“Joyful Environmentalists”

I found this interview with Eugene Peterson (author of The Message translation of the Bible, among other great books) and Peter Harris, one of the founders of A Rocha, several months ago and meant to blog about it then, but it somehow got lost in the mess. Read the whole thing. Some of my favorite tid-bits:

If, on the other hand, you do what you do because you believe it pleases the living God, who is the Creator and whose handiwork this is, your perspective is very different. I don’t think there is any guarantee we will save the planet. I don’t think the Bible gives us much reassurance about that. But I do believe it gives God tremendous pleasure when his people do what they were created to do, which is care for what he made.

–

I think the Christian vision of conservation is exactly as Eugene framed it. It’s a wider one that has to do with human flourishing, that has to do with recognizing that a ravaged creation has wrecked not just species but God’s intention for time, for Sabbath, and that in turn wrecks families and whole societies.

–

Every Christian leader I’ve ever met in poor parts of the world understands that they live an unmediated relationship with the creation. That means that if there is damage done to the creation, there is damage done to the human community. I would argue that the economic possibilities lie now in the building of a sustainable economy; that’s where the smart money is today. In any case, an economy founded on degrading the creation is theologically incoherent. The old model that you can make your money any which way and then give some of it away when you’re rich enough is lacking biblical warrant. A much better way is to make money in a way that impacts the poor and the planet beneficially.