Archives For How Can This Be?

Where Are the Christian Greta Thunbergs?

Nathan Aaberg —  June 10, 2019 — 2 Comments

Have you had the experience where dealing with a problem couldn’t just be one of a million things on your to-do list?

Perhaps it was a loved one getting seriously sick. Perhaps it was a crisis at work. Perhaps a rising river threatened to flood your community. You joined in with others building walls with sandbags for hours on end. You had to do something about it above all else. The rest of your normal routines had to fall away. Bills and sleep could wait.

When an issue is urgent, tangible and very specific, we respond to that issue with all that we have. We put everything else aside.

It’s much harder for us to respond that way when the causes of the challenge are broad and hard to see and when the impacts are incremental. This sums up the general human experience with things like national debt, education system dysfunction, cultural decline, and crumbling infrastructure.

This is even more true of problems for the rest of Creation. Our civilization dams up rivers, creates dead zones, depletes fisheries, degrades soils, and destroys and fragments habitat. Where God’s living things once lived there is only silence and stillness. If we’re aware at all, we may feel bad, but our lives carry us along.

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year old girl from Sweden, is challenging all of us in this regard. She is a rare person who won’t accept the collapse of the commons.

She has stopped going to school in order to protest at the Swedish Parliament and to bring attention to the dire threat that is global climate chaos. She is now speaking around the world. The world is paying close attention.

Like a prophet, Greta speaks powerfully and directly. Diagnosed with Aspergers, her intense focus and directness are sometimes disconcerting. She believes, in fact, that her Aspergers has driven her to become an activist. It has been a gift.

“The politics that’s needed to prevent the climate catastrophe—it doesn’t exist today,” said Greta in a New Yorker article about her. “We need to change the system, as if we were in crisis, as if there were a war going on.”

You should watch her speech to the United Nations. Her example is prompting other students around the world to start school strikes and protests as well.

So where are the Christian Greta Thunbergs?

Climate change chaos is causing tremendous disruption and harm for people around the globe, especially the poor. Farmers around the world are becoming increasingly desperate. It is also accelerating the extinction crisis to a new level.

Greta learned of all this and couldn’t believe people weren’t in crisis mode and acting at all levels of life. She stopped speaking. Eventually, she began a new path of life.

How do we as Christians not raise the alarm and jettison our normal routines as well?

Why aren’t there new Christian prophets completely devoted to urging commitment to God that will translate into better ways of living at the individual level and at the community and national level? What is wrong with Christian culture that many Christians don’t care or worse? Are we not paying attention? Or have our hearts not been changed by our faith? Can we love God and love our neighbor and yet pretend all of this is not happening?

Three things come to mind as I consider those questions.

First, my impression is that Christians don’t have a good track record of taking care of God’s earth. We have tended to go along with the dominant culture in which we find ourselves. If Christian Greta Thunbergs emerged and Christians responded to them, it would be the first time in history Christians stepped forward as a whole body of Christ based on the conviction that God’s earth mattered.

Why is this? I’m going to be writing occasional blogs as a way to dive further into this topic. There are, I believe, multiple reasons.

Second, two verses from the Bible come to mind. In Luke 14:5 we read this: “Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?””

Being deeply devoted to keeping the Sabbath was one of the central features of the Jewish faith-culture. Jesus was making clear that nothing should stand in the way of compassion for people and non-human life we have responsibility for. Ignoring the cries of one’s child and the moaning of an ox while going to worship God would be completely contrary to who God is. It would also be an indication that the state of our heart is rotten. Following the routine, even the routine of holy worship, would be wrong.

Consider, too, Proverbs 21:3: “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.”

Today, through communications, we better understand what is happening around the world then ever before. Our economies are more interdependent than ever before. In some ways, due to the development of technology, the condition of the earth is collectively ours more than ever before. The systems we are part of shape and reshape other places around the world. So when we hear of pain and destruction to people and life beyond our family, I would suggest the core principles at hand are the same as what Jesus asked in Luke and what we read in Proverbs.

Third, I can’t help noticing that, despite my convictions, I’ve largely gone along with my normal routine.

If I’m aware of all of these issues and have these convictions, why haven’t I done more of what Greta Thunberg has done?

The excuses and rationalizations have loud voices in my head. I have a family. My parents are failing. Someone else will surely do something. This is when I realize I sound alot like the people in the Gospels who wouldn’t follow Jesus because they had obligations to life as usual.

The whole Chrisitan faith-life includes putting your faith into action and your life on the line in pursuit of what God desires.

So do I really believe? Am I really committed to following Jesus? What would I do if I was?

And why do I feel alone struggling with these questions?

 

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First Blessing in Genesis

Nathan Aaberg —  February 28, 2019 — Leave a comment

Who receives God’s first blessing?

When you read Genesis 1:20-22 you’ll find it isn’t mankind or Adam. It is all of the living creatures of the sea and all of the birds.

How remarkable. How beautiful.

And that’s easy to miss. We tend to focus, in a self-centered way, on God’s blessing to humanity later in the chapter. It’s similarly easy to miss that in Genesis the rainbow is intended as a sign of God’s covenant with humanity and Creation.

Christians have tended to miss a fundamental point. God’s earth matters to God.

But miss it we do. Even when Creation is right there in the front of us in the Bible and all around us.

I had a good conversation recently with a middle-aged Christian. She shared something startling. Until she spent the last summer at the Au Sable Institute, she had not heard of the concept of Creation care.

How can that be?

How could a Christian spend years going to church and in fellowship with other Christians and not be aware of something so fundamental?

If Chrisitans aren’t hearing about it, is it any wonder that Christians are largely not engaged in actively stewarding God’s earth? Worse yet, is it any wonder that Christians accept Creation-harming activities that show neither love for God nor for neighbor?

In the last month or so, a number of new people have signed up to receive this blog by email. I am, of course, deighted. This, along with that conversation I mentioned, is prompting me to feel I need to address some fundamental topics in coming posts.

I will share the reasons why the concept of Creation care is either ignored or just plain hard for Christians.

Another post will explore a positive theme – how striving to be a good shepherd of God’s earth enriches a Christian’s walk in faith.

I will share, too, the story of a person who was called to lead a specific and challenging effort that is culturally changing how Christians interact with Creation. I believe you’ll appreciate how he’s blessed people and Creation even when he didn’t feel equipped to do so. You’ll see he’s been blessed in the process.

Some of what I share will, I hope, be inspiring. Some will likely be challenging. I feel the need to do both.

Please let me know how I can be of service to your own calling in this direction. Let’s learn together what it takes to live a whole Christian faith.

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A Letter to the Pastors of Sonny Perdue and Scott Pruitt

Nathan Aaberg —  May 11, 2018 — 2 Comments

I’ve noticed that by and large the culture of Christians who care about God’s earth is one of love, kindness, patience, and thoughtfulness. A byproduct of this culture, however, can sometimes be the tendency to avoid speaking truth in love to other Christians who cause needless harm to God’s earth. 

So how do we respond to Sonny Perdue and Scott Pruitt?  These two prominent Christians are in positions of leadership at the nexus of economy, government policy, and God’s earth. From what I have seen, they often advance and maintain policies counter to our convictions. Their decisions, their actions, and their inaction dwarf any smaller efforts of ours.

Will we continue to be polite and courteous and avoid the elephant in the room? Or do we speak up in a way that contains truth in proportion to the scale of the harm being done? And how do we do that while still being Christian?

The open letter below to the pastors of Sonny Perdue and Scott Pruitt is my best attempt. I chose to address the pastors because I believe that churches hold responsibility for the way their members, especially prominent members, live out their faith.

Dear Pastors Nick Garland and JIm Perdue:

I am having a hard time understanding something. I hope you can help me.

You are the pastors of Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator for the United States, and Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture. These members of your churches profess their Christian faith sincerely and prominently. Secretary Perdue even described this opportunity to serve our county as a call from God.

What I have a hard time understanding is how they came to believe that serving Jesus in their lives of leadership meant going along with policies that serve powerful economic interests at the cost of harming vulnerable people and spoiling God’s earth.

Can you help me understand that?

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt standing at podium

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt (photo courtesy of US Environmental Protection Agency)

I know those words sounds harsh and judgmental. I would guess that you and your congregation feel pride that members of your churches would reach such high levels of accomplishment. You are probably already dismissing me as one of “those” Christians.

But please hear me out. I want to speak what I believe is the truth in love. I believe it is important for Christians to see God’s will done on earth. I believe it is especially important that Christians who are prominent live out a whole Christian faith their words and deeds that is an attractive testimony to the Christian faith.

Secretary Perdue recently called a jury award in the case of people around a factory farm in North Carolina “despicable.” As you may know, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) holds thousands of farm animals together in factory-like buildings. Agriculture industry leaders point out these factories give our economy cheap meat. But what is not considered in the cheap prices is the cruelty to God’s animals. Nor do the cheap prices make up for the large streams of waste generated by the confined animals that often pollute streams and foul ground water that neighbors downstream need for drinking.

Sonny Perdue, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (photo courtesy of the USDA)

Did you know that most antibiotics today are not consumed by people but are given to animals, especially those in factory farms, because they promote unnaturally fast animal growth? This overuse is leading to the outbreak of strains of bacteria, like Staphylococcus aureus (known as MRSA), that are resistant to antibiotics. This is leading to the painful deaths of thousands, like 18-month old Simon Macario in Chicago.

CAFO farms also generate awful smells that cause misery to their neighbors while reducing their property values. Oftentimes, the neighbors of CAFOs are poor and minorities who find it harder to get justice and protection.

CAFOs are just a symptom of our industrial agriculture system. This system has generated great productivity. It has also compromised our public health and God’s earth and emptied out our rural towns. In many ways, as John Ikerd has pointed out, this system has put priority on faith in the market economy over faith in God and over concern for the wellbeing of our neighbors and God’s earth. I have not seen any indication that Secretary Perdue has wrestled with these questions and our country’s industrial approach to agriculture.

For his part, Administrator Pruitt has consistently looked to weaken restraints on business that have otherwise protected people and God’s land, water, and wildlife. A recent example was his decision to exempt Foxconn’s planned 20-million square foot electronics plant in southeastern Wisconsin from rules in place to reduce the emission of smog pollution that harms people’s lungs. This was despite the recommendations of his staff. Pruitt has also shown a consistent tendency to favor powerful industries, even to the point of ethical transgressions.

What you and I have in common is faith in Jesus. Through this belief and trust, the Spirit begins to transform every dimension of our hearts and our lives.

One of the concepts that Jesus taught was that fruit in the form of words and deeds revealed the condition of a person’s heart. Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt profess their Christian faith emphatically. But I see the fruits revealed in key policies they are responsible for to be counter to the God I see in the Bible.

As I know you know, there is a consistent theme throughout the Bible of God’s concern for the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized. These were the people to whom Jesus reached out. Prophets spoke against powerful people like Ahab and Jezebel who misused their power to rob vulnerable people of their integrity and what had been promised them by God. In Psalm 104 and in Job we also see God concerned with and revealed in all of Creation, the Creation that God included in this covenant with Noah in Genesis 9.

So I have sincere questions for you:

Do you believe that what your members are doing in their public roles as it relates to God’s earth and vulnerable people is God’s will?

If yes, is that because of the concept of dominion you teach? Have you considered the nuances of the whole Bible as it relates to our relationship to God’s earth? Have you considered God’s model for dominion over us as seen in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection?

If yes, is that because you believe that God would never allow things he cared about to be destroyed or harmed? Am I wrongly reading Jesus’ response to the Tempter in Matthew 4:7, which shows that God does not exist to save us from purposeful folly?

Will you address Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt and urge them to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit and demonstrate their first allegiance to God’s ways rather than to the interests of the powerful?

Are you concerned that the actions and words of Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt might be the reason people who naturally respond to the beauty of God’s earth are being turned away from coming to faith in Jesus? Could these people know in their hearts the truth that it is wrong to do unnecessary violence to the beauty and complexity of God’s order in Creation?

Francis Shaeffer wrote, “Thus God treats His Creation with integrity: each thing in its own order, each thing the way He made it. If God treats His creation in that way, should we not treat our fellow-creatures with similar integrity? If God treats the tree like a tree, the machine like a machine, the man like a man, shouldn’t I, as a fellow-creature, do the same thing – treating each thing in integrity in its own order? And for the highest reason: because I love God – I love the One who has made it! Loving the Lover who has made it, I have respect for the thing He has made.”

If you look closely you will find that many of the policies of the Department of Agriculture and of the EPA under Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt do not have respect for the things God has made.

What does God make of that?

Above all, can you help Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt question the assumptions behind their policies?

They are in a unique positions to lead good stewardship of God’s earth and to reveal to millions of people what Christian stewardship really looks like. They could be amazing witnesses to the regenerative and restorative power that God offers us and offers the world.

You are their pastors. You are in unique positions to counsel them, open their hearts in humility and sensitivity, and give them the courage to consider carefully what kind of lives God would want them to lead. Without doubt, It takes courage to go against the principalities of this world who tempt bright and charismatic people with riches and crowns.

I know that Secretary Perdue and Administrator Pruitt are probably very decent people in many respects. I know, too, this letter likely challenges how each of you and your churches read the Bible. It may challenge how you think about the connection between Christians, the economy, and the role of government. And I want you to know I know I don’t live out my Christian faith perfectly. I have failings. You could build a cabin with the logs in my eyes.

Nevertheless, please be open to whatever measure of God’s truth I have been able to include in this letter.

I hope, too, you will pray with me for the day when Christians are known for wholly transformed lives that testify to their love of God through their love of their neighbors and their energetic efforts to prosper the life of God’s good earth.

Sincerely,

Nathan Aaberg

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I Couldn’t Go to Church on Sunday

Nathan Aaberg —  February 28, 2018 — Leave a comment

I couldn’t go to church this past Sunday. And I’m not sure when I will go back.

For many of you, this may seem extreme and even wrong, so I want to try to articulate why it has come to this.

It all starts with my conviction that a Christian theology that does not include Creation is fundamentally and significantly incomplete. The title of the book by theologians Howard Snyder and Joel Scandrett I am now rereading says it all – Salvation Means Creation Healed.

The back cover promotional text includes this summary statement: “The Bible promises the renewal of all creation – a new heaven and earth – based on the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For centuries this promise has been sidelined or misunderstood because of the church’s failure to grasp the full meaning of biblical teachings on creation and new creation.”

I am sensitive to the fact that Christians throughout the centuries have fallen into schism and division because of disagreements over fine points of theology that people outside of the Church would have found incomprehensible.

But this, to me, is different.

Church services tend to avoid even a passing reference to God’s Creation and its intrinsic value. Or, if it is referenced, the theological context is one of Creation being provided strictly for human needs and wishes.

I am tired, too, of churches not working proactively and systematically to build the character of Christians so that they live out the fruits of the spirit in every dimension of their lives. Christians will, of course, never be perfect but a systematic effort should be made to grow and to make ourselves vessels of God.

I am convinced that the way a church and its members interact with God’s earth on a daily and ongoing basis should be filtered through an ethic of restorative stewardship. We should be doing our best in every way to offer God’s love to people around us and also to promote the health and vitality of God’s earth. In how we use the land and in what we choose to eat, for example, we should be honoring God.

I am heartbroken by and furious at the diseased, degraded, and wounded condition of God’s earth.

Industrial chemicals are found in the breast milk of mothers and in newborn children. Plastic are filling the oceans. Factory farms are causing misery for people and animals in rural communities. Species, like the North-Atlantic right whale, are on the verge of being snuffed out forever. Disruption and devastation from climate change grows.

Where are the churches? Where are the churches that see all this as an affront to God and are working passionately to equip members to do something about it?

This is not politics. This is a question of our core values.

In Luke 14:5 we hear Jesus ask, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?”

A child or ox that had fallen into a well would cry out in distress. To block out those cries and to ignore the plight of the child or ox would be the height of callousness. To do so would contradict the character God calls us to have. To be able to ignore a child or ox’s plight would be the fruit that revealed a heart completely untouched by God.

All of Creation has fallen into extreme distress. But we don’t listen. We choose not to see.

Christians should be the leading edge of dedicated, energetic, innovative guardianship of God’s earth. They are, in fact, playing just this role when it comes to rotational grazing and regenerative farming. But this is largely the exception.

Churches are either blessing the forces that are depleting God’s world or avoiding the topic out of fear and lack of conviction.

I heard a story of a couple in a rural community who had to leave their church because they couldn’t handle the hypocrisy and trauma of being served communion by their neighbor who had built a factory farm on his land and then destroyed the stream running through their land by releasing liquid animal feces from the manure lagoon into that stream. Where was the church in teaching that such an action was a a harmful sin to his neighbors?

My wife, who has long shared my concerns for the state of God’s earth, does have concerns about the direction I’m headed. She calls attention to the fact that we may be letting our 16-year old son down by not taking him to church and giving him the experience of being in a community of believers. (Please see her comments at the end of this piece to get her perspective.)

That is a valid concern. I am committed, however, to continuing to ground him in the Bible. We have already read through Genesis and Exodus together and are now working our way through Leviticus.

Is it possible that I’ve become so focused on one issue that I am becoming a source of divisiveness and am ignoring a Christian’s wider obligations?

I have reflected on this, and I will continue to do so.

But I also have to ask where is the concern that Christian equanimity toward the destruction and diminishment of God’s earth might actually be turning people away from Jesus? Is God really our master or is the bounty that comes from a money-focused, corporate-dominated economy the actual focus of our lives? Maybe this is temptation at a systemic, cultural, epic scale?

A recent poll found that Christians are no more concerned for the environment than they were 20 years ago, and that concern may actually be declining.

It is hard to explain to a non-Christian why people who believe God created earth feel free to degrade it and to lift restraints on how it is treated. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Christian numbers are declining, especially among Millennials?

My wife asks how churches will be more thoughtful about God’s earth if there aren’t voices within those churches calling for a change of direction. That’s also a good question.

On the other hand, I don’t sense much openness to this topic at all. What’s more, tacking on some token words in the occasional service is not enough. A different kind of Christian community is needed. New wineskins are needed.

I’m at a stage in my life where I’m listening to my heart and convictions more closely. Guilt will not overwhelm them. I need fellowship with others who share similar outlooks and who want to take action.

Have you wrestled with these same questions and feelings? Do you have advice for me?

I would very much like to hear from you.

 

Mayumi’s perspective:  I became a Christian 12 years into our marriage. Before that, I had been reluctant to become a Christian from our early years of courtship and into our marriage mainly because of how Christians disregarded and mistreated God’s Creation. Growing up in the Catholic church as a child in a small town in Wisconsin, I felt the presence of God in nature and not in any man-made church. Now the tables have turned. In the past, Nathan had encouraged me to go to church, and I was sometimes reluctant. Today, I am the one who believes we need to commit to a church community and be a voice within the church for whole faith living. I want our son to experience being among a community of believers, despite the fact that any church will share the good and bad aspects of our fallen humanity. I want our son to experience and be exposed to things that we can’t offer just at home with a Bible or with our own modeling: strong, healthy marriages and close family and friendship ties that support and encourage each other in the Christian walk. I want him to recognize that we can help to change and grow other Christians to include the care of God’s Creation. This is directly related to loving God and loving our neighbors. 

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Do You Have a White Bread Faith-Life?

Nathan Aaberg —  June 22, 2017 — 2 Comments

For a long time I’ve been struck by the parallels between a whole grain of wheat and a whole Christian faith-life. Rather than wait until I had perfectly worked out the parallels (which might not ever happen), I’ve decided to share my imperfect thinking at this point.

Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health – Harvard University

Consider these three features of a whole grain:

A whole grain of wheat is a complex, multifaceted thing with three different and indispensable elements – the bran, the germ, and the endosperm.

The Christian faith-life is also complex, multifaceted, and made up of different elements.

It is about a fervent trust in Jesus that opens us to the Holy Spirit and a relationship with God as we live out our lives. It is about loving God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength and all our mind. It is about gathering together with others to be part of the Church. It is built in large part on 66 books of the Bible and the diverse wisdom and insights they contain. It is a way of thinking and perceiving the world that is somehow consistent with books as diverse as Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, John, Romans, and Revelation. It is submitting ourselves to God and living lives of creative action.

It is about God, people, and the rest of Creation.

The total package of a whole grain of wheat is incredibly good for us.

There are over 100 vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients as well as fiber in a whole grain of wheat. And this total package is quite good for us. Phytonutrients, which include antioxidants, are particularly unsung heroes. They are the suite of natural chemicals that plants make as a flexible defense system to fend off germs, fungi, bugs, and other threats. They help the human body as well, providing protection against cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type-2 diabetes. Interestingly, bran and germ typically represent only 15-17% of a grain’s total weight but hold 75% of all of a grain’s total phytonutrients. Bran and germ also hold 100% of a grain’s fiber, which is essential for good health.

The total package of the whole Christian faith-life is also incredibly life transforming and enriching: I hope you’ve had contact with Christians, in person or through books and movies, who were different people because of their faith that expressed itself naturally in the lives they led. William Wilberforce is a great example. As are Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul Brand, George Washington Carver, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many others.

The challenges involved in using the whole grain at a large scale and the sweetness of the endosperm have long tempted people to engineer simpler and more selective ways of using elements of the whole grain. 

The complexity of whole grain wheat make it hard to use in an automated, simplified way. As soon as the bran is broken, it releases fat which causes spoilage to happen quickly. It also takes considerable art to make a tasty bread out of whole wheat. What’s more, human cultures have tended to desire the pure whiteness of refined grains as well for aesthetic reasons.

So humanity has long tried to simplify the use of whole grains by using only one part – the endosperm. With the advent of the rolling mill, we had a way to do this more perfectly then ever before. The pinnacle of this development was white bread. It didn’t spoil and tasted light and sweet.

But the simplifcation deprived bread of the most important nutritional benefits (check out this useful graphic that shows what is lost). What’s more, foods using refined grains (with the bran and germ removed) tend to raise blood sugar levels far more quickly and at higher levels than whole grains. All kinds of health problems emerged as a result. Ironically, we now add nutrition back into bread that was lost in the milling process, but the net result is still not the same.

Too often we’ve reshaped the Christian faith into the religious equivalent of white bread.

We’ve refined out the complexity and mystery and life-changing purpose to which God calls us. The sweet kernel we’ve tended to hold onto is the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross which promises us access to life after death. Salvation, when simplified, becomes the stamping of our after-life passport for guaranteed entry into the good country of heaven rather than the bad country of hell.

We remove mystery. Nor do we expect to have our lives nor the lives of our fellow believers to be transformed over time in this life. We don’t dive deep into the Bible and its wisdom and its challenges. We ignore God’s earth and make the faith just about people and God.

In the end, I wonder if a white bread faith may be what we think we want. Maybe we don’t want our lives transformed by being a disciple of Jesus if that will cause us discomfort or awaken us to how broken the world really is and the mending we are called to engage in. Maybe we don’t want to question the assumptions of the culture and economy around us.

And maybe this lack of wholeness, mystery, and challenge is what makes efforts to share God with others unsuccessful.

I started out writing this blog with a focus on how Christian faith and life has largely ignored Creation in its theology, church culture, and ethics. I believe this has dishonored God and harmed our neighbors.

I now see things even more more broadly.

The lack of attention to how we treat God’s earth is not a single thing that Christians  have somehow generally forgot about over the centuries. It is a symptom of a larger tendency to artifically simplify, sweeten, and hollow out what the Christian faith is all about.

God offers us a whole grain faith-life. Will we seek it out and live it?

 

Note: This Scientific American article about the problems with food labeled as containing whole wheat is a good read that will make you think about what exactly “whole wheat” claims mean in processed foods.

 

 

 

 

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