{"id":2320,"date":"2012-09-28T13:50:37","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T20:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/richarddahlstrom\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2012-09-28T13:50:37","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T20:50:37","slug":"wrong-words-lead-to-wrong-actions-environmentalism-and-john-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/richarddahlstrom\/2012\/09\/28\/wrong-words-lead-to-wrong-actions-environmentalism-and-john-316\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrong Words lead to Wrong Actions: Environmentalism and John 3:16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

She came in on a hot summer day to be treated for Asthma.\u00a0 Dr. Matt Sleeth treated the young child, born into poverty, and told little Etta for whom breathe had become a literal life and death matter, that he wouldn\u2019t let her die.\u00a0 A few years later though, she did die, in a severe asthma attack \u2013 in prosperous America.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry \u2013 this isn\u2019t a post about American health care system(s).\u00a0 It\u2019s about something much more important- how our reading, or misreading, of the Bible shapes our actions and how those actions affect other people.<\/p>\n

Dr. Sleeth gives us a hint of the issue when he writes that \u201cto reduce traffic congestion during the Olympics, the city of Atlanta closed the downtown area to car traffic, increased access to public transportation through additional buses and tyrains, and promoted flexible work schedules, carpooling, and telecommuting for Atlanta workers.\u00a0 The result:\u00a0 for seventeen days, peak daily ozone concentrations decreased 28%.\u00a0 Concurrently, acute asthma events dropped as much as 44%.\u00a0 Atlanta\u2019s inner-city children on Medicaid seemed to benefit the most, showing a more than 40% decrease in asthma related emergency room visits.\u00a0 After the Olympics, when Atlanta traffic patterns returned to normal, so did Ozone concentration, asthma attacks, and rates of emergency room visits among the poor.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The colors of brokenness in our world are many: human trafficking, abortion, torture, totalitarianism imposed in the name of God, or the state, or both, addictive behaviors of every stripe, greed, loneliness, boredom, poverty, lack of access to clean water or health care.\u00a0 The good news is that for many of these issues, Christians are stepping up, painting the colors of hope on the canvass of their world.\u00a0 Soon, our church will begin partnering with a mobile medical clinic to meet the needs of an increasingly large uninsured American populace, which will better enable us to serve our world and make God\u2019s reign visible.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an area though of injustice and devastation that at best gets little attention among Christ followers.\u00a0 At worst this area is dismissed as snake oil science, or new age attempts at a one world government.\u00a0 The neglected area is environmentalism, and its well beyond time that the church wake up to just how central stewardship of the planet is to our calling.\u00a0 Scott Sabin, who directs a favorite project of mine (more about that later) has written a simple small book about environmental stewardship as a central element of discipleship.\u00a0 His thesis is\u00a0 that it\u2019s central for __ reasons.<\/p>\n

1. Our God given task has never changed<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u2013 Genesis 1 & 2 reminds us that our calling is to \u2018serve\u2019 (translated \u2018work\u2019 in most Bibles) and \u2018protect\u2019 (translated \u2018keep\u2019) the garden.\u00a0 It was, in fact, the very first job God gave to humanity, and though humans were removed from the garden, every indication of God\u2019s dealings with his people (see especially the environmental laws related to Israel\u2019s treatment of the land, and related public health laws having to do with water sanitation and waste treatment) is that this calling never left humanity.\u00a0 To the contrary, God\u2019s judgement on Israel is that \u2018the land mourns<\/a>\u2018.\u00a0 When our lives are driven by greed and consumerism, we\u2019ll overuse and abuse creation, and the result will be environmental degradation.<\/p>\n

2. Our fallen world cries out for us to act<\/strong>.\u00a0 Romans 8 tells us that all of creation is longing for the redemption of humanity, that creation is groaning as humankind abuses creation.\u00a0 You see, in God\u2019s creation mandate he told all creatures to \u2018be fruitful and multiply\u2019 so that the cycle of replenishment could continue on the earth down through the millenia.\u00a0 Instead, we\u2019re presently seeing increasingly species extinctions that are caused by humans (especially through pollution, overfishing and over hunting).\u00a0 This isn\u2019t just a problem for the whales and polar bears.\u00a0 The same causes of extinction create cultural crises, and environmental crisis, so that people, made in God\u2019s image, suffer too.\u00a0 Cancer and Asthma are on the rise in America, but that\u2019s less than even the tip of the melting iceberg.<\/p>\n

3. It\u2019s part of the upstream solution to numerous downstream problems<\/strong>.\u00a0 Scott\u2019s book<\/a> speaks of environmental as a justice issue because our failure to steward the earth has become a contributing factor to countless justice issues:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a dramatic statistical correlation between race and proximity to facilities where hazardous waste is treated, stored, and disposed of.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 (Scott Sabin) Entire communities are destroyed in Appalachia by \u201cmountaintop removal coal mining practices\u201d which blow the top 800\u2032 off a mountain to get at the coal, destroying streams and water tables for communities below.\u00a0 It\u2019s cheap and efficient if your only consideration is dollars.\u00a0 But if the long term well being of communities<\/a> is worth anything, then we need to rethink this.<\/p>\n

Illegal immigration?\u00a0 Countless immigrants from Mexico make their way to the states, not because they want x-boxes and flat screen TV\u2019s, but because their land has stopped producing anything at all, having been stripped of its topsoil for a host of reasons. Astonishingly, some Americans have responded to this by saying we need to deport \u2018these people\u2019<\/a> so that we can collectively have a smaller environmental footprint.\u00a0 I can\u2019t respond to that kind of thinking without swearing, so I\u2019ll move on.<\/p>\n

In Thailand, this same problem doesn\u2019t lead to illegal immigration \u2013 it leads to parents selling their children, often unwittingly, into sexual slavery.\u00a0 That 13 year old girl sleeping with 20 men a night is doing this because her parents were unable to feed her, or themselves.<\/p>\n

What does all this have to do with the Bible?\u00a0 Many of us remember reading John 3:16 as children and being told to replace the Bible\u2019s words, \u201cthe world\u201d with our own name.\u00a0 So, when I was in 4th grade, I stole a glance in Sunday school at the brown haired girl across the circle before reading out loud, \u201cFor God so loved Richard Dahlstrom that he gave his only son\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s great to be loved by God.\u00a0 It\u2019s terrible to mess with the Bible that way.\u00a0 God was saying something significant here about his love, not just for me, not just for humanity even, but for the whole world \u2013 for rock badgers and mountain goats, salmon and honeybees, forests and mountaintops.\u00a0 By the reading the book of Job, I get the feeling that God loved the world because he delighted in it, and while that\u2019s true, the more I understand the world, the more I realize that he loved every element in the world because every element needs every other element.\u00a0 The ones in charge of loving the whole world on God\u2019s behalf?\u00a0 Well, these days, it\u2019s supposed to be God\u2019s followers.\u00a0 Instead, God\u2019s followers are often too busy protecting free markets and deregulation, so they outsource environmentalism to \u201cthe world\u201d.\u00a0 I, for one, am moving in a different direction because I can\u2019t appeal to Genesis as the basis for marriage and continue to be silent on God\u2019s words regarding care for the planet which come from the same chapter in the Bible.<\/p>\n

I welcome your thoughts\u2026<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She came in on a hot summer day to be treated for Asthma.\u00a0 Dr. Matt Sleeth treated the young child, born into poverty, and told little Etta for whom breathe had become a literal life and death matter, that he wouldn\u2019t let her die.\u00a0 A few years later though, she did die, in a severe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWrong Words lead to Wrong Actions: Environmentalism and John 3:16<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"She came in on a hot summer day to be treated for Asthma.\u00a0 Dr. Matt Sleeth treated the young child, born into poverty, and told little Etta for whom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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