Christianity and The Survival of Creation
By Wendell Berry
I confess that I have not invariably been comfortable in front of a pulpit; I have never been comfortable behind one. To be behind a pulpit is always a forcible reminder to me that I am an essayist, and in many ways a dissenter. An essayist is, literally, a writer who attempts to tell the truth. Preachers must resign themselves to being either right or wrong; an essayist, when proved wrong, may claim to have been “just practicing.” An essayist is privileged to speak without institutional authorization. A dissenter, of course, must speak without privilege.
I want to begin with a problem: namely, that the culpability of Christianity in the destruction of the natural world, and the uselessness of Christianity to any effort to correct that destruction, are now established cliches of the conservation movement. This is a problem for two reasons: First, the indictment of Christianity by the anti-Christian conservationists is, in many respects, just. For instance, the complicity of Christian priests, preachers, and missionaries in the cultural destruction and the economic exploitation of the primary peoples of the Western Hemisphere as well as of traditional cultures around the world, is notorious. Throughout the five-hundred years since Columbus’s first landfall in the Bahamas, the evangelist has walked beside the conqueror and the merchant, too often blandly assuming that his cause was the same as theirs. Christian organizations, to this day, remain largely indifferent to the rape and plunder of the world and of its traditional cultures. It is hardly too much to say that most Christian organizations are as happily indifferent as most industrial organizations to the ecological, cultural, and religious implications of industrial economics. The certified Christian seems just as likely as anyone else to join the military-industrial conspiracy to murder Creation.
The conservationist indictment of Christianity is a problem, secondly, because, however just it may be, it does not come from an adequate understanding of the Bible and the cultural traditions that descend from the Bible. The anti-Christian conservationists characteristically deal with the Bible by waving it off. And this dismissal conceals, as such dismissals are apt to do, an ignorance that invalidates it. The Bible is an inspired book written by human hands; as such, it is certainly subject to criticism. But the anti-Christian environmentalists have not mastered the first rule of the criticism of books: you have to read them before you criticize them. Our predicament now, I believe, requires us to learn to read and understand the Bible in the light of the present fact of Creation. This would seem to be a requirement both for Christians and for everyone concerned, but it entails a long work of true criticism–that is, careful and judicious study, not dismissal. It entails, furthermore, the making of very precise distinctions between biblical instruction and the behavior of those peoples supposed to have been biblically instructed.
I cannot pretend, obviously, to have made so meticulous a study; if I were capable of it, I would not live long enough to do it. But I have attempted to read the Bible with some of these issues in mind, and I see some virtually catastrophic discrepancies between biblical instruction and Christian behavior. I don’t mean disreputable Christian behavior, either. The discrepancies I see are between biblical instruction and allegedly respectable Christian behavior.
If, because of these discrepancies, Christianity were dismissable, there would, of course, be no problem. We could simply dismiss it, along with the twenty centuries of unsatisfactory history attached to it, and start setting things to rights. The problem emerges only when we ask, Where then would we turn for instruction? We might, let us suppose, turn to another religion–a recourse that is sometimes suggested by the anti-Christian environmentalists. Buddhism, for example, is certainly a religion that could guide us toward a right respect for the natural world, our fellow humans, and our fellow creatures. I have a considerable debt myself to Buddhism and Buddhists. But there is an enormous number of people, and I am one of them, whose native religion, for better or worse, is Christianity. We were born to it; we began to learn about it before we became conscious; it is, whatever we think of it, an intimate belonging of our being; it informs our consciousness, our language, and our dreams. We can turn away from it or against it, but that will only bind us tightly to a reduced version of it. A better possibility is that this, our native religion, should survive and renew itself, so that it may become as largely and truly instructive as we need it to be. On such a survival and renewal of the Christian religion may depend the survival of that Creation which is its subject.
If we read the Bible, keeping in mind the desirability of those two survivals–of Christianity and the Creation–we are apt to discover several things that FULL ESSAY
Posted by stan as Analysis at 4:59 AM PDT
Submitted by James Craven on October 30, 2007 - 5:44pm
“I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the comments.” (General Clark on dkos today, ‘Engage Iran by Wes Clark‘)
So I want to know:
1) General Clark says: There is no doubt that Iran poses a threat to stability in the Gulf, to US allies in the region, and to our efforts in Iraq. But all of this was perfectly predictable: after all, we knocked out Iran’s greatest enemy, Saddam Hussein, and left them the largest force in the region. And now they are, by every indication, seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
Response: Yes there is plenty of doubt all over the world and also even inside the USG as to Iran’s capabilities as well as intentions. Indeed all over the world, probably more people regard the U.S. Government as far more dangerous to Middle East stability and the survival of the planet than Iran. And what indications are there to suggest Iran is not truthful with respect to future intentions to build nuclear weapons? We have only the assertions of our own proven liars that Iran is lying. And why not one word about Israel and their 200 nukes? And what about Iran’s assistance to the U.S. against the Taliban in Afghanistan? And again, why would Iran want more instability on their own border and why would they want to give the U.S. the excuses they are looking for to go to war?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by BrianR as Analysis at 7:44 PM PDT
The Amazing IA reader Ben created PDFs out of Stan’s Homeland Security Series. Thank you Ben!
More to come. Thank you Stan. We really appreciate and value your hard work.
Posted by BrianR as Analysis, Books at 6:28 PM PDT
Part 10
Having in the last installment addressed gender as the unacknowledged psychic and cultural nitro-fuel of the sociopolitical dynamic, we now need to study how the gender dynamics of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) correspond to the role gender plays in the economic evolution of the United States.
When we last left the question of post-WWII development in the US, we took a detour through money-theory and gender. We wanted to make sure that these lenses were available to readers as we leap, from the Cold War industrial-security state inaugurated by Truman and the Bretton Woods international monetary system, forward into Vietnam.
This was when the United States began the radical transformation from core-power as creditor and exporter to core-power as debtor and importer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by stan as Analysis at 12:46 PM PDT
Last week, I met two members of the Bountiful Backyards Edible Landscaping Design Collective right next door in Durham (maybe 20 car-minutes from my house). What they are doing — inventing and refining the practice, organizing into a semi-autonomous model that bridges their essentially anti-capitalist work onto the actually-existing system, and synthesizing work and politics — is what needs to happen first in every county, then every municipality, then every section of every municipality, across the country. Old-lefties would call this a vanguard effort, but I’m going to take DeAnander’s advice and abandon that militaristic figure of speech and replace it with an organic one: these are spore efforts.
…from Wiki:
In biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersion and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, fungi and some protozoans. A chief difference between spores and seeds as dispersal units is that spores have very little stored food resources compared with seeds.
Spores are usually haploid and unicellular and are produced by meiosis in the sporophyte. Once conditions are favorable, the spore can develop into a new organism using mitotic division, producing a multicellular gametophyte, which eventually goes on to produce gametes.
Spores are often the pioneer organisms of newly emergent biomes.
I am pasting in (below the fold) Bountiful Backyards’ excellent list of 10 reasons to transform yards; because this is the only practical and sustainable basis for the eventual transformation of the suburban/exurban built environment in which the majority of Americans now live. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by stan as Analysis at 7:09 AM PDT
Some are discussing the similarities between the October 1929 Wall Street crash and our current economic climate with unregulated hedge funds, sub prime loan failure, and Billion dollar profits. Its clear some are becoming much more wealthy while others barely get by. Stan has wisely brought up the importance of people on the political left educating themselves about money. Not so we can manipulate people and markets but to survive the future. A form of competitive market research if you will.
In testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services last week, veteran economic journalist Robert Kuttner talked about these parallels:
“Your predecessors, over at the Senate Banking Committee, in the celebrated Pecora Hearings of 1933 and 1934, laid the groundwork for the modern edifice of financial regulation. I suspect that they would be appalled at the parallels between the systemic risks of the 1920s and many of the modern practices that have been permitted to seep back in to our financial markets.”
Check out this segment of the Bill Moyes Journal called Heading for 1929?. [Transcript] I learned a lot watching this. Fascinating discussions with Robert Kuttner editor-in-chief of The American Prospect and former SEC chairman William H. Donaldson. I am personally shocked at how opaque markets are and how little I know about their operations. Sadly its not just me who is in the dark about these dirty dealings.
Posted by BrianR as Analysis at 5:37 PM PDT
Here is a review of Valerie Plame Wilson’s book Fair Game by James Craven called Thank You for Your–UH-”Service”: Ramon’s 9-11. Stan has also written a introduction.
Here’s a bit:
We’ve all done it. Someone in uniform, military mostly, but also police, firefighters, we say it almost like “Good Morning”; it is “Thank you for your service.” And we mean it. Thank you for being among the few with the courage and sacrifice to put your own life and comforts on the line for a transcendent cause beyond yourself; particularly if that Cause is the safety and liberty of me and mine.
But that begs a thought experiment: Do Germans thank former SS for their “service” that many actually convinced thmselves was for the safety and liberty of their system, culture and “own kind”? Can we or should we separate the “service” to a transcendent Cause from the nature of that Cause itself?
This occurred to me further when I got and and immediately digested the new book by Valerie Plame Wilson “Fair Game”. On one level I could respect that she put her life on the line for a transcendent Cause beyond her own self and selfishness and self-preservation; a Cause that she still believes in. But when she is quoted on the jacket of the book that she is “proud to have served my country by working at the Central Intelligence Agency” a chill goes up my spine:
When you got a sec check out Omahkohkiaayo i’poyi new blog.
Posted by BrianR as Analysis at 9:29 AM PDT
Is it an emergency yet?
Well, it has been for a long time, but more people are starting to notice. The symptoms can’t be papered over as easily as they get more severe, frequent, and ubiquitous. Peak Oil… climate derangement… authoritarian movements… rollback of women’s rights… food contamination scares… concentration of media owmership… species loss… water shortages… runaway incarceration… megafires… resource wars… financial meltdowns… Seems like things are going more wrong, more rapidly, more generally than we’re used to. What’s to be done?
A natural response is survivalism: how am I gonna get through this? But there’s more than one kind of survivalism: if you are worried about how your community — your tribe, your extended family, your township, your county, your neighbours and friends are going to get through this together — then we’re working on a radio show for you. The Emergency Wormcasting Network has two basic premises: (a) we believe there’s a real emergency, and (b) we believe there are things you can do about it… both to influence public life to soften the landing, and to safeguard the health and freedom of yourself and your community.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by DeAnander as Pedagogy, News, Analysis at 5:55 PM PDT
More great analysis by James Craven.
Look, I have nothing to do with the Government of Iran or some radical forms of “Islam” for sure. As a Blackfoot Indian, who practices Blackfoot Spirituality, not a Christian or Jew, and thus not from a “People of the Book”, I am considered an Infidel by them. But what exactly makes anyone, not with ulterior motives, assert that the Government of Iran is a source of State-sponsored Terrorism and a threat to the national security of the U.S. What real EVIDENCE is there for that proposition?
First of all they do know all about terrorism. One-sided, generic and illegal embargoes, that can only hit non-combatants are a form of terrorism per se; if you define terrorism not by who does it but by what it is: calculated or highly likely violence and force against non-combatants. The overthrow of the democratically-elected regime of Mossadegh in 1953, and the installation and maintenance of the brutal Shah was terrorism per se. The U.S. instigation of Saddam Hussein to launch the 7 1/2 year Iraq-Iran War against Iran, which resulted in over 1 1/2 million casualties, during which the U.S. gave Iraq weapons and satellite intelligence they do not even give the Israelis when Iran was gaining the upper hand, and gave Iran weapons and intelligence when Iraq was gaining the upper hand, was terrorism per se. The giving of Saddam Hussein a “green light” to attack Kuwait by U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie in order to set him up for Regime Change destabilized the whole region and was terrorism against Iran and others per se.
Read the rest of this IA Analysis by James Craven.
Posted by BrianR as Analysis at 10:12 AM PDT
