EXHIBIT F
(Plenary 4)
A STUDY PAPER ON ECOLOGY
This paper was developed from discussions among concerned Lutheran students at the Lutheran Student Movement General Assembly at Holden village, Washington, August 23-29, 1970. In our discussions, we became particularly concerned with the challenges which the Christian faces in being true to both his faith and the facts of societal life. We found that as a Church, we must resolve the following question: will we as a people passively accept our own extinction or will we take responsible creative action order that we may continue to carry out god’s intentions for His creation? As students, we are not capable of providing a complete theological basis for this question’ rather we are trying to express our vital concerns on the issue of ecology and the Church’s role in it.
I. The Church and Ecology
God’s Intention: Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”
Consideration of our environment is an integral part of our own Christian theology. We find in the Old testament, particularly in Genesis, God’s clear gift of love to his creation and the responsibilities that the giving of that gift demands; since God has given Man dominion over the Earth, we have an implicit duty to maintain and to preserve it. We find in the “imagery” of Genesis a clear connection between God’s creation and Man’s responsibility for careful maintenance of it. When god said, “Let us make man in our image,” He was not talking in physical but rather in vocational terms: Man has a duty to care for creation in the same manner that God did. As Christians, we are born to live this life that our Father intends for us.
Yet, our environment is continually being raped and destroyed, often in the name of corporate profit and Progress, as well as by individual apathy and selfish gratification. In many cases, Christian theology has been a willing accomplice to this destruction, despite our responsibility for maintaining and not destroying God’s creation.
Out own Protestant theology contains many rationalizations and reasons for the exploitation of the environment. Our willingness to accept the popular Calvinistic interpretation of God’s blessings is part of the problem. Our economic system is implicitly based on this Calvinistic assumption, that prosperous businesses are also good and, there, blessed by God. Little mention is ever made of how profits are made or at what cost to us or to our environment. Only the size of the profit determines the size of God’s blessing. Profit rules, not ethics.
In our theology, God is seen as an abundant and unlimited provider. This concept has three direct ramifications. First, an abundant provider concept of God may have been acceptable in frontier America when resources did indeed seem unlimited but is most inadequate eighty years after the settling of the frontier. We must not be bound to a concept of God conditioned by our past interpretation of material abundance.
Secondly, we measure success and prosperity in terms of Gross National Product, two cars in every garage, and expensive homes. This type of approach is fine for increasing profits but its cost in terms of deteriorating supplies of materials is increasing daily. It seems that the believers in an abundant God have also developed abundant wants and desires. Are we truly sons of God, made in His image, or merely indulged children?
Lastly, our eagerness to seize material pleasures pushes God out of our consciousness. Our abuses of the Earth and of its ecology are turning God’s sacred creation into a profane pit. The joy that we are meant to find in our relationship to God is being pre-empted by our compulsive need for newer and faster cars, finer clothes, and technological gadgets. Instead of worshiping our abuses and praising the Gross National Product, we should express confidence in God’ grace which leads to responsible use of His good creation.
One of the Lutheran hangups is this ecological issue concerns Luther’s affirmation of God’s abundant love for us. The abundance of God’s forgiving love means that no threat of ultimate reprisal for our acts (in this case, the destruction of God’s creation) is made. However, out acceptance of the grace of God should create a concern for the environment. This is the way in which the people of God can desire, individually and corporately, to do God’s will here on Earth. A concern for ecology, for example, is part of their expression of love for God.
What we are suggesting is a serious re-evaluation of our religious traditions, with the goal of updating them with an awareness of the present which now is, rather than of the past which once was. What the Church and its people need is a flexible approach to match and to anticipate the constant change and flux of our society. We would hope that this approach would include ways for individuals to carry out God’s intentions for the world. This would include creative and spiritual backing from the Church at all levels. It would necessarily encompass many varied forms of expression and would not rely on “infallible” doctrines or on arbitrary standards. Hopefully, a less institutional/more humanistic approach will open up the Church to new possibilities in a changing world.
II. Toward a New Theological Stance
In response to our emphasis on the ecological crisis, we fell that at least three changes in our present theological emphases are needed. First, our concept of God, conditioned by past situations, has to be changed to meet the challenges posed by our changing society. Our past traditions stressed only Man’s dominion over nature and seldom mentioned our responsibility for maintaining our ecosystem. Our concept of God as a provider also needs to include an image of God as a restrainer in the sense that which He has made immediately available for us to use (i.e. the resources of the Earth) are indeed limited. Our pioneer image of God has become outmoded since the closing of frontier America; perhaps a better image for our use would that of spaceship Earth over which God has given dominion to Men:
We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable supplies of air and soil…preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and the life we give our fragile craft.
-Adlai Stevenson
We also need to more clearly define the involvement of each individual in the destruction of the environment. For example, many people within large corporations, particularly those that are major polluters, feel impotent and unable to influence that system. Clearly some of these people (e.g. Lutherans) are in high positions within such organizations. If the dynamics of ecology does become a major concern of the Church, what should the response of these individuals be? We decided that the Church must assist the individual to find significant means of influencing corporate behavior, particularly in relation to the environment. While the only power that the Church really has in this situation is the power of moral and spiritual persuasion, it is a great power which must be used with increased effectiveness. While we realize that this is a very idealistic solution, it is impossible for us to describe all of the approaches that may be needed by individuals. Any individual must determine an appropriate response to a problem, based on a sensitivity to local conditions. No global solution is possible or can be predicted by us.
Third, the theological stance of the Christian in matters of ecology is related to our need for a new understanding of mission in the Church. We need to redefine the whole concept of Christian stewardship. All too often, Christian stewardship is only mentioned in tributes to mother on Mother’s Day or whenever the offering is being collected. While these emphases may be needed, we feel that the definition is too restrictive. We need to widen the definition to include all of our responsibilities to all forms of God’s creation, be they ecological or interpersonal. This idea includes care of the earth and protection of the quality of life. It involves taking direct, personal responsibility for family planning to prevent deterioration of the quality of life due to over-population. This redefinition includes opposition to all forms of exploitation of resources, be they human or material. This sense of personal mission has been missing for too long; perhaps this sense can be revitalized by stressing personal responsibility for maintaining God’s creation.
We do not mean to imply that a theological punishment/reward system be established. Rather, these responsibilities should be undertaken as an expression of our faith in God and of our desire to fulfill God’s intentions for His creation. If we fail to act, we may witness a further decline of the Church; we certainly will be making changes in our world that may lead irreversibly to a large scale eco-catastrophe. These changes could result in the demise of the Earth, including the human inhabitants of it. Perhaps, if a sense of urgency in this task can be conveyed, the Church will cease to be merely a building that one visits and will become a viable community of God’s representatives.
We are facing the future with fear and trembling but also with hope.
The basis of our hope is Christ who is Lord of the future. Our task is summarized by Jurgen Holtmann in The Theology of Hope:
The Christian Church has not to serve mankind in order that this world may remain what it is, or may be preserved in that state in which it is, but in order that it may transform itself and become what it is promised to be.