Eco-Theology 3

My third point is that many Christians simply do not take seriously the ecological implications of their theology.

This can start to look a lot like the first reason, but the difference is that rather than not seeing the connections between the different aspects of their theology, these people fail to see the impact what they believe theologically has on their lives at all. This is the saddest, and perhaps one of the most common deficiencies in today’s churches. What is learned in church is something that is perceived as “good for us” and “good for our kids” but has little effect on how life is lived. Put simply, these people have theological systems in their minds which are largely disconnected from their hearts. Therefore, an intellectual assent to a very orthodox theology which should lead to a very ecologically friendly lifestyle is given the backseat to convenience or fear.

Let's look at a hypothetical situation in the church. A leader of a trustee committee is gung ho about adding a bunch of new parking and plowing down some forest which contains rare foliage and is the habitat for many local animals. This trustee thinks that in order to spread the gospel, we take a "whatever is necessary" approach. There may very well be other trustees in the room who disagree with his assessment, but refuse to speak up because this guy is a respected member of the church.

Or because their business training tells them that it is good business for the church to have more parking spaces for growth.

Or because they are afraid that they cannot articulate their argument coherently, and do not want to be embarrassed by this respected leader in front of all the other trustees.

But they should.

And I hope they do. The gospel means more than just getting people into the doors of the church. A gospel lived well in the church community might just mean that this congregation sacrifices the parking spots as an act of living out gospel principles.

My three "possible objections" are by no means the only three reasons people don't take eco-theology seriously. I just tried to come up with a few primary ones to get the discussion going.

I'll post one more wrap-up for this series in the next week or so with some suggestions for moving forward and hopefully some helpful contributions to the discussion of eco-theology.

Eco-Theology 2

This problem reaches full strength in the second reason that ecology is not often taken seriously in churches today; a deficiency in a small number of doctrinal positions.

For many, this is the obvious problem. A deficient understanding of the doctrine of creation can very quickly turn someone into a hippie-hating conscienceless resource consumer. If one embraces a tradition where God’s call for humanity to exercise dominion over creation is seen as license to abuse the created order for our purposes regardless of the ecological consequences, then such abuse will occur regularly. This view is mistaken. God’s call for humans to cultivate and have dominion over the created over is a passing of responsibility to his imagers, who are now responsible to lovingly care for and yes, utilize for the good of the whole created order, not at its expense.

Not as obvious but every bit as dangerous to an ecological theology is a deficient understanding of eschatology (the doctrine of last things or "end times"). There are extremely popular eschatological frameworks (some popularized by fictional novels) which convey the eschaton as the destruction of the earth. The battle of Armageddon is emphasized on the earth, and the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21 and 22 are relegated to a heavenly, spiritual realm. The goal of this eschatological system is escape from this world. The purpose of living faithfully to Christ is that he can save us from the impending destruction of the earth.

A theology that locates the final resting place of Christ and humanity somewhere other than this earth almost has to lead to ecological apathy. What point is there in caring for a world that will face destruction soon, and as part of God’s perfect plan no less? Yet when we see the eschaton as the restoration of all things to Christ and the return of the Triune God to the earth he lovingly created and declared as good, we do no longer look at life as our only chance to use up the fruits of the earth. Rather, we see our lives as a great opportunity to plant the very trees of the New Jerusalem, where the sea is glassy and there are trees which are for the healing of the nations. We no longer spiritualize these words of Revelation, but see them as our duty to the world which God has entrusted to us.

Eco-Theology 1

I think there are three primary reasons that ecology is not taken seriously in many churches today, and I'm going to address them in subsequent posts here. Feel free to pipe in with questions, as I am still struggling to make more sense of all this and fully think through the implications of these arguments.

Here are my three primary reasons that ecology is not taken seriously in most churches today:

1. We fail to see the interrelatedness of doctrines in our theological systems. Which can lead to...

2. A deficiency in one or two doctrinal positions (usually creation or eschatology), which forbids us from taking the created world seriously.

3. We simply don’t take seriously our theological convictions about ecology (or anything else, for that matter).

I'll only deal with number one today.

So what about the interrelatedness of doctrine? For at least the past century, the idea of systematic theology has been a popular one. Systematic theology brought a renewed interest in theology, contextualized theology for a world steeped in an Enlightenment worldview, and from these, much good has been done. However, the downside to systematic theology is a system of division which easily leads to a theology of division. We study doctrines such as creation, the Trinity and salvation individually, and somehow they begin to feel like separate things, as if the character and activity of God himself is somehow neatly divided into categories. God acts here as creator, Jesus acts here as Savior, the Spirit works here as equipper, and little is said about how these rich aspects of theology overlap and connect with one another.

So we don’t consciously connect the points of doctrine in our theological systems, but rather allow our subconscious mind to do that work. When these connections are not intentional, our minds simply take what we value most in one area of theology and allow it to trump whatever we may want to believe in another area. So we have people who may think that it is pretty important to care for the earth who are not willing to stand for this principle because there is another element of their theology which is more central to their identity which appears to contradict it, yet having not explored the connections between these two aspects of their belief system, the one perceived greater wins out.