Consumer Debt and the Coming Recession

For those that pay attention to such things, the news is filled with extreme views about the current and future state of the economy. At the same moment in time, there are pundits arguing that most Americans are in abject economic misery, while others argue that life has never been better economically. One group is arguing that imminent economic doom is upon us, another tells us that things are only going up from here.

If most of us are honest, in the decade since the Great Recession, things have generally gotten better for most people. However, in many cases, people do not feel great about the economy and, at the same time, are setting themselves up for problems during the next recession.

The Inevitability of Recessions and Stock Declines

News reports predicting a coming economic recession or a significant stock market decline are correct. They have no idea when those things are going to come, but some sort of economic perturbation is pretty much inevitable.

One of the more interesting aspects of our attention economy is that when the next economic dip happens, its significance will be determined, in large part, by how people respond. For example, if people get skittish and sell during a stock market decline, that will make the stock market decline even worse. If people alter their consumer behaviors radically during a recession, that is likely to make the recession worse.

More significant than whether and when a recession is coming (it is and who knows) is how we are living day to day in anticipation of those events.

A Plea for Simple Living

There is no question that some people are struggling to meet basic necessities already. Due to a medical condition, loss of a job, a very low wage job, or bad debt choices earlier in life, many people are living paycheck to paycheck. If that is you, then feel free to check out. This post is written to the vast majority of us who are in the middle class and have some economic margin.

We once received a gift subscription to a magazine called Real Simple that amounts to an advertisement for a high-end consumeristic minimalist lifestyle. All the pictures were of perfect rooms with “simple” solutions to problems like magazine storage or whatever, but the solutions always cost hundreds of dollars. The result was an aesthetic simplicity, but that’s not how they got there. According to that style magazine, simplicity is a consumer good that is really expensive.

Simple living is less about what stuff you own and more about what activities and services you deem necessary. Simple living at its best is simply asking what aspects of life are necessary and eliminating those that don’t fit that definition. Another definition is that simple living is asking what we do that glorifies God and minimizing the extras.

When we stop asking risk vs. reward questions about our lifestyle choices, we put ourselves into the situation like the couple making $160,000 who were described as living in “modest oppression” because they “couldn’t afford” everything they wanted. Alyssa Quart’s description of the largely self-caused mental and emotional stresses of the middle class in her 2018 book, Squeezed, should serve as a warning to rational minds to make better choices.

As Christians in the American middle class, we really need to begin asking “why” questions if we are going to be effective stewards of our time, treasure, and opportunity. We have the means to get the gospel to the ends of the earth and instead we are spending our money to overflow landfills with useless plastic.

The simple life is about being focused on what adds gospel-value to the world and spending our money on that.

Avoiding Comparisons

Also in Squeezed, Quart writes, “While Americans overall may live better than medieval aristocrats could even dream of, that means nothing when oligarchs live next door, flaunting their luxurious homes.”

The funny thing about comparisons is that we tend to make them with those living above our means. Very few of us look at those who are legitimately struggling financially and go home thankful for our abundance. Instead, largely due to the mystique of television and movies in which everything is always perfect, we continually moan about the inadequacy of our resources.

There is a reason God gave us the 10th Commandment.

Did you have a nice vacation at home? Well, the other guy at work took his kids on a safari adventure. Now that vacation doesn’t look so good.

Does your daughter enjoy soccer? The neighbor down the street does, too, so they’ve invested thousands into clinics, travel teams, physical training, and other goods and services designed to get their child ahead. Suddenly the local rec league isn’t very compelling.

There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with a big vacation or pursuing excellence in sports, but those are often excesses that we try to have without making sacrifices to compensate.

The result is that many people who are making a whole lot of money are spending all of it and a little bit more.

Rising Debt Loads

One of more frightening statistics, in my opinion, is the rise in household debt to the levels prior to the 2008 recession.

The Great Recession was rough for a lot of people in large part because people were up to their ears in debt when the problem started. For a few years society seemed to learn a lesson, but now it appears that we have forgotten.

I’m not on the “no debt ever” train, for a variety of reasons. However, I do believe that we typically position ourselves better to survive economic downturns if we minimize debt and seek to eliminate it when times are good.

A lot of the debt right now is being driven by a perception that the stock market is going to keep going up and up. In the long run this is probably true, but there may be a point at which half of the money invested in the market will “disappear” just like it did in 2008 and 2009. That is never a great feeling, but it is a really terrible feeling when you know that your pay is likely to stagnate for a while, you may lose your job, and the company bonus you budgeted to pay for your vacation is unlikely to materialize. In other words, when you are up to your ears in debt, the clouds of economic doom look a lot more ominous.

Market expert is not a title I’d claim, but I remember the pain of debt-ridden people who had a high salary but large payments and weren’t seeing the economic growth they were counting on. One way to eliminate that pain is to avoid debt and eradicate it. To do that, we should consider the common causes of debt.

The Cause of Debt

The problem most middle-class Americans have is that they are spending too much on things that they enjoy too little and bring too little glory to God.

Instead of comparing ourselves to our neighbors, we ought to be regularly asking of every expenditure how this glorifies God. We will certainly get things wrong from time to time, but a gospel-focused consumer mind will likely resist the urge to overspend on things that really do little good for anyone.

Once we get above a certain financial level, most debt is driven by buying more car than we need, a nicer house than necessary, services that we only use occasionally, and products that offer little benefit in the long run. Evaluate your household spending for the last year with a critical eye and this will likely become self-evident.

This means that rather than being trapped in system that makes us do bad things, we are in a culture that encourages us to do dumb things and we usually don’t invest the will power to stop.

For most of us, our debt is a problem we have created by being unwilling to limit our consumer choices to that which glorifies God.

We are setting ourselves up for misery in the future with our choices today. Why not begin making simple, better choices that will leave us happier when the next downturn comes?

On Sin and Our Duty to Fight It

8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matt 18:8–9)

There are two extreme positions on sin that both misunderstand the gospel. First, that sin is no big deal because Jesus’ atoning death paid for it all for those who believe. Second, that sin is so terrible that we need constantly be in fear of the fires of hell.

Being a Christian is to always be in a two-front war. When God commissioned Joshua after Moses death, he said, “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.” (Josh 1:7)

There is a reason why Jesus describes the way of salvation as a narrow gate. In Matthew 7:13–14, Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

We are always pulled between at least two directions—sometimes they are temptations—neither of which honors God. Our task is to thread the needle, which we can only do with Jesus’ help.

So, if you are in the camp of people that believe sin is no big deal because you’ve signed a special deal with God by praying a prayer or whatever, this passage is for you. In Matt 18:8–9, Jesus teaches here that sin is so significant that physical deformation and suffering in this life is better than the natural outcome of sin.

But, if you are in the group of people who believe your sin is so huge that nothing could ever take care of it, then we’ll get to the joyous good news of the gospel in just a minute, so hang on tight.

When Jesus speaks of cutting off a hand or gouging out an eye, he is being hyperbolic––he is exaggerating. He isn’t actually telling anyone to self-mutilate, but I think he is quite earnestly explaining how bad sin is. Jesus also isn’t telling his audience, in this case his disciples, that if they cut off an appendage, then they can stop the sin for which they deserve hell.

This begins to make sense when we consider how dangerous our sin is.

The Nature of Sin

In this passage, Jesus is really telling us that sin is bad. It’s really bad.

Herman Bavinck describes sin as,

“appallingly many-sided, with untold moral dimensions, at its heart it is a religious revolt against God and thus appropriately summarized as lawlessness. . . . Sin is never an arbitrary matter, merely a whimsical displeasure of a jealous God. Sin is knowingly breaking God’s command and flows from a heart that rebels against God.”[1]

Sin is both an actively corrupting force within in us and a negator of God’s goodness outside of us. Sin always takes God’s good creation and turns it away from God’s good purposes.

According to J. C. Ryle,

“Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank, and class, and name, and nation, and people, and tongue; a disease from which there never was but one born of woman that was free.”[2]

Sin is all around us, within us, and inescapable in this life.

As we think about sin, sometimes we tend to think of it in terms of being an opposite power to good. As if there is a balanced evil and good powers, like Satan and God are duking it out, and we’re just waiting to see who will win. Sin and holiness are not like the light and dark side of the Force.

Instead, many teachers throughout Church history have explained sin as the absence of good. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.”

In his Enchirideon, Augustine writes, “For what else is that which is called evil but a removal of good? . . . For good to be decreased is evil.”[3] Therefore, when we choose to sin, we are choosing something less than the best thing available. To put it another way, we are redirecting something good from its proper course into a lesser one.

For example, sex was designed as a means of procreating and as a sign of the marriage covenant between a stable couple of the opposite sex. Sin has distorted that design in a million ways by directing it outward to images on a screen, to people not involved in the covenant, or in ways that could never fulfill the procreative type. Sex is a good thing that has been turned away from God’s good purposes in a way that distorts God’s good creation and takes away the blessings it provides.

The natural consequences of sin will always be destructive. Sin is always a tearing down of the gift that God has given us and trying to rebuild the world in our image and according to our own desires.

Again, Bavinck is helpful here: “Sin also develops an order dynamic; there is a law of sin that proceeds from suggestion to enjoyment to consent to execution and involves both our sensuality and our self-seeking.”[4]

The effects of sin are to weaken and darken the soul. John Owen notes,

“[Sin] is a cloud, a thick cloud, that spreads itself over the face of the soul, and intercepts all the beams of God’s love and favor. It takes away all sense of the privilege of our adoptions; and if the soul begins to gather up thoughts of consolation, sin quickly scatters them.”[5]

Adam’s original sin in defying God’s special command not to eat from a particular tree led to he and Eve being forced out of Eden and set this whole world into a tailspin of sin. God sent a flood to cleanse creation, which “was corrupt in God’s sight” (Gen 6:11), so he did something like a soft reboot of his creation. Pharaoh’s sin in resisting God’s command to let the Israelites go led to economic and physical misery and eventually the death of the first-born sons. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are all filled with illustrations of how sinful every human is, with the sacrificial system given as a reminder that sin is a major problem to be dealt with. The first five books of the Bible are extremely bloody.

As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (Heb 9:22)

Given that the death of God’s only son, the firstborn of all creation (cf. Col 1:15), was necessary to take the penalty of sin, we would do well to take sin seriously. If you are struggling with reading through the Old Testament, just know that it is supposed to be a reminder of sin that points you toward your need for a savior.

Dealing with Sin

For those of you who are Christian, it is vitally important that we actively fight against sin in our lives. The primary audience of Jesus’ words is the people who have followed him, who recognize he is Messiah, and who will recognize what that really means after his death, burial and resurrection.

Because sin is so serious, we need to deal with it seriously. Perhaps the most famous John Owen quote, offered by many who have never cracked one of his books, is “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”[6]

Owen’s entire book, The Mortification of Sin, is a masterpiece, though reading Owen is an acquired taste. But the expanded quote gives us a deeper sense of what Owen is getting at here:

“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

Although Owen is writing an exposition of Romans 8, he is channeling Jesus’ words from Matthew here. Sin is a really big deal and we really need to fight against it. If we aren’t killing sin, sin will kill us. It will suck our spiritual vitality away. It diminishes our work for God and our joy in God.

As we wrestle with sin, we need to keep two absolute spiritual truths in tension:

1.       All of our sin is paid for in full by the blood of Christ on the cross; (1 Peter 2:24)

2.       Our continued sin grieves God. (cf. Rom 6:1)

Our inheritance is sure, but our calling to resist sin is just as certain.

So, for example, if you discover that something you do that you love leads you to sin, you should be prepared to give it up. It may be a perfectly good thing in itself and others may have no problem with it. But if it causes you to sin, cut it out of your life.[7]

Our process of sanctification is the process of killing sin in our lives. We strive, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to look like the people God has called us to be. Positionally we have Christ’s righteousness the moment we are saved, but our lives typically don’t reflect that immediately. Becoming what we truly are requires us to put sin to death.

When a day goes by and you don’t think about your sin––thinking about it so that you can kill it––then you are probably losing ground.

We are subject to temptation, when we think of holiness and our fight against sin, to think that if we have beaten a few of our more obvious faults, that we are really humming along toward heaven. But the Christian life demands that we pursue perfect conformity to God’s law. Though God is certainly pleased with our first steps toward holiness, just as a father is pleased with his child’s first steps, God is not satisfied with believers who can only take a few steps before falling down. He expects us, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, to continue to strive to live perfectly in Christ’s image, even in the knowledge that we can never achieve that end.[8]

[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, vol III, 126. Much of this definition of the nature of sin flows from Bavinck’s discussion.

[2] J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 2.

[3] Augustine, Enchirideon, 40–41.

[4] Bavinck, Sin and Salvation in Christ, 127.

[5] John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation, 65.

[6] Owen, Overcoming, 50.

[7] Intermediate application: If watching football causes you to sin by neglecting God’s Word and his people: cut it out of your life. If your job puts you in situations that lead you to defraud people or take advantage of them, be prepared to quit. Cut it off. If listening to particular radio shows or constantly streaming news causes you to despise other image-bearers and wish them harm, then turn it off. There is no limit to the types of applications, because we live in a society that seems to have unlimited temptations to sin. Whatever the issue is, be prepared to cut it off.

[8] This illustration is borrowed from C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 202–203.

Conspiracy Theories - A Review

In 2016, a conspiracy theory about a ring of pedophiles led to Edgar Madison Welch storming a pizza parlor with a semi-automatic rifle to break things up. Welch was a volunteer fireman and an ordinary member of his local church. An otherwise normal, civic-minded citizen, Welch had become convinced that children were actively being trafficked by the owner of the restaurant. The so-called Pizzagate conspiracy theory had been spread online by right-wing political advocates due to the owner’s support for Hillary Clinton during her 2016 campaign. The Pizzagate conspiracy theory is one of many ideas cultivated on the political right and left that influence the way people see the world.

Conspiracy theories sprout up around struggles for power, whether in civil or denominational politics, and can lead to destructive responses. In his recent book, Conspiracy Theories: A Primer, Joseph Uscinski argues, “Conspiracy theories posit a powerful enemy whose goals may pose an existential threat to humanity. It is therefore reasonable to expect that such theories would motivate believers to take action.” (p. 5)

Most conspiracy theories are harmless, but some contribute to violent action against opposing groups. In the modern wilderness of the Internet Age, we cannot afford to simply ignore conspiracy theories because they can tear social structures apart.

Nature of Conspiracy Theories

Sometimes “conspiracy theory” is used as an epithet for contested interpretations of data to avoid considering opposing views fairly, but Uscinski offers a helpful definition: “Conspiracy theory is an explanation of past, present, or future events or circumstances that cites, as the primary cause, a conspiracy. . . . Conspiracy theories are inherently political. Conspiracy theories are accusatory ideas that could either be true or false, and they contradict the proclamations of epistemological authorities, assuming such proclamations exist.” (p. 23)

Although it is common to dismiss conspiracy theories as absurdly irrational, Uscinski justly points out that some conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Tobacco companies obscured evidence of the harms of smoking; corporations in Silicon Valley colluded to reduce the wages of engineers; the federal government used African-Americans as subjects for human experimentation in Tuskegee. There are real conspiracies that deserve investigation and exposure.

Many conspiracy theories are non-falsifiable. In other words, any evidence for or against the theory is used to strengthen it, never to undermine it. Uscinski writes, “For the conspiracy theorist, the fact that we don’t have good evidence of a conspiracy only shows that the conspirators are good at covering their tracks. . . . But because of their non-falsifiability, conspiracy theories should not be thought of as true or false, but rather as more or less likely to be true.” (p. 27) At some point, there is no evidence that will undermine the confidence in a firmly held conspiracy theory, since the denial of a conspirator is only further evidence of the conspiracy.

Epistemological Authorities

Both tribalism and the lack of epistemological authorities contribute to the increasing number of conspiracy theories. According to Uscinski, “An appropriate epistemological authority . . . is one that is trained to assess knowledge claims in a relevant area and draw conclusions from valid data using recognized methods in an unbiased way.” (p. 23) There are few commonly trusted stewards of truth and knowledge in our culture. When avoidance of bias is no longer considered a necessary goal for media outlets, academic researchers and community leaders, the groundwork is laid for propagation of conspiracy theories: everyone believes what is right in their own eyes.

Real conspiracies have contributed to the lack of epistemological authorities. For example. perverse incentives in the academy––supposed to be the last bastion of unbiased reasoning––shape the research individuals do, the language they use to report their findings, and even what results are accepted through the peer review process. For example, in Galileo’s Middle Finger, Alice Dreger details the experience of several progressive researchers who were mercilessly attacked by other progressives for producing results that did not support the accepted consensus. Such cases of overt bias undermine the authority of institutions and processes that can quell conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy Theories and Political Power

Recently the QAnon conspiracy theories have spread on the political right including among some theologically conservative Christians. Conspiracy theories grow most quickly among the highly partisan, because the theories generally involve some evil being perpetuated by one’s opponents who are seeking power to subvert the common good. As political polarization has increased conspiracy theories have become a significant part of political campaigns. For example, Bernie Sanders actively campaigned on the conspiracy theory that the top “1%” richest people in the United States have “rigged” the economy. During his campaign for the 2016 election, President Trump promoted the conspiracy theory that Ted Cruz’s father helped assassinate JFK.

A common trope is that conspiracy theories are much more common on the political right than the left. Instead, Uscinski argues the conspiracy theories of the right and left are different in content, but roughly equal in volume and tenacity. He notes, “There is nothing inherent in Republicanism, conservatism, or right-wing politics that makes people more conspiratorial in their outlook.” (p. 13)

Uscinski observes that the increase in tribalism is tending to increase the prevalence of conspiracy theories. Humans are more likely to believe their ideological opponents are working to subvert society. Tribalism also limits the epistemological authorities that have reach across the increasing divide between right and left, especially when some institutions that used to function in that capacity have abandoned the quest for neutrality.

A Response

Uscinski’s primer on conspiracy theories is informative but it lacks concrete solutions. In the final paragraph of the book he recommends teaching critical thinking, increasing political transparency, and avoiding electing politicians that overtly promote conspiracy theories. These are all good things and worth considering, but the book leaves readers to do their own research.

A reader might be tempted to shake her head at the inevitability of an ongoing increase of conspiracy theories. Some posit that the way that people interact with information on the internet has made conspiracy theories. The “other side” is guaranteed to spread conspiracy theories, so it seems appropriate to fight fire with fire. Some might think that resisting conspiracy thinking and pushing back on conspiracy theories is not worth the effort.

Despite the difficulties, resisting the spread of conspiracy theories is worthwhile. Uscinski argues that conspiracy theories are destroying our society and political processes: “One cannot make meaningful decisions in a democracy awash in conspiracy theories, and one cannot compromise with opponents if one believes those opponents are engaged in a vast conspiracy. Despite whatever electoral advantages come from conspiracy theory politics, there is a much larger price to pay.” (119) Similarly, it is nearly impossible to cooperate for global missions when members of a denomination are adamant in attacking their own institutions with non-falsifiable conspiracy theories.

But there is nothing new under the sun. Paul warns Timothy of “certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.” (1 Tim 1:6-7) The content and topics may have changed, but the problem still remains.

For Christians, it would prove good for us to turn to the epistemological authority of Scripture, in which Paul gives good advice for breaking the chain of conspiracy thinking:

“Finally, brother, 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. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me––practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” (Phil 4:8–9)

Conspiracy Theories: A Primer

By Uscinski, Joseph E.

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.”

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.

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

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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.

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.

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

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