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On not raping the earth
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Recently I walked the back acres of our new land with some of my sons. We have a lot to do. Some hilly fields need to be cut soon, and there are beavers trying to dam our creek. There are a couple of fallen trees, and poison ivy in more places than I’d like. Lots to do. We came to the outer edges of acreage that has been taken over by hedge — twisted trees that spread out over the ground and yield long thorns. I thought about how we might reclaim that land in time, or perhaps forge a walking path through it. I only thought these things, but I noticed my boys beginning to beat down a thorny branch in order to make a path.
It’s wired into us, perhaps, this impetus for dominion over creation. But we don’t define that word very well. A thoughtless woman who gets more air-time than she should — and worse, is taken by millions as a representative of conservatism and Christianity, once said, of mankind and creation:
It’s a reprehensible view, yet I wonder sometimes how often we Christians — especially those with a more conservative stripe — fall prey to it, especially if our theology tells us that God will soon whisk us away to a better place. We start treating creation as this broken play-toy that needn’t concern us (so long as it will yield up oil and coal a bit longer). Or we let our political affiliations drive our thinking, such that we dismiss the possibility of global warming, for example, because Al Gore said it’s so.
Even if we don’t give in to these biases, I know I, at least, often think about God’s creation as something for me, to be managed for my well-being. I’ve found Wendell Berry a valuable corrective in that regard:
“It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools.”
That doesn’t mean I should exalt nature over myself, any more than I should exalt myself over nature. But it suggests that dominion means stewardship, which in turn implies that the master will one day return, and he will ask: “How have you treated my creation?”
I don’t know about global warming, and energy sustainability, or any of the other things that virtually none of the talking heads seem to debate honestly. But I do know about my twenty acres. Before he signed the papers, the man selling us the land said he hoped I would be as good a steward as he had tried to be. I told him I would certainly try. And my family and I will, and not just because we want to enjoy the land ourselves. We’ll do it because some day there will be a reckoning, and “Rape the earth” will be judged for the crime that it is.
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Don’t blame racism
I think of my dominion over my farm in a similar light as fatherhood. Sin has corrupted my children’s natures and they need discipline and guidance to produce all the good they were intended to produce. Sin has corrupted my land and it needs discipline and guidance to produce all the good that was intended for it.
And just as my children have different gifts, so my different soils and topographical features need to be nurtured in different ways.
Enjoy your land.
Dominion is only the generalization of the mandate. God further calls us, in Genesis, to be fruitful and multiple, to subdue the earth, and replenish it; not rape it. Replenish is a pretty important word here.
from freedictionary.com:
1. To fill or make complete again; add a new stock or supply to: replenish the larder.
2. To inspire or nourish: The music will replenish my weary soul.
v.intr.
To become full again.
You were doing fine til you brought Al Gore into it…
I don’t dismiss the possibility that there’s Global Warming, I dismiss the absoluteness of the Global Warming enthusiast’s assertions. Besides isn’t the PC word now “Climate Change”?
I also think that raping the earth is just that. I don’t condone that any more than you do.
Dominion over the earth isn’t to be understood in a tyranical oppressive way. Your statement that it is stewardship is a good one, but I prefer to think of several of God’s injunctions at once. To multiply, be fruitful, name the animals, and have dominion over the earth are just a few. When you realize that the world is an imperfect fallen place, and Jesus has done atoning work on it’s behalf, those injunctions take on some new meaning. I see our place on earth as stewardship broken into several areas; organization, production (including re-), maintenance, redemption, exploration, discovery, innovation… In other words we are to be constructive, creative, and preservative agents in the world.
You make it sound like the Land is entirely passive in its victimhood.
I don’t know where you live, but where I live, it ain’t entirely so.
We have honey locust trees with thorns four to five inches long and sharp as steel. They rip tractor tires open like knives slicing through hot butter and put out the eyes of unwary tractor drivers who don’t duck quick enough. If you believe in evolution, these things can only have evolved as a defense against a beast of the size and ferocity of a Tyrannosaurus Rex - there is no known animal existing today for which a honey locust thorn is not 100 times overkill.
We have ticks which are the insect equivalent of piranhas; they could strip a full-grown man of flesh and tissue and blood down to the bare skeleton in less time than it takes to say ‘God’s green earth’. I am not 100% sure but I think that our ticks have also interbreed with the buffalo and have evolved into a sort of superspecies of predator - I am suspecting that these super-ticks, let us call them ‘tickaloes’ lurk patiently in trees along roads and drop on unwary passerbyers, trample them to death, suck all their blood and juices out, and then graze placidly on the remains.
The coyotes are so bold around HERE that they travel on motorcycles in gangs and deal in drugs. You never just ‘answer’ a knock on your door without a shotgun, because you can never be sure it isn’t a bunch of coyotes wielding baseball bats and tireirons, ready to take you out and steal the women and children right out of their boudoirs and beds.
I guess my point is that the Land, as such, is kind of a worthy and respected adversary to some of us.
The abuse is a two-way street.
drill post 4,
an excellent insight:
“I guess my point is that the Land, as such, is kind of a worthy and respected adversary to some of us.”
Thanks!
Drill, your authenticity astounds me.
Before the Israelites possessed the promised land, it was possessed by pagans. If the pagans hadn’t been around to subdue the earth and the animals there in, the Israelites would have had a tough time and would have been better off in Egypt.
Great points. You echo congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul’s thoughts on the environment. He says protecting private property rights is a huge factor in protecting the environment.
LINK: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/environment/
Wiglaf: yeah, well some of it is authentic and some is not. You can guess the exact mix, if you want.
And, you know, the Land (or the Earth) ultimately wins, at least in terms of the battle with our flesh and bones and brains.
For those who actually wrestle with it on a daily basis, the Land wears them down through toil and sweat, year after year after year, graying them and dimming their eyes, and working its way into their sinews and joints, until the knees and the back simply give out, and the skin of their faces and arms darkens and roughens like hides dried outside too long.
And eventually the Land opens its rock-ribbed mouth and swallows them whole, or at least the mortal bits and pieces that they were so inordinately fond of.
And so the Land wins, in the end, every time.
And that presumbably goes for everybody, in one way or the other - even for the man or woman in the big city, who never touches bare earth with the sole of their shoe or leans against the trunk of a tree all day long.
Because eventually the Land will reclaim them, too - and even the steel and concrete dens they hide in.
Or so it seems to me.
The Coulter “rape it” comment was pure hyperbole from a wrhiter whose stock in trade is hyperbole on steroids.
Christians almost uniformly understand that there is an obligation of good stewardship - the debate centers around either (a) what is good stewardship in any particular situation or (b) whether someone is or isn’t exercising it.
I don’t find “global warming” ridiculous because AlGore talks about it. I find it ridiculous because it just is. I think taking care of the environment makes sense, but the obsession with this stuff that is in the media these days is way past overkill. I don’t give a rat’s rear end what my “carbon footprint” is! Do you?
I want an efficient vehicle because it’s cheaper to operate. I want biofuels because I’m tired of supporting Muslim terrorists.
And furthermore, I don’t care what Greenpeace or PETA or any of those other folks who have lost touch with reality and common sense think about my “carbon footprint”.
Donald Joy makes the same excellent points about marriage in Two Become One.
Expand on that, if you will, Reg. (# 11) I’m intrigued, but I’m not grasping it.
I’ve experienced what Drill and others are saying. Most recently through some farmland in Hawaii which my son is trying to “subdue” into a self-sustaining fruit, vegetable, and biomass-producing acreage without the use of any chemicals and without removing valuable indigenous animals or vegetation.
I’m also right there with RRBAR in 9 & 10.
Tony,
What is it with the sexual theme?
Drill (#4)- Remember that dominion over the earth was given to man BEFORE Adam’s disobedience cursed the ground and caused thorns, ticks, and the rest to challenge us in this work of stewardship until our bodies themselves are laid to rest in the ground.
We do our best, now, I think, and look forward to the restoration the earth.
Reg- While we moderns tend to think of “rape” in terms of sexual violence, don’t forget that the origins of the word lie in the concept of taking and theft. Perhaps there is not only a marital concept, here, in Tony’s words but also an implication of the rape– the taking, if you will– that we and our society perpetuate on each other and ourselves in our sinful and selfish actions, affecting not only the land but our relationships.
– Jonny
15-
Jonny,
I think that we all know that we are all moderns.
Here’s a curious question on global warming…
We are worried about a 1 degree rise in temperature over a century. Yet, I just noticed that the US imports more oil from Canada (18%) than any other country. We only got 17% from Saudi Arabia in 2007.
Since oil was produced by tropical rain forests, was Canada once a tropical rain forest? If so, why are we worried about one degree rise over a century?
Regardless of global warming, all humans should want a cleaner earth. And let’s stop buying gas from countries that support terror.
As consumers in a free society we can make choices that align with these goals. So then … Pick your Poison: Buy from oil companies that cause the least harm. You can fine the list in the Better World Handbook for Gas Rankings:
Best:
- Sunoco buys NO oil from the Middle East and has a relatively OK environmental record.
- BP
Medium:
- Hess
- Marathon
- Valero
- Citgo - Avoid (Hugo Chavez)
Worst:
- Chevron
- Conoco
- Shell - Blood oil, pollution and murder of innocent people.
Rapers of the Earth!
- Exxon / Mobil
13
“It’s a reprehensible view, yet I wonder sometimes how often we Christians — especially those with a more conservative stripe — fall prey to it, especially if our theology tells us that God will soon whisk us away to a better place. We start treating creation as this broken play-toy that needn’t concern us (so long as it will yield up oil and coal a bit longer)”
Equally reprehensible:
The Naturalistic Fallacy, page 71 in Two Become One by Donald Joy. “What is prescribes what ought to be.”
The “Fall Model” for marriage and family. The idea that God’s curse is God’s design for marriage.
The view that male control is right just because it exists.
The view that it is right to teach what everyone can see is the way that works in every culture in the world.
Reg,
When you aren’t even pretending to stay on topic (as in post 19), your posts are quite tiresome. If I were the editor, I’d delete your posts on this thread (at least most of them) just to avoid cluttering it up.
Drill, too true about the thorns.