Introducing Evangelical Ecotheology

Foundations in Scripture, Theology, History, and Praxis

Daniel L. Brunner, Jennifer L. Butler, A. J. Swoboda

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780801049651
• eBook ISBN: 9781441221421
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Today's church finds itself in a new world, one in which climate change and ecological degradation are front-page news. In the eyes of many, the evangelical community has been slow to take up a call to creation care. How do Christians address this issue in a faithful way?

This evangelically centered but ecumenically informed introduction to ecological theology (ecotheology) explores the global dimensions of creation care, calling Christians to meet contemporary ecological challenges with courage and hope. The book provides a biblical, theological, ecological, and historical rationale for earthcare as well as specific practices to engage both individuals and churches. Drawing from a variety of Christian traditions, the book promotes a spirit of hospitality, civility, honesty, and partnership. It includes a foreword by Bill McKibben and an afterword by Matthew Sleeth.

Introduction

The Stories behind the Story

Nathan[1] and I (Dan) pulled into the Mbanhela community in the Gaza province of Mozambique and were greeted by the high-spirited singing of six women who form the livestock association of that small community. A Christian relief and development organization, of which Nathan is the country director, provided funds for a large chicken coop, feed, supplies, and 300 chickens for the Mbanhela community. In addition, it furnished training in basic animal husbandry and marketing. Every two months the community starts a new cycle with 320 chicks. Raising chickens for income empowers that community and helps it toward health and sustainability. But the goal of raising livestock is not just for community development. The Mbanhela community decided that God had called them to provide a home for twenty-nine orphans and other vulnerable children. (One woman, Pastor Ramira, said to us matter-of-factly, “God tells us to care for the orphans and widows, and so we do.”) Profits from the sale of the chickens help those children attend school and buy books and school supplies.

And yet Mbanhela faces many hurdles on its journey. In its first two years of operation, it lost two whole cycles of chickens, one to an abnormal heat wave and the other to the second “hundred-year” flood in thirteen years. Drought, floods, and irregular rains—all primarily the result of climate change—are disrupting the planting and harvesting patterns of rural farmers.[2] Roberto Zolho, coordinator of World Wildlife Fund in Mozambique, says that other ecological ills negatively impacting Mozambique include deforestation and species depletion through poaching.[3] The nation’s impoverished are burning forests at an alarmingly high rate in order to produce and sell charcoal. About 80 percent of Mozambicans use charcoal for heating and cooking. Driven by hunger, they are exchanging trees for maize. In addition Mozambique has the highest rate of illegal wildlife trade in the world, a practice connected globally to human and drug trafficking. In spite of efforts by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to protect “flagship species”—elephants, wild dogs, sea turtles, and dugong (a large marine mammal similar to a manatee)—poachers in 2012 killed over 3,500 elephants for their ivory and 680 rhinos for their horns. Poachers get $500–$1,000 for a rhino horn, which sells for $65,000–$85,000 on the black market in Asia. Corruption and issues surrounding law enforcement undermine efforts to protect the land and its biodiversity. Zolho emphasizes that ecological degradation, such as climate change, deforestation, and animal trade, is inextricably entwined with poverty. Mozambique ranks 185th out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations Development Programme.[4]

Stories like this lie behind this book, stories of a Creation that is groaning, of Christ-followers whose discipleship increasingly involves “keeping” the Earth, and of communities like Mbanhela that live out of hope and a hunger to serve the poorest of the poor. More and more it is becoming apparent that the story of Western Christians is inescapably interconnected with Mbanhela’s story, with the Creation’s story, and indeed with God’s story.

Our Stories

Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.

—José Ortega y Gasset[5]

The lifeblood of this book is our common story as a writing team. In the writing process we have tried to model the redemptive tension that community brings and the kind of hospitality, honesty, and bridge building that we hope the text itself will engender. We are two men and one woman, dedicated to mutuality, yet each with his or her own unique story and writing style. Out of a commitment to a writing process that both preserves our own unique voices and at the same time yields a readable and coherent narrative, each of us contributed something to every chapter, then each chapter was edited and woven together in community.

As authors we broach the topic of ecological theology (hereafter, ecotheology) from within evangelicalism. Each of us has evangelical roots; we secure our theology in the euangelion (“good news”) of Jesus Christ.[6] David Bebbington offers a framework that best captures our understanding of “evangelical,” lifting up four marks of evangelicalism: “conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.”[7] These qualities are explicitly woven into this book. Repeatedly in this text we voice a call to conversion, to life change, to obeying the invitation of Jesus Christ to a more encompassing discipleship. The third part of the book, on doing ecotheology, is pointed toward activism and expressing the gospel with our lived experiences and action. In grounding our ecotheology, we hold to the authoritative nature of Scripture and the creeds. Lastly our desire is to center our writing in Jesus Christ, recognizing that through his life, death on the cross, and resurrection God has acted definitively for the salvation and reconciliation of the world.

All of us are ordained: two (Dan and Jen) in mainline denominations, one (A. J.) in the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition. Our common call to earthkeeping is a part of our call to discipleship, and our call to discipleship is nothing more than a call to Jesus Christ. “The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heart-breaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples—students, apprentices, practitioners—of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence,” writes the late Dallas Willard.[8] The call to write this book arises out of our desire to respond together to Christ’s claim on our lives, to ask what Jesus might want to say, and ask from us, today. Even as we share a common call to this endeavor, each of us has his or her own story to tell.

Dan Brunner

My single favorite thing as a child growing up was my tree house. When I was nine or ten years old, my dad built a platform in a large maple tree, about twelve feet in the air. Over the years I added a roof and walls. I hardly let anyone come up into that tree house, especially not my sisters. Most often I would climb the tree to get away, to breathe, to seethe, to “simmer down,” as my mom would say. One of the walls was nicely sloped, and I could bring my knees up to my chest, lean back against the sloped wall, and just sit there by myself. I loved that tree house, and I loved that maple tree. Our only pets growing up were tropical fish; that maple tree was one of my most loyal friends.

My parents were raised in the Depression. Like many of their generation, they took “conservation” to an extreme we kids considered excessive. Most of the things they did to conserve—raise a garden, drive a fuel-efficient car, not throw away anything that might one day be useful—were done predominately to save money. Yet those practices formed me.

In retrospect the single most ecologically intensive time of my life was when in my mid-thirties my family and I lived in a wilderness community called Holden Village in the North Cascades of Washington state. In this remote setting without telephone or television, we spent unrushed time in spectacular natural beauty, ate low on the food chain, worshiped daily, studied spirituality and discipleship, kept Sabbath, and lived a simplified rhythm of life. Most importantly, gifted teachers led our small community in intentional dialogue about ecology and the state of the planet. Never before had I spent such focused time on such a vital issue with such well-informed and passionate people.

Like my coauthors, I have favorite places in the glory of God’s Creation: the coastline and Cascades in my home state of Oregon, Tuolumne Meadows and Half Dome in Yosemite, the Dungeness Spit and Lake Chelan in Washington state, the Black Forest and Bavarian Alps in Germany, Iona and Loch Ness in Scotland, and Betws-y-Coed and Snowdonia in Wales. On the other hand, I have encountered large-scale environmental degradation. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, I saw the widespread ecological fallout—air and water pollution, acid rain, etc.—of a burgeoning chemical industry in Halle (Saale), East Germany. In Burundi I witnessed the crushing effects of deforestation, land degradation, and soil erosion on rural peoples in the upcountry.

In 2010 a long-term dream came to fruition when my colleagues and I launched the Christian Earthkeeping (CEK) program at our seminary (George Fox Evangelical Seminary).[9] For nearly a year beforehand a small group of dedicated students and I hammered out the vision and framework of the program. Its mission is to form evangelical leaders who cultivate the care of Creation in their communities. Our rationale for the program can be summarized simply:

• The Earth is endangered.
• The church, and in particular the evangelical church, has by and large been silent.
• The Bible speaks to our relationship with the created order.
• The church must respond to God’s command to “keep” the earth (Gen. 2:15).
• Christian leaders need a theological and biblical basis for earthkeeping.

Students are exposed to a broad spectrum of authors, experts, and practitioners as we engage theological reflection, spiritual disciplines, and intentional praxis.[10] As much as anything, this book arises out of the community of learning at our seminary, out of the students—including my two coauthors—who have poured themselves into what it means to be a follower of Christ and a loving caretaker of Creation.

I am a lifelong Lutheran; my father and mother were lifelong Lutherans. Our home was rooted in an evangelical, pietistic spirituality, something for which I remain grateful. Today I am an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, teaching full time at an evangelical seminary with Wesleyan Holiness and Quaker roots. My prayer is that this book will be a small part of building ecotheological bridges in a spirit of hospitality and grace.

Jennifer Butler

My grandmother is a birder. For as long as I can remember, she’s kept a pocket-sized red Audubon guide and a pair of binoculars by her rocker. When I was a child she exclaimed: “Jennifer! Come look at this!” I obliged her, peering through the binoculars to get a closer look at common Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Black-capped Chickadees. Inwardly I groaned, making oaths never to turn into a crazy old bird-watcher. Today if I had an icon, it would be some kind of bird, maybe the Vesper Sparrow, whose song has so often carried me to sleep and greeted me in the morning.

I don’t remember the moment it happened, but one day I looked up and noticed birds everywhere. I spent a summer watching baby birds hatch outside my bedroom window. I spent one spring pilgrimaging to where swifts formed a great funnel and descended from the sky in a furious dive toward the brick chimney of a deserted movie theater.

These days I escape down a country road that dead-ends in front of a farmhouse. There are alfalfa fields on either side, and in the winter, when the grass has been harvested, a flock of sheep roam and cats prowl for rodents. I go there for the birds. A Great Blue Heron stalks the field—reminding me of a tall old man, torso and shoulders hunched from age and covered by a bluish tweed suit jacket, holding his hands together behind his back as he takes slow, deliberate steps.

Once, I found an injured juvenile Red-tailed Hawk on the side of the road. It moved almost gratefully, willingly, into a cardboard box and sat silently in the backseat of my car, head rotating ever so slowly from side to side, its great, glassy eyes blinking as we drove in silence to the wildlife rehabilitation center.

I have observed strange sights: fat robins pecking at the ground when spring is nowhere near; enormous formations of geese flying south as late as midwinter; and seagulls that just appeared one day—in a wet, frosty grass seed field (far from the ocean) standing in icy little streams as though they’d found the sea. I don’t know what they were doing there, but every time I drove by, I couldn’t help thinking they were canaries in the coal mine—our early warning system, showing up in places they ought not to be at times that were ominously curious.

Each sighting—even strange and foreboding ones—enchants me. To be honest, I like the sparrows best, and the wrens. Common birds remind me of the places I come from—the lakes of Northern Idaho, the fields of Eastern Washington, and the Blue Range of Northeastern Oregon.

I’ve been running away from myself and my history for a long time, but the truth about who I am and where I come from shows up in what I can no longer help noticing: birds in flight, the way my hands look identical to my mother’s when I’m digging in the garden, and the way I feel most like myself when I’m walking in silence down that quiet, country road.

I used to be embarrassed of the landscape I grew up in—miles away from a library or a grocery store, chores that involved pulling weeds and picking berries, reading Little Women instead...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Endorsements
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Bill McKibben
• Part I Why Ecotheology?
• Part II Exploring Ecotheology
• Part III Doing Ecotheology
• Part IV Last Things
• Acknowledgments
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• Notes
• Back Cover