The Possibility of Prayer - A Review

The cliché trifecta of spiritual disciplines that get tossed out whenever we talk about discipleship in Christian circles are prayer, Bible reading, and attending church.

When discussing the application of Romans 12:1–2, “How do we get our minds transformed?” Pray, read the Bible, go to church. “How do we imitate Paul as he imitated Christ?” Pray, read the Bible, go to church.

If those aren’t the exact words you’ve heard for decades, they’re probably close, or you’ve recently come to Christ, or you grew up in a vastly different theological tradition. If so, just trust me, this is a thing.

There is plenty of encouragement for reading the Bible. It usually comes in a spurt around December and January every year when congregations print out Bible reading plans and encourage folks to read them. Many folks start out the year well exploring the contours of Genesis and then getting lost somewhere around February in the book of Leviticus. Like the rush of gym memberships, we do well for a little while at the beginning of the year, but life and the habits of our normal routine quickly conquer what feels like an added extra in the schedule.

At least there are resources for Bible reading. Prayer seems a much harder nut to crack.

John Starke’s book, The Possibility of Prayer: Finding Stillness with God in a Restless World, is a resource that many people may find useful in developing the spiritual discipline of prayer. The book begins with the assumption that prayer is not simply something that pastors and seminary professors—you know, the super saints—are called to do. Instead, prayer is both a duty and a privilege for all believers. He manages to make his case in a concise book that realistically anticipates the challenges for many believers to carve out time to pray.

The book is divided into two parts, each with six chapters. In part one, Starke explores the difficulties of prayer in our always-on, perpetually distracted world. The liquidity of modernity teaches us to believe that we are behind schedule and that if we simply devoted a little more time to productivity, we could get through the next project we would have a little breathing room for important, but non-essential stuff like prayer. The problem is that the breathing room never comes. Starke also works through the general difficulty of prayer. It is hard. Especially for those who have an instantaneous dopamine rush in their pockets at all times, the idea of sitting still for a few minutes to contemplate the holy and wait on the Divine seems impossible. Apart from God’s grace, it is, in fact. Starke’s argument is that prayer is hard, but that it is vitally important. The harder it gets because of cultural and personal stresses the more important it is. This theme sets up the second part of the book, which discusses the practical side of prayer.

In part two, Starke moves beyond his case for prayer into reflections on the practical side. In this portion of the book he tries to balance the more theoretical themes of practicing prayer with specific comments about the content of prayer. He successfully avoids duplicating the formula often offered—ACTS, mirroring the Lord’s Prayer, etc.—and instead works through life structures that can be vitally important to a life of prayer. This begins with seeing prayer as communion with God, rather than an opportunity to self-improve or get a shopping list before the almighty. That approach to prayer shapes the way that we pray, which opens us up to a Christian approach to meditation (not the mind-emptying approach of some Eastern varieties, but a mindful contemplation of God, his attributes, and his goodness). Prayer, however, requires solitude. That is exactly what it is hardest to obtain in our always-on world. We are addicted to the tools that are keeping us from God on a regular basis. Prayer should also include patterns of fasting and feasting. We fast from worldly goods (media and food) for the purpose of prayer and to be reminded of our reliance on God. We should end those fasts with a feast—a rich fellowship with others in celebration of God’s goodness. Starke also highlights the importance of other spiritual rhythms for developing a life of prayer, especially Sabbath and regular participation in corporate worship. It becomes apparent by the end of this portion of the book that prayer is more than what one does for a few minutes a day, but it is a pattern of life that is God-centric and deliberately distinct from the patterns of this world.

The Possibility of Prayer may not have been the best title for this work, because the content of the book goes well beyond the particular act of prayer into habits of life that lead to holiness. To be fair, these are also habits of life that enable to practice of prayer. My criticism of the title is, therefore, muted, but it is possible for someone to pick up this book expecting a more detailed how-to manual or at least a range of options with specific instructions. That is not what is offered in this book. Starke would have had to write a different book.

The book Starke did write is encouraging, Scripture-saturated, and helpful. Someone might pick up this book and find they got something different from what they expected, but they would still be getting something worthwhile.

In particular, Starke walks through a number of Psalms in the book, highlighting their importance as prayers to God. They are, in one sense, example prayers for us as we seek the words to communicate with the Almighty. Rather than simply stating that and offering a formula for praying the Psalms, Starke provides an example of how the Psalms can enrich our prayer life.

Additionally, The Possibility of Prayer, challenges the busyness of our culture—the very characteristic that seems to make prayer impossible. As we try to put together a plan for holiness in the rubble of civilization, this is the sort of book that can remind us why certain bricks are to be avoided.

The Possibility of Prayer: Finding Stillness with God in a Restless World

By Starke, John

Buy on Amazon

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

Xmas and Christmas - A Lesson from C. S. Lewis

Among C. S. Lewis’s lesser-known works is an essay, “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodutus” where Lewis does an anthropological analysis of the relationship between so much of what goes on during the December time frame and the actual purpose of the Christmas holiday. The essay does not pack the rhetorical punch of his more significant works like “The Weight of Glory” or “Meditations on a Toolshed,” but it is helpful in pointing out the strangeness of what we so often take for granted.

For example, Lewis highlights the fact that seasonal décor tends to romanticize antiquated styles, like coaches and coachmen, as if they have some relation to the actual significance of the season. This is evidenced by the practice of sending cards to one another. As Lewis wryly writes:

“Every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians [Lewis’s transparent play on a term for residents of Britain] believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these picture have to do with the festival, guarding (a I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.”

The worst is when one thinks they are done with their card sending, but finds an unexpected mailing from an acquaintance that demands yet another card in return. Such an unexpected piece of correspondence may even require another trip out into the mobbed marketplace.

But it isn’t just Exmas cards that are the problem:

“They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not.”

This droll description of the tensions of the season make for amusing copy, but Lewis is doing more than simply arguing that people are silly with their expectations of tit for tat cards and gifts. His larger point is that the commercial and social trappings of Xmas have the potential to mask the true significance of Christmas.

Lewis writes,

“Such, then, are their customs about Exmas. But the few among the Niatrirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Chrissmas . . . rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast.”

There is a stark difference between the excesses of Exmas and the worship of Chrissmas. Which, of course, is intended to make the reader think about his own practices during this sacred, but culturally harried time.

Is Creation Care a Progressive Political Issue?

Concern for the environment in the United States tends to be identified as a progressive political position, and is often associated with deeply contentious issues like abortion, which most Christians rightly find morally repugnant. However, the identification of creation care as a progressive political issue is due more to unfortunate historical accidents than the nature of the issue itself. Outside of the United States, where political divisions are shaped by different forces, political conservatives are more likely to advocate for environmentalism publicly. Often the debate over environmental policy between political progressives and conservatives in the United States is really a debate over the role of government in pursuing the common good.

Conservation and the National Park Movement

The conservation movement in the United States has its roots in Puritan attitudes toward the common good and the value of creation. Communities in New England were built around land use patterns designed to benefit the community and ensure the productivity of the land for the long term.[1] This attitude spread throughout colonies and was later embodied in the conservation movement.

The first national park was created in 1872 when the Yellowstone Act was passed, declaring that a large tract of land in Wyoming and Montana was “reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”[2] This was a monumental political accomplishment that has politically progressive roots.

The early conservation movement was identified with political progressives––a political movement that was concerned with supporting human ingenuity around the beginning of the twentieth century––especially with the public advocacy of conservationist Gifford Pinchot, a Presbyterian and the head of the Federal Forestry Division. Pinchot’s vision of conservation was largely utilitarian. He wrote, “The first great fact about conservation is that it stands for development. . . . Conservation demands the welfare of this generation first, and afterward the welfare of the generations to follow.”[3]

Pinchot’s democratic, instrumental hope for the conservation movement was directly and publicly opposed to John Muir’s vision for the preservation of lands, untainted by human development. When dealing with the Pinchot’s proposal to construct the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite, Muir wrote, “These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.”[4]

The very public debate between Pinchot’s Conservation movement, which was rooted in the progressive politics of his day, and John Muir’s Preservation movement, that opposed the utilitarian understanding of nature, puts the political fault line in a different place that it falls in the early twenty-first century. One danger in assigning labels like “conservative” and “progressive” to historical causes is that issues change, allegiances shift, and ethics that are not grounded explicitly in Scripture tend to morph over time. Muir’s radical conservative attitude toward preservation of nature unspoiled by humans sounds more like a contemporary progressive position, while Pinchot’s perspective tends to align with a more conservative position today. But both positions might be deemed too progressive for some contemporary political conservatives.

Environmentalism and Progressivism in the Late Twentieth Century

The apparent division between pro-environment progressives and conservative opposition to some forms of environmentalism in the United States grew much clearer in the 1970s. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford biologist wrote his famous book The Population Bomb, which argues that the growing population of the earth was overburdening the ecosystem and would result in ultimate destruction of the environment and negative consequences for all of life.[5] Ehrlich explicitly tied hope for Earth’s future to availability of contraception and legalization of abortion.

In 1970, environmentalism was still a bi-partisan concern. The first Earth Day was co-sponsored by Republicans and Democrats. Republican Richard Nixon’s administration, better remembered for the corruption of the Watergate scandal, is considered to be one of the most environmentally positive administrations, marked especially by the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).[6]

Because of the broad concern for the environment, Nixon also commissioned the Rockefeller Commission in 1970 to study the relationship between the rising population and American prosperity. The resultant report, Population and the American Future, published in 1972, would help cement environmentalism as a progressive political issue in the minds of many American Christians because it made recommendations including government opposition of “legal, social, and institutional pressures that historically have been mainly pronatalist in character,” and “enabling individuals to avoid unwanted childbearing, thereby enhancing their ability to realize their preferences.”[7] Practical recommendations for implementing the Commission’s lofty sounding recommendations included open advocacy for legalization of abortion, government-funded distribution of contraceptives, and even capping the number of children per family. Understandably many orthodox Christians reacted negatively to these suggestions.

Nearly simultaneously, the culture wars over abortion were ramping up in the United States, with the Supreme Court handing down the contentious Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all fifty states. The overt connections between support for abortion and advocacy for the environment converted an issue that was largely a prudential argument over how natural resources would be preserved and utilized for the common good into a hotly disputed political weapon that has come to represent a sharp progressive-conservative divide in American politics.

A Two-Party System and Political Division

The relationship between political progressivism and environmentalism is exacerbated in the United States by the established two-party political system. Though there is some variation within each major party, the platforms created by the parties tend to divide along fairly clear lines. Because socially progressive anti-natal policies, such as advocacy for abortion on demand and government mandated access to all forms of contraceptives, have become associated with environmentalism in the United States, right-leaning politicians have tended to oppose many of the pro-environmental proposals Often the basis for rejection of supposedly “common sense” environmental legislation arises because of differences of opinion about the role of the government.

Despite political rhetoric arguing that politicians who oppose particular environmental regulations are advocating for dirty water and an increase in global warming, conservative U.S. Senator Ben Sasse’s statement sums up the basis for opposition: “Everyone wants clean water but the bureaucrats at the EPA were out-of-control, writing new laws to regulate puddles and ditches from Washington. Nobody cares more about land and water than Nebraska's producers but nobody here at home voted for these absurd regulations.”[8] While not free from his own politically-charged language, Sasse notably frames his approval of the repeal of the regulations as disagreement over the nature of governance not the goal of the regulations.

The two-party system in the United States and the radical divergences between the worldviews advocated by both parties helps explain how a fundamentally conservative issue—the proper care and use of the environment––has become the field of unique concern for political progressives.

Global Conservation and Conservativism

Outside of the United States there tends to be a smaller divide between political conservatives and progressives on the issue of the environment. The Tories, more properly known as the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, have made green politics a vital part of their center-right platform in the twenty-first century, with Prime Minister Theresa May proposing a twenty-five year plan to improve the environment.[9] The need to build coalitions between a plurality of parties to form governments reduces the binary nature of politics, as is found in the United States, opening up opportunities for cooperation despite disagreement in a way that is much more difficult in the US.

Similarly, in Germany the conservative Christian Democratic Union has agreed to work for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and other environmentally concerned policies, based on a need to form a coalition with Social Democrats, another significant political party. This pattern tends to repeat itself across Europe.

These examples raise a question about the nature of conservatism. What someone describes as conservative or what gets branded as conservativism may vary depending on the political issues involved, the sponsorships of the media outlet, and the period in time. Definitions matter as does clear thinking about the issues at stake and the actual goal of environmental policy.

Roger Scruton’s Environmental Conservativism

Sir Roger Scruton offers a particular model of conservative environmental thought. While serving at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, Scruton offered the world a thoroughgoing conservative environmental philosophy in his book, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservativism. According to Scruton,

A conservative environmental policy does not aim at a healthy environment but at other things, which have a healthy environment as their effect. . . . The aim is to establish the conditions under which people manage their own environment in a spirit of stewardship, and in such a way as to facilitate the political actions that may be necessary to accomplish what the “little platoons” cannot embark on.[10]

There is little doubt of Scruton’s politically conservative bona fides. His conservative ideas about aesthetics, politics, and social organization were the cause of political outcry among political progressives when he was named to a voluntary position on a board of a U.K. government housing committee.[11] He advocates for limited government, a free market, and the rule of law, all of which are trademark issues of the traditional conservative movement.

Scruton’s argument is not simply that conservative thought can tolerate environmentalism, but that they are “natural bedfellows.” He writes, “Conservatism and conservation are two aspects of a single long-term policy, which is that of husbanding resources and ensuring their renewal.”[12] This represents the sort of conservativism that directly opposes forms of progressivism that radically revise human institutions and are often instrumental in policies that have long-term negative consequences for human flourishing.

Environment and the Role of Government

In part, political progressives in the United States have tended to latch on to environmental issues because they seem to be solvable with an expanded government. The EPA that Nixon created during his presidency was intended to solve legitimate, widespread concerns like the extreme pollution of rivers, such as the Cuyahoga River fire in 1969. It was one of several rivers to be so extremely polluted by industrial waste, but served as a rallying point for Earth Day in 1970 and for much of the environmental movement in the late-twentieth century.

Political conservatives, while rightly concerned for clean air and water, have observed the expansion of federal bureaucracy into issues of local concerns, as Ben Sasse observes in the quote above. Much of the contemporary rhetoric about potential solutions for climate change from political progressives has involved significant increases in centralized government regulation over individual decisions. According to conservatives, such centralized control over environmental decision often neglects to evaluate the burden of regulations, passes the cost of compliance to those least able to bear them, and fails to account for localized factors that might impact implementation of regulations.

There is clearly more to the discussion of the role of the government than this post includes. However, it is clear from this brief discussion that much of the opposition among political conservatives to environmentalism is due to differing ideals for the implementation of policies that support the common good, rather than a different goal.

Summary

Creation care is not fundamentally a progressive political issue. In fact, it should be a primary concern and more naturally belong within the platform of political conservatives. Instead of seeking common ground and developing a shared vision for the common good, many political conservatives have mistakenly abandoned advocacy for the environment because it has become associated with progressive political causes like the continued legalization of abortion on demand and the growth of a centralized bureaucratic-style government.

[1] Mark Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 54–76.

[2] National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anps/anps_1c.htm, NPS.gov (accessed 12/31/2018).

[3] Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation (Garden City, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1910), 42.

[4] John Muir, The Yosemite (New York: Century, 1912), 262.

[5] Paul Ehrlich, Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine, 1968).

[6] Byron W. Daynes and Glen Sussman, White House Politics and the Environment (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2010), 66–83.

[7] Commission on Population Growth, Population and the American Future (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1972), 78.

[8] Senator Ben Sasse, https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/2/sasse-praises-unwinding-of-waters-of-u-s-rule (accessed 12/31/18).

[9] Her Majesty’s Government, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/

attachment_data/file/693158/25-year-environment-plan.pdf (accessed 12/31/18).

[10] Roger Scruton, How to Think Seriously About the Planet (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 376.

[11] Dan Sabbagh, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/nov/06/sack-roger-scruton-over-soros-comments-demand-labour-mps, Guardian.com (accessed 12/31/18).

[12] Scruton, How to Think Seriously About the Planet, 9.

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

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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

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Live Not by Lies

I remember the night the Berlin Wall fell and the world seemed to change overnight. The bogeyman of so many stories ceased to be quite so real as in the Soviet Union dissolved in the following years.  It seemed like a significant phase of history, if not history itself, had ended by declaring Western capitalistic democracy the victory.

However, I met a Ukrainian exchange student while I was at college who told me that things weren’t quite as simple as they seemed. And then, when listening to a missionary speak in the early 2000’s, I learned that portions of the former Eastern Bloc were still “pink”—the formal police state may have ended, but many of the Communist thought processes were still in place under new leadership.

Then, in more recent years we’ve seen the increasing popularity of Che Guevara t-shirts in the U.S.—an amazing ploy to market the image of a Communist thug using capitalist principles. There have also been an increasing number of people that are willing to declare that the First Amendment should be abolished, full on Communism is desirable, and mass murderers like Stalin and Lenin are to be preferred over America’s founders. Add to that the weird logic by which anyone who doesn’t agree with racially based discrimination against whites is racist and we find ourselves in a topsy turvy world in which it is not hard to imagine attempts to force orthodox Christians underground.

Live not By Lies

Rod Dreher’s recent book, Live Not by Lies, is a warning of the possibility of “soft totalitarianism” in our future. As Progressives celebrate the latest invention of alternate reality in the pursuit of the deconstruction of humanity, there are an increasing number of people on the political left calling for the punishment of those who disagree with their orthodoxy. Do you affirm the innateness of sex within biology? Then you must not be allowed to work in a public-facing job. Do you still hold to the fundamental human understanding of marriage as a union (romantic or not) between people who are of biologically distinct sexes? Then you should be hounded from the public square and humiliated, if you are not physically harmed. There is an ever-thinning wall of civilization between reality and the coming storm. Anyone who denies the possibility of soft totalitarianism is not paying attention.

Dreher’s book takes its title for an Alexander Solzhenitsyn essay. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago is a masterpiece that traces the evil of Soviet socialism through the experiences of many people who passed into, if not through, the grinder of the Gulag system. That larger work was intended to expose the horrors of the hard totalitarianism of the Soviets to a world that had frequently glamourized it. Solzhenitsyn’s essay speaks to those who are being called to deny truth to live at peace. In other words, to those who are facing a soft totalitarianism. The essay is a call to live in truth and not to succumb to lies for the sake of comfort.

What Solzhenitsyn warns against in his essay, and Dreher discusses, is a soft totalitarianism. This is a term defined more clearly by Vaclav Havel, a dissident poet who because a longstanding president of Czechoslovakia after the people peacefully ousted the Communist regime. As Havel documents it, particularly in essays like his “Power of the Powerless,” the Communist rule in much of the Eastern Bloc countries was driven by internal social pressure rather than by tanks, guns and dogs. There was a real threat of police enforcement, in some cases, but the deeper threat was through social ostracization and removal from the marketplace based on non-conformity to the untruth of the Communist platform.

Soft totalitarianism is the condition in which someone who refuses to affirm the preferred worldview of the dominant social order can be effectively marginalized within society without formal coercion. Do you decline to wear a rainbow pin at work for pride month? There go your promotion opportunities. Does your business decline to post a Black Lives Matter poster for any of a number of valid reasons? Prepare for the fake, negative reviews, belligerent activists coming in to harass your employees and customers, and, perhaps, having your business set alight by “protesters” fighting against “fascism.” Did you post online about a political candidate disfavored by the “right” crowd? Be ready to be denied admission to a university or to have your children denied admission.

In hard totalitarianism conformity to the external constraints is generally sufficient. One need not believe or state that Communism is good to get by. One needs only avoid getting caught with more goods than allotted, show the right papers when required, and not actively and openly declaim the controlling regime.

Soft totalitarianism is much more insidious because it demands not mere conformity but expression of support for something that violates the conscience. This is what Dreher describes in Live Not by Lies as a possible near-future for the West, including the United States, and there is reason to believe he is at least partially correct. We may be nearer or farther from the point where certain beliefs—common among humans for millennia—are ruled entirely out of bounds in polite company. What cannot be denied is that such a soft totalitarianism is the overt goal of an increasing number of people, especially those on the political left. It also cannot be denied that technology is making it easier to enforce soft totalitarianism through corporate and governmental means.

Dreher’s book is a call for Christians to hold fast to truth, but also to be prepared to go underground to avoid what he views as an inevitable and near-at-hand persecution. He combines research from sources like Havel and Solzhenitsyn with contemporary interviews with those that survived under Communist regimes to create a very readable, journalistic volume that may be helpful in preparing for the storm to come.

Analysis

If one approaches Dreher’s work primarily through his books, the content of them appears quite different than if one follows Dreher’s blog. Being fair in reading Dreher’s books requires reading them as a distinct genre from his online work.

I have not seen Dreher describe his work this way, but his three most recent books form something of a trilogy. If readers begin with Crunchy Cons, followed by The Benedict Option, and then come to Live Not by Lies then you will find a helpful, cogent, and perfectly reasonable stream of thought that is quite helpful. In fact, reading the books together might be the simplest way to avoid seeing Dreher as excessively reactionary.

Though the books span more than a decade of a rapidly shifting culture, they all tie together to form one consistent message: there is an objective reality that explains the order of the world and we should seek to live in a way that honors that. To the extent that cultural forces demand that we deny the objective reality of the world, we must be prepared to resist and hold fast to our witness to the truth.

Critiques of Dreher’s work are generally muddled because part of his vocation is to put out content for The American Conservative on a regular basis. He has a blog to feed to stay relevant and employed. He also is very engaged with his readers, who through their networks have access to some of the worst examples of progressive thought and social abuses. As a result, Dreher’s primary public discourse is often reactionary and colored by the conduits through which he gets his material. Because he is publishing in the moment, there are times when his takes turn out to be factually incorrect or unhelpful as part on an ongoing public conversation. Immediacy can be detrimental to nuance. That is the nature of a journalistic blog and Dreher does not escape that.

Dreher’s books are much more carefully constructed than his blog posts. In much of the discussion of The Benedict Option after its publication, it became clear that many critics had not read that book, but were instead responding to what Dreher had blogged about. I expect the same to be true of Live Not by Lies. It really is helpful to keep the two genres of Dreher’s work separate, because his books are much more consistently balanced and carefully argued than his blogs.

Time will tell whether Dreher is right or wrong about the oncoming soft totalitarianism. I tend to think that he is right that we are trending that direction, but that it may take longer than he thinks to get there. However, the power of algorithms, the ubiquity of social media to be engaged as a citizen, and the lack of catechesis among Christians may turn out to make Dreher’s concerns nearer than I suspect.

Whether the timing is right or not, the central message of Dreher’s most recent book is correct: Christians need to improve the way we live in the world, but not of the world. All signs point to an increasingly progressive shift in the anti-culture that surrounds us, which is largely alien to reality. The Church will increasingly need to find ways to live in ways consistent with truth, in a society that considers truth repugnant.

A Concluding Caution

There is no question that we live in a polarized world that is becoming increasingly hostile to a Christian worldview. However, within that context there is a strong tendency to seek allies in the fight. So, if the progressivism of the Left is bad, then we align our selves with the political and social forces on the Right. Or, if the xenophobia of the Right is bad, then we align our selves with the “inclusivism” of the Left. If one side is wrong, then the temptation is to default to the opposite extreme, or at least to tolerate extreme views on one’s own side.

Truth is not the property of Right nor Left. Neither is it something that is “centrist.” Approaching questions of truth from a primarily political angle, rather than one driven by ontology and epistemology is reactionary and unhelpful.

Even as we join coalitions in resisting soft totalitarianism, we have to be careful that we do not allow their different conceptions of truth to sway us from the True Truth of Christianity. Being a Christian dissident is like being an Ent: We are not really on anyone else’s side, because no one else is really on our side. That is to say, while we may share a common goal of resisting a creeping soft totalitarianism, our ultimate goal is to the spread of the gospel to every tribe and tongue and nation. In the first goal we may find ourselves in agreement with nationalists or atheists. Regarding the ultimate goal, we will find ourselves alone. There is a strong temptation when we find a point of alliance on an important goal to neglect the ultimate goal and to fail to see points at which pursuit of the ultimate goal may cause us to compromise on other significant objectives.

Dreher’s book does not displace True Truth with resistance to soft totalitarianism as the ultimate goal. However, because it is a book about the second and not the first, incautious readers may find themselves driven toward that extreme. Our duty as Christians is to the True Truth, which should always remain our ultimate goal in whatever political circumstances we find ourselves.

Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents

By Dreher, Rod

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

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.

Cultural Catechesis

"Together our mind-molding media constitute a nonorganized religion of missionaries who are evangelizing religious people out of their primitive superstitions like poverty, chastity and obedience and into the missionaries' new, 'enlightened' religion of greed, lust and pride (that is, money, sex and power); out of peace with neighbor, self and God and into peace with the world, the flesh and the devil." - Peter Kreeft, How to Win the Culture War, pg 53.

How much time per week does the average Bible-thumping, confessional evangelical Christian spend in church activities?

Even for those who are at church every time the doors are open this is probably 5-6 hours per week. A small percentage of those individuals will be heavily invested in daily Bible reading, listening or watching to sermons from biblically faithful preachers, and reading good books. But as the hours of catechesis into faithful Christianity grows, the number of people in the population declines exponentially.

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The average time spent being catechized by scriptural influences will be much lower when you count in the quarterly attenders who claim to be “born again,” but whose engagement with the body of Christ has been choked out by travel soccer leagues, frequent business trips, weekend travel, or brunch. There are certainly exceptions, but many people who vocally claim to be Christians on their Facebook wall probably sit through one 1-hour service per week at best and often much less.

Now, consider how much time those same Christians spend listening to talk radio, watching television news, reading articles (or at least headlines) of websites, or select the proper meme to reflect the appropriate level of outrage at the current flashpoint in the culture war.

Who are most people receiving most of their catechesis from?

Let’s be honest. Who are most of us receiving most of our catechesis from?

The answer is fairly obvious: Even our most faithful church attenders are often being catechized more thoroughly by their media intake than by the word of God.

Is our future bound up in whether Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow are correct about the trajectory of our world? Can Jim Cramer help us know how to store up heavenly treasures?

And, again, as Paul writes to the Philippians: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil 4:8)

If we hold the Gospel to be of first importance, we will think about the true, honorable, just and excellent more than the battles around us. If we do that, the sources and time spent on our catechesis will likely change dramatically.