Life Meets Faith: Damned, but maybe not
In the opening pages of the Christian Bible
a magisterial view of the world is set forth.
Big-bang originating and evolution-soaked
or whatever, the world is not a come-bychance
event. It is the creation of a living
God. It is orderly, yet crazy and chaotic with
life and fruitfulness. It speaks everywhere of
the glory of the Creator. It is the home of
humankind, a gift from him.
The Creator gives us the creation. Or, maybe I should say, he summons us to be the stewards of his world because it isn't actually ours. We are meant to represent his wise and fair ways in the world, to care for it and bring out its potential to sustain us and the cultures we create.
By the way, this is not a defense of a literal interpretation of those opening pages and of a six-day creation. I don't believe such defenses are very helpful (or correct).
This is also to reject the frequently heard complaint that those early chapters justify the exploitation of the planet. No doubt, some, perhaps many, as David Suzuki and others suggest, used those pages for that purpose. But I don't accept that use of those pages. I am saying that, in fact, they propose something quite different: Not arrogant exploitation, but humble stewardship of an immense gift.
In last week's article, I asked if we are doomed. And you would be correct in concluding from that column that we are.
As an example of the destruction we are wreaking on the world, there can hardly be a better example than the Alberta Tar Sands. According to Suzuki's website (www.davidsuzuki. org), 600 square kilometers of land have already been cleared to accommodate tar sands extraction and one-fifth of the entire province of Alberta is slated to be churned, blasted and spit out to extract the oil in the sands. For other gut-wrenching numbers that describe the oncoming devastation, see the 2010 article by Stan Hirst, Stop the Tar Sands! How Exactly? It's on the Suzuki website.
And when the tar sands are done, which won't take that long really, some of us will be a little richer. And we will all have done our part to drop the planet a little further into the abyss.
Yet, is there a way out of the damnation we are creating for ourselves through the unrelenting destruction of our home? I think there is.
Suzuki and many others suggest that the problem is an economic one or a political one. Sometimes they say it is a cultural one; modern people don't know how to live in harmony with nature. Occasionally they indict all of us. "Perhaps the bogeyman is us — the public that places the short-term economic value of the tar sands above the priceless value of our environment and our health." (The Trouble with Tar Sands, December 12, 2008 David Suzuki with Faisal Moola).
But I think the problem is more than political, economic, cultural or public-societal. It is - how should I say this - a religious one. Religion can be defined not merely as something people do in churches or mosques. It's what centres our lives. Marxism centred the lives of Russians throughout the 20th century so that they were able to annihilate 20 million of their own relatives (or some such appalling number). Buddhism centres the lives of monks in Tibet so they can stand against the barbaric overrule of China.
What religious power holds sway in the western world? Perhaps there is more than one. But it is undeniable that one of them is the religion of happiness and fulfillment through limitless wealth and material prosperity. Religion because it is all too often unidentified and unquestioned. It is "normal," the air we breathe, the water in which we swim. And ultimately, one of the primary victims of this religious equation is our home.
I'm not saying that I myself am, or any of us really can be, immune from the influence of this religious force. I agree with what Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton once said when addressing the question, "What is wrong with the world?" I am the problem.
Without a re-appropriation of the vision for human life revealed in the first pages of the Bible, I submit that we are likely doomed. But with such a re-appropriation, what might follow? (To be continued.)
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
The Creator gives us the creation. Or, maybe I should say, he summons us to be the stewards of his world because it isn't actually ours. We are meant to represent his wise and fair ways in the world, to care for it and bring out its potential to sustain us and the cultures we create.
By the way, this is not a defense of a literal interpretation of those opening pages and of a six-day creation. I don't believe such defenses are very helpful (or correct).
This is also to reject the frequently heard complaint that those early chapters justify the exploitation of the planet. No doubt, some, perhaps many, as David Suzuki and others suggest, used those pages for that purpose. But I don't accept that use of those pages. I am saying that, in fact, they propose something quite different: Not arrogant exploitation, but humble stewardship of an immense gift.
In last week's article, I asked if we are doomed. And you would be correct in concluding from that column that we are.
As an example of the destruction we are wreaking on the world, there can hardly be a better example than the Alberta Tar Sands. According to Suzuki's website (www.davidsuzuki. org), 600 square kilometers of land have already been cleared to accommodate tar sands extraction and one-fifth of the entire province of Alberta is slated to be churned, blasted and spit out to extract the oil in the sands. For other gut-wrenching numbers that describe the oncoming devastation, see the 2010 article by Stan Hirst, Stop the Tar Sands! How Exactly? It's on the Suzuki website.
And when the tar sands are done, which won't take that long really, some of us will be a little richer. And we will all have done our part to drop the planet a little further into the abyss.
Yet, is there a way out of the damnation we are creating for ourselves through the unrelenting destruction of our home? I think there is.
Suzuki and many others suggest that the problem is an economic one or a political one. Sometimes they say it is a cultural one; modern people don't know how to live in harmony with nature. Occasionally they indict all of us. "Perhaps the bogeyman is us — the public that places the short-term economic value of the tar sands above the priceless value of our environment and our health." (The Trouble with Tar Sands, December 12, 2008 David Suzuki with Faisal Moola).
But I think the problem is more than political, economic, cultural or public-societal. It is - how should I say this - a religious one. Religion can be defined not merely as something people do in churches or mosques. It's what centres our lives. Marxism centred the lives of Russians throughout the 20th century so that they were able to annihilate 20 million of their own relatives (or some such appalling number). Buddhism centres the lives of monks in Tibet so they can stand against the barbaric overrule of China.
What religious power holds sway in the western world? Perhaps there is more than one. But it is undeniable that one of them is the religion of happiness and fulfillment through limitless wealth and material prosperity. Religion because it is all too often unidentified and unquestioned. It is "normal," the air we breathe, the water in which we swim. And ultimately, one of the primary victims of this religious equation is our home.
I'm not saying that I myself am, or any of us really can be, immune from the influence of this religious force. I agree with what Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton once said when addressing the question, "What is wrong with the world?" I am the problem.
Without a re-appropriation of the vision for human life revealed in the first pages of the Bible, I submit that we are likely doomed. But with such a re-appropriation, what might follow? (To be continued.)
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
