Statement of Goals
To Develop a capacity for the United Church to respond, when requested, to specific local situations involving environmental issues (with funds, trained people) or to take appropriate initiatives...
The second stage in our reflections involved listening to stories from several Canadian regions where serious attempts have been made (and are still being made) to deal responsibly with environmental concerns; for example, the Qu’Appelle Valley River Basin and the developments in Northern Manitoba.
The recital of these encounters was important and decisive in the developing understanding of this Task Force. They showed that:
the emotional cost of such involvement is very high to the people who become involved. They must have strong support to endure the deep stresses which such action produces.
In short, three things became clear;
Following this, we repeatedly asked what resources are there to deal with these three conditions? Asking this question led us to a deeper appropriation of one resource closer to us than to some of the other people deeply committed to these concerns. We refer to the scriptures of the Jewish-Christian tradition, a treasury of understanding and insight and power which we, as a church, have a special mandate to offer to the ecological arena.
In particular, we identified two basic biblical "images” which we explored for understanding of our role in matters of ecology.
Consideration of Genesis enabled us to enter a contemporary debate which has centered in some probing questions about the view of man found in the Bible, and its influence in determining the way people shaped by this view have acted in the world.
In recent years a number of writers have expressed the view that the biblical and Christian tradition constitutes a serious menace to right thinking about ecology. These writers see in the church’s theological tradition (and in the biblical documents themselves, as well) a misplaced and dangerous emphasis on the theme of human dominance over nature.
These critics see in this tradition an anthropocentric view of things which, they assert, has had much to do with shaping a scientific, technological mentality that has ridden roughshod over nature, encouraged man to pillage the planet’s resources and radically damage the earth and its environment, perhaps fatally.
This story is long and very complicated, particularly so if one seeks to understand and unravel the many strands of thought which make up western man’s sensibility at this point in history. As a church we must be prepared to listen carefully to these critics of our past performance. But with respect to the biblical documents themselves (putting on one side how they may have been used in support of various positions in the course of the story), we believe that it is just plain wrong-headed to argue that the theme of man’s right to trample nature is a central or basic theme in the scriptures themselves. Such a view involves a serious misreading of the basic biblical images of man.*
*(We use the word "man" generically throughout this section, as we believe Genesis does as well, and ask that it be so understood.)
Looking into Genesis we found something other than this view of man as an autonomous, self-creating overlord. We found a gardener!
We found:
An appreciation of these biblical images should save us from shifting from the basic grounding they provide for understanding man’s unique and necessary role in the management of the earth and its resources. Our point of entry should be "...the kind of anthropocentrism of Genesis I, where man’s dominion means the control of nature in cooperation with the intentions of the creator within the natural frame-work in which he had set us...We cannot really escape the burden of this controlling relationship. The question, in fact, is not whether we shall exercise dominion over the earth, but how.” (Derr, Ecology and Human Liberation)
There could be some who would say that this ancient image is too "pastoral," too agricultural, to speak to the highly technical society in which most of us live. It is our contention, on the contrary, that this image of man as gardener has fresh potency for our situation. It carries in it a corrective of the highly manipulative attitudes toward our surroundings to which industrial man has fallen victim. It calls us to "garden" the technological environment we have generated-to apply to it the alert, responsible, harmonious, conserving interventions which are the hallmark of the good gardener. The factory needs these qualities equally with the farm.
The second image of man we found in Genesis is that of the partner-the one who cannot find fullness of being for himself or by himself Without a partner Adam is incomplete, unfulfilled. So, God graciously acts creatively again. Once Eve enters the scene, these two, male and female, are set into a unique relationship with each other. As partners they share the mandate to manage the garden and make it fruitful.
Later in the story, when "sin" occurs, they are both affected. Sin separates them from each other, and issues in acts of blaming and self-justification. Their relationship to God changes from one of access and trust to one of guilt and hiding. They invent protective devices to escape the vulnerability of being "naked," before each other, and before God.
Linked together still, but now, "after the fall," also separate and defensive, they go into exile from the garden – into history. Still under mandate as gardeners and stewards of the earth, still partners in need of each other, through prone to recrimination and self—justification, they move into the exciting, challenging enterprise man faces on planet earth.
We believe that these first, basic, biblical images of man have significance for the present time. Properly received by the kind of antenna that can interpret their symbolism and appropriate their power, they open up a radical critique of other "images” of man which are proving disastrous for man and the planet.
For instance, the image of "gardener" speaks correctively to reigning images of man as “conqueror of nature," "consumer," and "entrepreneur.” It carries in it a certain respectfulness for the "garden," its needs, its imperatives, which these manipulative images have obscured. The image of man as "partner" judges the excessively competitive and "success" images of man which have stressed his individualism and deepened his sense of loneliness and isolation; the qualities which the Eden story understands as manifestations of the broken, “sinful” relationship of Adam and Eve.
We recognize, of course, that these biblical images are the language of poetry and theology. (But so are the other non-biblical "images" of man as "consumer" and "entrepreneur." The issue is which of these images makes better poetry, better theology, better anthropology, better sense!) None by itself answers the hard scientific questions about specific problems of pollution, or what amount of "growth” can be safely projected without full-scale ecological disaster. These tough questions remain, demanding answers.
What appropriate "image-language" can do is help us understand who we are who must work at such hard questions for the rest of our lives. Appropriate images can strengthen us and illumine for us resources of spirit, heart and mind, to make the demanding ecological task a meaningful one.
So, ancient biblical images emerge from our past. Through their primordial power we can re-learn that our humanness involves "responsible being" before God, to be lived out in caring for the garden, and for each other. This double insight underlies the whole range of the biblical documents.
Further reflection upon these images yielded another insight of great significance. As we worked with the "gardener-partner" images we became more deeply aware of how the Bible again and again connects the fruitfulness of nature with justice and faithfulness between man and man in history—and the breakdown of nature, her refusal to respond and be abundant, with injustice and deceit between man and man. This is so from the story of the Garden and the story of Cain onward (Genesis 4).
Throughout the Old and New Testaments this equation occurs. The prophetic vision of a world renewed by God almost always describes justice and love for the poor and oppressed in the same breath as the healing of conflicted nature (Isaiah 11:1-5). Justice and loving concern for the poor are seen as the key to nature’s fruitfulness, the only path to a healthy environment. In the visions of the "End" (the Eschaton), God’s justice and love for the poor will also heal the conflicts and contradictions in nature itself. So we find Jesus saying, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice and all these things shall be yours as well."
Again and again in scripture this fascinating inner connection between the basic image of man as gardener and partner, and the prophetic linkage of a healthy natural order and justice between people can be discerned. This inter-relationship between nature’s fruitfulness and justice is, of course, not an automatic rule-of-thumb. It is rather a deep intuition, an affirmation of a genuine inner connection between man’s call to be a "gardener-partner" in nature and in history. One of the members of the Task Force expressed this insight in a beautiful aphorism:
"In order to love each other,
We have to love the garden;
In order to love the garden,
We have to love each other."
(If years ago in the English River system in Ontario, the pulp and paper industry had known this truth and practised it, would we now have a poisoned waterway and a sick, disaffected native population'? The Berger Commission has captured accurately the same dialectic and made us conjure with it in its provocative title: Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland.)
Associated with these ideas are a number of other biblical insights which grow out of this linkage of “gardener-partner" with deep potency for developing a sound, ecologically responsible theology. We can only refer to them briefly and commend them to the thoughtful consideration of those who will be taking up the consequences of our recommendations.
Among the most noteworthy biblical insights in this regard we mention:
Such ideas as these are the stuff out of which biblical obedience can generate a fresh vision of social and personal life in the 20m century.
Such a view would not submerge man in nature, for clearly he had an important and indispensable role to play in the healing and care of nature. But there is in the biblical vision of man and his proper role a deep and loving recognition of his "collegiality" with the rest of nature. It calls him to a considerate and gentle approach to the (other) animals which God has made and man has himself "named," a recognition that he is "of the earth" and to it he will one day "return." There is throughout the Bible a sense of gratitude for the sacrifice of life which makes the life-process possible.
Among the major Christian figures in our long history who have best sensed this, perhaps St. Francis of Assisi can stand as symbol. Once all of this became clear to him he lived from that time on, as G.K. Chesterton said, being aware, "...that but for some strange mercy we could not even exist."
Deeply related to all of this biblical reflection are other fresh currents of living water of which we should be gratefully aware. Various thinkers (e.g. Teilhard de Chardin, many eastern sages) are inviting us to consider that none of our attitudes toward the other creatures in the garden can properly be merely utilitarian. Every grub and rock is also a participant in creation, has "rights"-rights not to be moved around, broken up, killed or marred or mutilated wantonly, for the mere purpose of implementing our design for the garden.
Other traditions have much to say about such matters to which we must listen. The Buddha’s counsel that we must learn to curb desire and learn new ways of undemanding simplicity must also be received as of God.
Chesterton said of Francis that he constructed, "...a grammar of gratitude..." It’s a potent phrase, one the church could use to advantage as we construct a new vision of what an ecological life-style looks like in this complex technological "garden" we have generated, with its insatiable demands upon the natural resources of the earth, and its tragic inequities between rich and poor.
Let us now restate a point made earlier. Passage to an ecologically-responsible lifestyle is closer to an act of repentance than to an educational process! Consequently, unless such biblical "images" as we have examined are so perceived that we receive their judgment, nothing of much consequence will emerge from being exposed to them once again. Some among us can testify to their judging, healing power, and their capacity to stir in us recognition of the Spirit who speaks through these scriptures, calling us to a more responsible life-stance. All of us are aware that we need much practice in listening to these words, and much support from one another if these stirrings in us are to blossom into fruitful and enduring stewardship.
This is a brief, highly compressed statement of the direction in which our reflections have led us, and how "concern for the environment" led us to a deeper appropriation of biblical wisdom with its clear-headed understanding of the inter-related character of man’s role in nature and history.
We believe that the church in general would profit greatly if it could share a similar pilgrimage. Consequently, we feel impelled to press upon the church the proposition that these biblical images carry the basic organic and organizing power, capable of focussing the life and witness of The United Church of Canada in the years immediately ahead of us. We believe they speak to the inner longings of our people for a way of life which treats the earth more gently. We believe they have power to judge and discipline our appetites for material goods which have so encouraged uncontrolled growth, environmental degradation, and the depletion of the earth’s resources.
We believe that as we spell out the implications of the biblical intuitions about the relation between care for the earth and care for the poor, there can take shape among us a fresh way of getting at the question of justice and mercy with which we have long been concerned.
In short, we feel we have generated a top priority item for the life and witness of The United Church of Canada, capable of giving focus and shape to much of what we, as a church, are presently undertaking in scattered and often frustrating ways. In the light of this report of our experience as a Task Force, we now present the following recommendations to the Twenty-seventh General Council:
The basic recommendation of this Task Force is as follows:
THAT The United Church of Canada adopt and implement at all levels, local, regional and national, a new administrative and organizational goal, namely:
"The care of our earth with all its implications."
We perceive that this goal has deep implications in the areas of administration, education and advocacy. So we further recommend:
THAT The United Church of Canada support as a principle, that for non—profit citizen groups working in the environmental and ecological area, the costs of expert advocacy services of their own selection be a reasonable charge against public funds.
It is recognizable that to achieve these goals, existing financial resources and others will have to be reallocated and new resources may have to be found;
1977 ROP, p. 50, 56, 491-99.
