the mark of the beast or if the so-called 1% are really rigging the economy. Our first priority is not tear down statues of people we do not recognize but don’t think we like or to defend statues of people who fought for the enslavement of human persons. Rather, our first priority as Christians is to “be Holy as [God is] holy.” (1 Peter 1:16; Lev 11:44)

The fourth point is really the critical takeaway of the book. Before we can change the culture as individuals, we must first be holy. Before we can change the culture as a church, we must first embody holiness in our congregation.

This point does not excuse inaction in the political sphere, of course. We still vote, volunteer, give, and try to convince people. But before we can convince them to see what the Bible says about human relations is true, we must first be able to show them signs, at least, that the Bible has changed us. Before we can convince someone that the gospel has the power to save, we have to act like our salvation has somehow changed us into the new creation we are supposed to be. We must be holy as God is holy. That is the most important aspect of the culture war.

Holiness is the primary focus and the main way in which we will change the culture. This is, of course, consistent with what Jesus told his disciples: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) Will we seek to be sanctified or make women’s sports, bathrooms, abortion laws, and the like our primary goal? Will we seek first the Kingdom of God or will we seek to live by bread alone? We need to eat, but first we need to be holy.

This is the main message of Kreeft’s book. It isn’t a message of retreat, but one of advancement along the most important front first

How to Win the Culture War: A Christian Battle Plan for a Society in Crisis

By Kreeft, Peter

Buy on Amazon