I’ve been chewing on this post by Pastor Wilson. Like the last, I didn’t find it upsetting, but confusing. I like the argument that cultural sexual guilt creates pharisaical codes of righteousness, but the rest of it is a jumble. Here are a few examples:
“To take one hilarious example, on planet Earth, which is mostly water, we are in a panic over running out of water.”
This is amusing, but skirts the actual discussion. The Earth’s water is 99.9% salt water. Desalination is a very energy-intensive process. One of the main selling points of nuclear energy was that it would make wide-scale water desalination possible. An estimated one in eight people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water.
The difficulty is that prior partisan political commitments prevent us from looking at this issue with objectivity. Either we’re draining our aquifers, or we aren’t. The scientific process should be brought to bear in such a quantifiable issue. Conservative commitments prevent some from acknowledging that our irresponsibility might do harm to the created world (e.g., Pastor Wilson derides evangelical Christians who claim this is a “stewardship” issue), and see liberals as hopelessly confounded by their eco-guilt. Liberal commitments prevent some from acknowledging that the problem is solvable, or that man can affect creation for the better. Both get in the way of evaluating the issue Biblically and logically.
Where does Scripture tell us to beware of industralized food chains?
Here’s where the parallel between the Christian schooling movement and the current just economy movement come in handy again. Schaeffer established that the Bible speaks to all areas of life, not just a private religious life. Bahnsen illustrated that the application of the principles of biblical law are still morally binding. Our food system, like everything, can be evaluated in light of Biblical principles. Books like ‘Angels in the Architecture’ attempt to get Christians thinking about changing and creating culture.
And the people who are morally indignant about industrialized food chains are the same ones whose definitions of “natural” change radically as we move from the dining room to the bed room.
Pastor Wilson doesn’t say who he’s reading on the issue, but this statement does a disservice to almost every author I’ve read. Michael Pollan is a notable exception, but even he owes Wendell Berry for his best ideas, and Berry views his food ideas and his anti-progressive sexual ideas as cut from the same cloth (see his Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community). I also recommend reading Joel Salatin – a natural food pioneer, early homeschooler, and committed Christian. There is no disconnect between the dining room and the bedroom for either man.
Christians have been pioneers in this movement. But even if they weren’t, what difference would it make? Pastor Wilson is the person who introduced me to the concept of a co-belligerent (someone who fights alongside you in a cause but is not an ally because of fundamental differences of alleigance). But in this particular issue he does not see the co-belligerence, and accuses Christians I worship with on Sunday of being co-opted by a pagan movement created and sustained by unresolved sexual guilt.
Fortunately, the Christians I know working on this important cultural project are happy, grateful people. They are committed to creating a better way, and convinced that their results will speak for themselves. They are motivated by a divine discontent, yes (again, like the Christian schooling folks), but are fierce in their first loyalty to Christ’s Gospel and the promised renewal of all things.