religion

A.J. Jacobs, an editor at Esquire, must have a lot of time on his hands. Several years ago he decided to read Encyclopedia Brittanica from cover to cover, apparently in a quest to become the smartest person in the world (though a subsequent attempt to prove his knowledge on “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” showed that he had a long way to go (he missed the $32,000 question). He documented his year-long journey through the Encyclopedia in a bestselling book titled The Know-It-All. In his second book, The Year of Living Biblically, he dedicates a year to attempting to follow every rule and law in the Bible. Like its predecessor, this book has sold very well, quickly making its way onto the lists of bestsellers.

Jacobs is Jewish by birth but grew up in a family that did not practice the faith, or not seriously at any rate. After the birth of his son, though, Jacobs began to wonder if teaching his son about religion would scar him or make him a better person. He set out on this quest to determine how religion could impact a life. To that end he decided to study the Bible and seek to understand its every rule. For the first eight months he focused exclusively on the Old Testament, looking through the Bible to find even the most obscure laws. He implemented as many of them as he could. And in the last four months of the year he turned to the New Testament. He simply overs a chronological records of his year, providing a journal entry every two or three days.

While the book claims that Jacobs lived “biblically,” the reader will soon note that he often relied in large part on Jewish extra-biblical interpretation of the Old Testament laws. Hence his practice of many of these rules was based not on a plain reading of the Bible but on age-old interpretations, many of which are almost unbelievably obscure and strangely mystical. We’ll have to use the word “biblically” quite loosely.

Jacobs is at his best in this book when seeking the heart of the biblical commandments, when rather than just blindly following the commands he is seeking the reason God gave them and attempting to obey not the letter but the spirit. He is at his worst when he is being deliberately Pharisaical, seeking to adhere to the letter rather than the spirit. Hence he finds himself in a park tossing tiny pebbles at adulterers so he can fulfill the law to stone those who commit adultery. Or maybe he is at his worst when he is searching out the most radically liberal Christians to teach him not what the Bible teaches but what he wants to hear. Thus he attends a Bible study for homosexuals where he is taught that the Bible does not forbid homosexuality but merely homosexual rape. This appeals to him as a self-professed liberal but veers far from the broad stream of Christian interpretation. There are several occasions where he essentially admits that he is finding interpretations that appeal to him even if they are not strictly accurate.

In the end of it all, Jacobs seems to be little better off than when he began. He remains agnostic but somehow feels he can and should pray (to whom? to what end?). He has discovered some cultural Jewish roots but does not seem to have found any true faith. He has discovered the value of the sacred, but continues to forsake God.

The Year of Living Biblically has many poignant moments and many that are quite funny. There are even a few laugh out loud moments. But there are plenty of others that are no doubt supposed to be funny but which fall strangely flat. This is bound to happen in a book that stretches to almost 350 pages, perhaps a hundred more than it ought to have been. Yet it is by no means all bad. It was quite an enjoyable read, even if it did drag near the end. Still, as much as he seems to attempt to make this a book the reader will take seriously, Jacobs cannot escape it seeming more like a gimmick. This experiment is really a strange form of exhibitionism where he invites the readers into his life as he deliberately makes a fool of himself. It is more entertainment than of any serious value. It is for good reason, I suppose, that you will find the book filed under the heading of “Humor.” It is a year of living loosely biblical and a year of gathering information that will lead to a bestselling book. The reader will have to decide which of those motives was foremost in the author’s mind. Personally, I suspect the latter.

Yesterday we received notice that the town of Oakville is changing the trash collection strategy. Currently we have our trash picked up every week and have “blue boxes” or recycling bins picked up every other week. Beginning in April, we’ve recently learned, we’ll have garbage pickup every other week and recycling pickup every week. We’ll all be given a “GreenCart” into which we can toss all manner of wet and compostable garbage. Though the layout of our home poses some challenges for us, we are largely in favor of this strategy; we’re glad to see the town taking seriously their responsibility for environmental stewardship. If we can keep garbage out of the local landfills, we would all agree this is a good thing.

There was one thing in the notice that caught my eye. It was a short story about a local woman who is a local environmental “champion.” She is pictured sitting with her young children and the article describes her efforts to reduce their environmental impact. “I only use reusable cloth bags when grocery shopping.” “When I’ve put away the groceries, I leave the bags on the front door knob so I’ll remember to bring them back out to the car.” “She never buys single serving containers.” “I engaged a diaper service to collect and recycle disposable diapers.” “They hang the annual Waste Management Calendar in their kitchen to that everyone can see it.” “Her twins help compost by putting their fruit peels in the Kitchen Catcher for backyard composting.” “We talk a lot about our earth and how we can help make it a healthier place.” “Our family of four only has a half bag of garbage or less, as most waste is either recyclable or compostable.” And so on.

What struck me about this article was just how much it sounded like a woman who serves the environment with religious fervor. It sounded like religion, not like taking out the trash. And it reinforced in my mind something I’ve thought about often—environmentalism is fast becoming the default religion of our age and of our society. It is a religion that is politically correct and which creates few enemies. It is a religion everyone respects and a religion that is bound to garner attention. It is a religion that is creating its own brand of Pharisees, people who stand on the street corners, so to speak, declaring their religious accomplishments.

I believe the first time I began to think of environmentalism as a religion was after reading a speech Michael Crichton delivered back in 2003. Though he was not the first person to make this connection, his speech was widely quoted and widely discussed. And well it should have been. Though it is in many ways anti-religious and though it proceeds from an unbiblical worldview, it is, nevertheless, very interesting. Crichton begins by saying “The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.” As a Christian I can agree, to some extent, with this statement. Certainly few things are as important to humans as distinguishing was is true (and Who is Truth). From that starting point, Crichton begins to show how environmentalism is spreading untruths and how it is built upon a shaky, unstable foundation.

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday–these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

As Christians we understand that certain truths are imprinted into the human mind. Among these truths is the knowledge that something in this world is not right. We know that we are sinners but that this is an unnatural state for us. And somehow we seem to know that we need redemption. Every religion offers its own understanding of how we can be made right. Environmentalism offers sustainability and offsets, the path to a return to the idyllic state from whence we came.

Crichton denies the existence of an Eden—he denies that humanity once experienced perfection. But his point still stands. Environmentalists have created in their own minds a kind of idealistic world that has never existed since the fall into sin and one that can never exist until the Lord returns. They fall into the myth of the noble savage, somehow believing that technology and industrialization are inherently evil. But history bears out just how wrong and absurd and irrational this is. “What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden? ”

Death and sin have reigned since Adam defied God. Death and sin will continue to mark this world until the day the Lord returns and eradicates them once and for all. Without the Lord we cannot return to the state of perfection, regardless of how well we treat this earth. But the environmentalists would have us believe otherwise. They are calling for us to place our faith in them and in their understanding of what’s happening in the world. They ask us to place our faith in their solution; in their salvation. Al Gore, undoubtedly the world’s foremost environmentalist spokesperson, has gone on record several times saying that we need to have a blind faith—that anyone who would doubt climate change is like a person who still believes in a flat earth. Environmentalism is a religion that is increasingly demanding adherence at the expense of reason. And this despite environmentalism’s long record of getting it all dead wrong (remember acid rain and global cooling and DDT and…?).

In find it interesting that the term “global warming” has now been largely supplanted by “climate change.” This offers at least two advantages to environmentalists: first, it allows scientists to claim either warming or cooling as evidence of their theories and second it makes their theories far easier to prove because the climate is always changing. The climate is never static, but always changing in one direction or another (which is why we speak of historical average temperatures drawn from a long sample). Today any unusual weather patterns—warm weather in January, unusually cold weather in January, a large number of hurricanes, the absence of hurricanes—are all used to prove that climate change is happening. And we are supposed to blindly accept all of this. This does look like a religion—not the religion of the Bible which offers evidence and calls for faith—but the religion of the world which demands faith despite evidence. It is a religion that mimics truth, offering its own concepts of deity, sin, salvation and redemption. It is a religion that masks truth, blinding people to problems of the heart that are far deeper than the environment. It is a religion that creates its own version of truth. It is yet another false religion—another kind of works righteousness in which humans can make themselves right before their god through their own efforts.

Let me conclude with sentiment I’ve expressed here before. I am all for tending to the earth and hence I’m all for Oakville’s new waste disposal strategy. I know that God entrusted it to us and did not give us a world that is merely habitable, but a world that is stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful and one that was absolutely perfect for us. Sadly, we ruined the perfection and continue to do so. As Christians we should have the highest view of the earth, seeing it as a gracious and generous gift of God. We should be first in line to protect it, to tend to it, and to attempt to reverse whatever damage we have done to it. Yet we must not fool ourselves into believing that we can save it in and of ourselves. The earth is not neutral or inherently good. Not anymore. We ruined it and have to be prepared for it to continue to decay, just as you and I will do. As our bodies rot and decay, so too does the earth. So while we tend to it, we do so from a perspective that realizes that this earth is only our temporary home. When the Lord returns He will redeem it, He will rebuild it, and restore it to its original perfection.

There have been several occasions on this site when I’ve taken the opportunity to express a bit of disgust or alarm with environmentalism. When I do that, I typically get an email or comment asking why I am opposed to protecting the environment. Because I usually only mention these things in the A La Carte section I have never taken the opportunity to explain myself. I want to do that today, even if only briefly.

Let it be known I am not opposed to protecting the environment. In fact, I think it would be wonderful if we saw Christians taking a leading role in protecting the environment and in promoting faithful stewardship of this earth. God created this earth for us to enjoy and expects that we will rule and subdue it. But He does not desire that we destroy it through mismanagement or a lack of care and concern. He has entrusted it to us and we would do well to take note of this.

Sadly, though, the environmental movement is dominated by unbelievers. In fact, environmentalism is fast becoming a religion in its own right. It has many of the elements of a religion, many of which even bear a passing resemblance to aspects of Christianity. Here are a few of the ways environmentalism has religious overtones: there is a deity (most often the earth itself), a heavenly state (the earth in its natural state before humans came along), a fall into sin (when man began to destroy the earth, particularly through industrialization), sinners (human beings), penance (carbon offsets and credits), redemption (a return to the earth’s heavenly or natural state when man finally gets it right or when man is eradicated). It has its leaders and sages, men like Al Gore (or in Canada, David Suzuki). It demands full adherence and scorns those who disagree, even suggesting that such people do not deserve a voice in public discourse. It is becoming a worldview unto itself and a worldview built upon a Darwinian understanding of the world’s origins. It may acknowledge some kind of deity beyond the earth itself, but certainly not the God of the Bible. In short, it is a religion and, like all false religions, an idolatrous one. It is the religion of choice for many and perhaps even most people in our culture today.

It is for this reason that while I respect those who want to protect the environment, I often cannot support those who do so from within this environmentalist worldview. These people understand that we are the greatest problem on the earth (which, actually, is something I have to agree with) but also believe that we can fix our own problems. Some propose that, because we are the problem, we should deliberately eradicate ourselves for the good of the earth, though none of these people have the courage to lead the way as trailblazers for their ideology. But most environmentalists propose legislation and other measures that can, they feel, save the world. As they do this, though, they ignore the far greater peril of the pollution within their own souls. They do not learn that the cause of the world’s problems is the human problem of sin. Even in their proposed measures to save the earth they further corrupt their souls and further show their sinful hearts.

I am all for tending to the earth. I know that God entrusted it to us and did not give us a world that is merely habitable, but a world that is stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful and one that was absolutely perfect for us. Sadly, we ruined the perfection and continue to do so. As Christians we should have the highest view of the earth, seeing it as a gracious and generous gift of God. We should be first in line to protect it, to tend to it, and to attempt to reverse whatever damage we have done to it. Yet we must not fool ourselves into believing that we can save it in and of ourselves. The earth is not neutral or inherently good. Not anymore. We ruined it and have to be prepared for it to continue to decay, just as you and I will do. As our bodies rot and decay, so too does the earth. So while we tend to it, we do so from a perspective that realizes that this earth is only our temporary home. When the Lord returns He will redeem it, He will rebuild it, and restore it to its original perfection.

In all our actions to preserve the beauty of creation, we must ensure that we point to the real problem, which is the sin that humans brought into the world. We would be remiss if we attempt to save the earth but all the while neglect souls. Tending the earth can be a powerful metaphor for tending the human soul. The decay of the earth is caused by the decay of the heart. So as we tend to the earth, let’s use it as an opportunity to point others to their own hearts. And all the while, let’s heed Russell Moore’s admonition: “Let’s take care of the earth, protect the natural order. But let’s remember that the world is not ultimately rescued by politicians or musicians or filmmakers or scientists. The world is saved by blood, not Gore.” If we point people to Gore but not to the blood, we have made, at best, only temporary rather than eternal gain.