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Since we are in the Reformation 500 mode and mood because of Oct. 31st and the 95 Theses launching the swirling what became the reformation of church and transformation of culture.....and since our environmental policy and practice in the US is under assault, what with pulling out of the Paris Accords and the evisceration of the EPA's policy approach which is going from protection of environment and citizens to protection of economic benefit (check out the most recent actions on Chlorpyrifos, the insecticide), and more......I thought it good to share something I wrote a couple of years ago on Martin Luther and the environment.
Luther is key for me.
And the most pressing policy and practice before us all is environmental stewardship. Bar none, save nuclear holocaust which of course takes out, ahem, everything. Keep your action and eyes on the care of creation. Its now not only important but urgent.
So since Luther is key and environment, care of creation, is primary, let's put them together for some fun: Luther as Environmentalist.
Luther As Environmentalist
The Liberating Gospel and Care
for Creation
By Johan Bergh*
By now, as a responsible citizen who cares about the
livelihood of others, you’ve at least begun to develop habits of reducing,
reusing and recycling. What you may or may not be doing as a religious leader
in your community is utilizing your public voice and office to advance the
cause of caring for creation. My intention here is to describe how the gospel
of Jesus frees us to care and act and invite you to use your voice and life as
a religious leader to step into the challenges of environmental stewardship and
justice. My intention here is to invite you to get Grace and to go Green! Go
GreenGrace![i]
But why should you? After all, isn’t your job as a faithful
follower of Christ about working with folk on their relationship with God and
not about working on their relationship with others, to say nothing of how it’s
not about working on their relationship to plants, animals, soil and water?
Actually, that’s not really an issue much these days anymore
is it? I mean the part about not paying attention to environmental concern
because it’s viewed as outside the purview of religious life. Mainline
religious folk have made this connection for a long time and now in recent
years Evangelicals have made advances to come on board.[ii]
Instead of having issues with seeing environmental justice
as integral to the faith, you may be strongly motivated to step out and act or
may even be already very involved.
If that’s the case, great! But please get busy. The planet
is on life support.
But maybe you do have hesitations with seeing environmental
advocacy and action as part of the faith. If so, I want to offer here the
fundamental reason why it is.
But there is more. Maybe you are totally convinced that
political and social environmental action are absolutely critical and only too
happy to turn away from what you see as the church’s historical shallowness of
focusing so much on “salvation” and neglecting the weightier matters of
justice. Maybe you are all about taking Christianity to the streets and
abandoning the worship buildings because you believe the faith is about people
loving people with God’s love and not about God loving people with God’s love.
If that is the case, I want to offer here too one fundamental reason why I
believe that is misguided. Salvation for
Christians is not prelude to activism and certainly not tangential to activism.
It is itself the ultimate activism….the only action that matters….God’s
destroying our self-righteousness and replacing that Self with God’s Self (take
a look at Romans 6 for how that happens!) so that now this New Self is only
doing what’s God’s Self does: loving the world (yes, Earth and all creatures,
not just human beings) at all costs.
David Rhoads writes concerning the cosmic nature of
salvation pointedly spoken of by Joseph Sittler:
“Sittler pointed to this passage from
Colossians [1:15-20] as an adequate Christology. Here is an understanding of
the cross of Jesus that extends to the whole created order. Jesus did not die
for humans alone to be reconciled to God. Instead, Jesus’ death is a
reconciliation of all things in the whole of creation. The consequence is that
humans too are reconciled with “all things” and therefore placed in a new and
responsible relationship with the whole created order. The work of Christ as a
cosmic redeemer catches the hearer up in a drama of redemption that includes
the whole cosmos and is therefore able to address our environmental crisis.”[iii]
So here, in one fell swoop, I want to take down one huge
wall that is keeping us in the church from paying attention and doing something
about our not-so-green Earth on the one hand and, on the other hand, is keeping
us in the church who are active in social action from seeing how Jesus Christ
is not simply the best social activist embodying God’s love for all but
actually the savior of the world.
Here we go.
The mission of God, that is incarnated in the person of
Jesus, is God blessing and healing the world, and all persons, in totality, so
that personal concern for destiny is no longer the concern we have made it. God
reconciles God’s Self with us, no thanks to us, and thus frees us to attend to
the reconciliation needs at hand: our neighbor’s welfare and creation’s care.[iv]
Jesus does not establish a new religion named Christianity
but instead in his very person and mission destroyed and destroys all attempts
by people to construct belief systems or behavioral patterns that attempt to
create or establish a relationship with God.
This relationship with God is in fact already established…covenant….by
God. Jesus is God’s definitive word to
that reality and truth.
That being the case, Jesus shuts down all our religious
pretense and shuts up all our religious banter and calls us to do this: instead
of drawing all our attention to establishing our relationship with God we are
freed (the operative word here!) to give all our attention to where it
belongs….and to the only place, too, by the way, where God’s attention and
heart goes: to the care and well-being of creation….meaning our neighbor and
our Earth.
Martin Luther put it this way: God does not need our good
works, but our neighbor does.[v]
Today I would respectfully amend Luther and write “God does
not need our good works, but our neighbor and environment do.”
Luther digs deeply into this notion of being freed by God
from religion for justice and wholeness in his famous work “On the Freedom of a
Christian” in which he creatively used two contradictory statements to name one
singular truth:
“A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to
none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject
to all.”[vi]
The singular truth: a Christian is simply given the totality
of life: identity, community, meaning and destiny.
Thus firmly grounded in Christ one’s full attention and
focus in life is given over to caring for what is before us (getting traction
in our relationship with world) and not what is beyond us (getting any traction
in our relationship with God). Jesus’ own ministry demonstrates this. When
teaching he was keen on how the people of God need to get it into their thick
skulls and hardened hearts that God has got them covered, in all dimensions of
life (and that therefore actual radical trust in God was possible): “Consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell
you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if
God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is
thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?”
(Matthew 6:28b-30).
Much of the Christian church has historically been
criticized for its zealous attention to the salvation of the person without the
necessary attention to the salvation and well-being of society and Earth.
Lutherans have often been included, and rightly so a good bit of the time I
would have to agree, in this so-called “quietistic” faith category. This is
because we have not seen the actual radical nature of the freedom we are given,
the Reconciliation, when we are “subject to none.” Oswald Bayer, in referring
to how Christ destroys the Old Self (“Old Adam”) before Christ raises it from
the dead, writes,
“In view of the commonly held suspicion
that Lutheran theology promotes a form of quietism, we need to point out that
the reverse side of this death of the old Adam is supreme liveliness and
activity. This is no paradox. If I finally pin myself down and judge myself on
the basis of what I have done and do, and if I let myself be pinned down by
others, by their looks, their words, and their behavior, I am no longer free.
But if I am liberated from this captivity, from my own absolute claims and from
those of others, then this gift of freedom brings with it a sense of perspective
that enables me to distinguish between person and work.[vii]
Lutheran systematic theologian Gerhard Forde speaks
considerably on what I would say is this “reformation explosion” that got
muffled if not extinguished by Orthodoxy. Listen please to something Forde
writes about that first thesis of Luther:
“A Christian is a perfectly free Lord
of all, subject to none.’ What does that mean? The answer is that it means just
what it says! A Christian is subject to absolutely no one or anything. It means
that because of God’s act in Christ Jesus, that which makes you to be a Christian,
you are absolutely free from all the nonsense that people usually and
inevitably associate with the name of religion. It means that God has care of
everything that has to do with your relationship to him. You are subject to no
one, no institution, no set of rules, no laws, nothing, absolutely nothing. You
are free, absolutely free! God alone, absolutely, has done everything. Or to
put it even more strongly: God has, in effect through the cross and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, put up for the entire world a blazing KEEP OUT
sign over the whole province of religion and salvation. This, God has said, is
my business alone. He has put you, and every one of us, out of the salvation
business, and shoved us out into the world where our real business is. That,
really, is what Luther meant when he insisted that salvation is by grace alone,
sola gratia. It means that God has an absolute monopoly on the salvation
business, and that you are free, absolutely free, when you simply take God at
his word. He has made you a free Lord of all things.”[viii]
Notice where we are “placed” when we are taken out of the
salvation business. Forde states we are “shoved out into the world where our
real business is.”
The church’s real business, because of reconciliation by God
in Christ Jesus, is the stewardship of neighbor and Earth. Yes, we are to be
“witnesses” to the resurrection (Acts 1), but this, I believe, is exactly what
we are doing when we work for justice with neighbor and Earth. And too, this is
not to deny or denigrate the place of actually naming the reason you are doing
all this as a follower of Christ. I Peter 3:15-15
speaks of being prepared to name “the hope that is in you.” When you serve
neighbor and do justice with creation you will be asked why. Especially if you
do more than lip service. And when you are asked, you name the source: Jesus
Christ set you free to be such as this! By the way, most best practices in
evangelism today lay claim to this approach and in fact all other approaches
are normally met with suspicion if not acrimony by those not in the faith: for
those with whom we Christians relate in family, community and workplace, do not
share with them anything about Jesus unless you first are in prayer for them
and actually care for them….and their well-being (as opposed to how they might
be recruited to support your agenda or program).
Do you think that care of creation and environmental
stewardship are an add-on (or worse, not even that!) to your central mission as
the church of Jesus Christ? Then I do not believe you have seen God’s mission of healing and blessing all
of the world being done in Christ Jesus.
Do you think that care of creation and environmental
stewardship are critical for church advocacy and action and that church mission
should focus on social action and not Jesus’ cross and resurrection that saves
us from our sinful selves? Then you have not seen the full dimension of
Christ’s atoning work and how it is not only central to our witness and work
but is in the end the only word of hope we have to offer the world (regardless
of the correctness of our advocacy and action).
Go green![ix]
Go grace!
Go GreenGrace![x]
[i] www.greengracepostings.blogspot.com
is the author’s blog where he welcomes your on-going participation and partnership
in environmental stewarding and the life of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.
[ii] Cf.
Brian McClaren, Everything Must Change (2007).
McClaren has marvelously chronicled the opening of his evangelical faith from a
narrow concern for personal salvation to the wider mission of God for the
healing and justice for the entire planet through numerous publications. Evangelical
churches seem to traditionally been slower to embrace environmental stewardship
as a core value within their faith. Napp Nazworth, www.christianpost.com, June 12, 2012,
writes, “A 2009 survey conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
showed that white evangelical protestants were less likely than any other major
religious group to say that the Earth is warming because of human activity (34
percent). By comparison, 58 percent of the unaffiliated, 48 percent of white
mainline protestants and 44 percent of white non-Hispanic Catholics said that
the Earth is warming because of human activity. Among evangelicals, there have
been two main groups representing either side of this debate. The Evangelical
Climate Initiative (ECI) represents global warming activists while Cornwall
Alliance represents global warming skeptics.”
[iii] David
Rhoads, “Who Will Speak for the Sparrow?
Eco-Justice Criticism of the New Testament,” www.lutheransrestoringcreation.com.
Dr. Rhoads is Professor of New Testament, Emeritus, The Lutheran School of
Theology at Chicago and currently Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring
Creation, a grassroots Lutheran environmental stewardship movement and
organization.
[iv] There
are actually three major theological foci in my schemata that inform my
thinking on faith and environment. Shared here, “Reconciliation,” is the
foundational one and the topic of this brief treatment, but the others build
upon it. Listed below (“Restoration” and “Re/creation) are the two others. Here with brief explanation, they must get
attention at another writing.
Restoration
God’s justice calls for all
those who love God and neighbor and creation to work for the restoration of
just and equitable relationships. Abuse of natural resources, neglect of
natural ecological dynamics will continue to exact a heavy toll for both
society and environment. It’s imperative that we restore the ecological
balance.
Re/creation
Enjoying the outdoors with a
myriad of activities and sports over the years is a key way in which I have
appreciated and engaged our natural environment. From my early years when my
mother simply wanted us outside to play and “get some fresh air” to my adult
years when actively running, biking, hiking or playing ball, I have been
re-created while I recreate. In this sense, activity and play outdoors,
enjoying or employing the natural world for recreation, is a gift of God to me
for renewal and vitality daily.
[v]
Steven Paulson, Luther for Armchair Theologians
(Louisville, Kentucky; Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 182.
[vi] Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a
Christian,” in Martin Luther’s Basic
Theological Writings, ed. Timothy Lull (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press,
1989), 596.
[vii]
Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 25.
[viii]Gerhard
Forde, “The Freedom to Reform (Reformation 1967),” in Lutheran Quarterly, Vol. XXV, No. 2, Summer (Hanover, PA: The
Sheridan Press, 2011)
[ix] An
excellent way for congregations of all faiths to get comprehensive traction in
environmental stewardship action and advocacy is the Greenfaith Certification
Program (www.Greenfaith.org).
*Johan Bergh is Pastor of St. Philip Lutheran Church,
Mt. Dora, Florida, a Greenfaith Fellow (www.greenfaith.org),
Lutherans Restoring Creation Coach for the Greenfaith Certification Program (www.lutheransrestoringcreation.org)
and a 1981Trinity alumnus.
