The Intrinsic Value of Nature

As a Christian, I believe that God created the heavens, the earth, man, and all creatures and things that dwell on the earth.  Nature is God’s creation, and that creation points to and glorifies it’s everlasting creator by it’s very presence

This was taken near North Bend, Washington.

in the world.  Evidence of not only nature’s use to man, but also it being used by God can be found all over scripture.  God created this world, and all in it, for a purpose.  As we heard in the chapel video this Monday, “God doesn’t create trash”.  What he makes has worth simply because he has made it.

The opening verse of Job chapter 38 states that God spoke to Job “out of the whirlwind and clouds”.  I thought that this was a very striking image of God using nature to show His glory and majesty.  It was almost as if God wanted to place heaven itself above Job, as if His throne were right there commanding Job’s attention and obedience.  In verse 7, God paints a picture of him creating a world in perfect harmony, and being praised by his creations all the while.  I think that this image of the angels praising God for creating the stars evokes a strong sense that the stars, and therefore the rest of creation, have value in themselves, even before humans were made.

God speaks of the sea being ‘born’ in verse 8, almost making it seem like one living creature.  Verse 14 seems to at the very least imply that humans were the only creation upon the Earth that was given the power of speech, which is something that many scientists have used to separate humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.  Now, we know that other animals, such as the orca whale, have something very close to language.  While I do not have enough information to say whether humans are the only animals with the power of speech, I can have the pious opinion that this verse was being used to illustrate the power and majesty of God through his creation.  I find this interesting, because we, just as the rest of creation, glorify God because we were made by Him.

Chapter 39 of the book of Job begins with God saying that he marks even when the deer and goats give birth.  This shows that God cares infinitely about his creation, and does not forsake even the most remote creatures.  Why should we, as humans endeavouring to follow in the example of our Lord and Saviour, neglect his own beloved creatures?  The answer is that we cannot, not with a full and right understanding of scripture.  We must understand that God gives value to nature, even relieving the childbirth pangs of wild animals, and we ought to give them value as well.

When I was reading Job chapter 9, I got the sense that God has created wilderness, not just the tame creatures that we tend to think of in conjunction with God.  As C. S. Lewis drew the analogy in The Chronicles of Narnia, God is no ‘tame lion’.  God has created the wilds, the tigers and the creeping things, as well as the kitten and the bunny.  This made me remember the transcendentalism and frontier romanticism movements from the age of American romanticism, where people put a heavy emphasis on finding themselves and God in untouched nature.

The more one reads scripture, the more one is lead to the undeniable truth that nature has it’s own intrinsic value, apart from just what human beings need to survive.  We take the Word of God as absolute truth, so therefore we must realize that because God places value in his creation, so should we.  God has placed things in a certain order, and he has placed people in dominion over the Earth.  He has given us the ability to grow to such heights that we have the power to destroy the world, and we need to realize that we have the responsibility to care for nature past what we need to meet our own ends.  Nature can be a help to humans, giving us sustenance, medicine, meditation, and even entertainment, but it has value apart from all of these things as well.

Non Biblical Proof of Jesus

Yet again, I would like to share with the world that which I think. I don't always have the most interesting of thoughts, but I think that if it's worth discussing in World Religions, it's worth talking about on a blog. For this class I had to watch these videos entitled Biblical Evidence as Proof for Jesus Christ (I tried to include a link to the first one, I hope it works! If it doesn't, just search for it on Youtube!)  I thought that the premise would be interesting, trying to tie historical works into what the Bible already says.  Though it was interesting, I only watched the first video.  I found that they employed very sound topics of citing well known classical authors to prove their points.

I always find it interesting when new studies come out about historical evidence that may or may not conflict with or confirm what is already written in the Bible.  Though I find it as fascinating as the next person when some archeological artifact reflects what is told in the Bible, giving secular people something to consider when writing off the Bible.  Even accounting for this fascination, I do not believe that faith is based on gathering enough evidence to prove your point, any more than it is about finding the strain of perfect logic that brings your ideals above reproach.

I think that the premise under which the man in this video is basing his investigation is a very good one.  People ought to question random statistics and claims that are made without evidence presented to support them.  I find it terribly interesting that we gather much of our knowledge about ancient Greece and Rome from classical historians such as Tacitus, but try to ignore them when they disagree with something that we want to say.  I find it also interesting that Tacitus was clearly not a Christian, even calling Christianity “mischief”, yet he still confirmed the existence and execution of Christ.

I also find it encouraging that not only one trusted classical source, but also multiple writers of the time, agree on the basic facts of the recorded life of Jesus Christ.  Even the skeptics of the time did not doubt the fact that Jesus did exist.  I think that it is a relatively new and really very shallow argument that Jesus did not exist at all.  The heresies of the time included claiming that Jesus had never risen from the dead and that he was either all God OR all man, but never that he had never existed at all.

Even though I think that this argument is one that is ridiculously flawed, I think that it is still something that needs to be discussed in our society because of it’s prevalence.  I also think that it is important to use properly cited reliable sources, because many time people think of Christians only as a band of enthusiasts, rather than the theologians that we really are.

Rick Warren TED talk Analysis

Many of you will have heard the name 'Rick Warren'. I was required to watch a video by him for my World Religions class. This is my analysis, and here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=640BQNxB5mc.

One of the first point that Rick Warren makes in this video is about spiritual emptiness.  He states that “everyone’s betting their life on something”, which can be very true.  Warren talks about this in terms of a ‘world view’, which he defines as how you look at the world, what you believe to be true, and what you put your faith in.  Though later in his career, Rick Warren became famous for the statement ‘deeds not creeds’, this idea of a ‘worldview’ sounds suspiciously like a confession or creed.  Because he does not specifically mention his ‘deeds not creeds’ movement, I will not even begin to explain how very wrong that is.

Another point that Warren makes is about tithing.  Tithing is giving ten percent of one’s earnings to God, and was instructed in the Old Testament to God’s people.  In the New Testament, the idea is not of tithing, giving a certain amount to satisfy God, but of understanding that everything is God’s and that one should use it accordingly.  The practicality of his message to serve others is great, we should always be looking to attend to our neighbors, but he does not mention grace anywhere in this video.  The only time he mentions Christ is in a passing comment in his introduction.

I agree that God gives us all gifts, including those of wealth, wisdom, or influence, so that we may serve others.  Unfortunately, I found that Warren’s TED talk was incredibly ‘you’ centered.  Though he says specifically ‘this is not about you’, every point that he makes points to what you should do, even going as far as to say ‘God smiles when you be you’.  Humans in their natural state are sinful, and we cannot save ourselves through our own works.  We know through the doctrine of justification that grace comes only through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and not through our own works, so that no one can boast.

Thought the message of helping your neighbor and doing the best you can to glorify God with the gifts that he has given you, I found Warren’s points to be disordered.  You must put your faith not in the fact that you have been good enough to other people that God will be happy with you, but in that even as we were still sinners, God first loved us and sent Christ to die for our sins upon a cross.  We cannot cling to anything save Christ and still follow him into salvation.

'Letting Go of God' Analysis

For World Religions, I was required to watch a TED video by a woman named Julia Sweeney called "Letting Go of God". I encourage you to watch the video for yourself first, then to read my analysis. The link is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtIyx687ytk.

I was not enamored with this video.  I not only felt like it had no real discernable point, but I also had a problem with a lot of the things that Julia Sweeney said.  First of all, the age of reason for Catholics is different than the age of accountability that Baptists have.  The baptists have an age of accountability because they do not believe in original sin or infant baptism, so they must have an age at which one becomes “accountable” for their actions. Catholics practice infant baptism because they, like Lutherans, believe in original sin. 

Rather than the Church deciding that kids can start sinning at the age of seven, “the Church does not define the age of reason as seven years old. Rather, the Church does not obligate Catholics under the age of seven to observe laws which are merely ecclesiastical.” (Blackburn, Jim)  In this way, the age of reason is the age that young Catholics will go through first communion, be accountable to canon law, and be “eligible to act as witness to a marriage, as sponsor at baptism or confirmation, and as a party to the formal contract of betrothal”.  ( Delany, Joseph. "Age of Reason.")

She states that she was a Catholic as a child, but she never specifies whether she is as an adult, though much of her terminology and lack of answers to basic questions of faith lead me to believe that she is not.  One thing that she said that really bothered me was what she said about women and motherhood.  When Ms. Sweeney was told by the two Mormon boys that the greatest gift that God had given women was the ability to bear children, she laughed at them.  I believe that much of our society today has lost an appreciation for motherhood, partly as a result from the extreme end of the feminism movement.  I believe it is downplaying a crucial part of being a woman to degrade motherhood.

When Julia Sweeney finished off her story about the Mormon evangelists by saying that Catholicism is just as crazy, she made an extreme statement without providing and supporting evidence for her theory.  In addition to making an arbitrary statement, she also never truly explained the point of her lecture.  She finished by asking herself rhetorically whether she “knew” that God loved her or “felt” that God loved her.  As a speaker trying to convey some point and as someone involving theological and philosophical point in their argument, I think that she did an extremely poor job of conveying whatever idea she hoped to bring to us.

Judges

For my Old Testament class, we were all assigned a huge group assignment that took about a month to present.  As part of the papers due at the end of this presentation, I was assigned a paper on "how my personal relationship with God has changed".  Now, I don't know if I am excessively reserves, but I don't like to share my feelings, especially deep feeling, with very many people.  And by very many people I mean everyone in the world except for a special few that I can count on one hand.  Because of this reluctance to show my feelings, I decided that I would do a more general approach to this paper.  While trying not to sound conceited, I can admit that writing papers is not an exceptionally hard venture for me.  I love to write and I understand most of the topics covered in school, so papers don't scare me one bit.  Right now, I am hoping that writing a nice, well thought out paper will save me from avoiding the actual prompt.  Here is my view on how the book of Judges pertains to the life of a Christian.

I have read parts of Judges before this class through the lectionary, so I was aware of the text and some of it’s history.  For instance, I knew that the book of Judges was written by Samuel.  However, I do find that reading through something with the intention of teaching it does tend to help you pick out some interesting themes in the reading.  What I was not prepared for, however, was the amount of in depth discussions produced by my presentation.

One thing that is very prevalent in Judges is the “pattern” of the relationship between God and his people.  I found that this relationship is really what sparked most of our conversations, because understanding that relationship is a struggle that all Christians must endure in this murky world of sin and shades of grey.  I found that the pattern of sin, repentance, and redemption was very comparable to the story of Christianity as a whole, and to our lives of faith, in both the short and long term.

Humanity was created perfect, without sin, and in the image of God himself.  In the garden, we chose to rebel against God and, in doing so, the whole human race plunged both ourselves and our world into sin.  Even though we were fallen, God heard the cry of even Adam and Eve, and gave the proto evangel.  He promised the deliverer, a judge and saviour.  Christ was the fulfilment of that promise, and through him, the world has a means of deliverance.

Each of us is born with original sin into a broken world.  God first loves us and reaches to us through the Word.  We cry out in repentance and receive the deliverance  that Christ won for us through baptism.  We then continue on in faith and grace, being sustained by word and sacrament.  These are both large views of how the pattern portrayed in Judges applies to us, but I also think that this relates to our everyday struggles.

As Christians, we continually struggle in a war between being sinner and saint, a war that will never end until this earthly life is over.  We sin daily, forgetting God or just rebelling against him.  In this, we are like the Israelites: forgetting what God has done for us and insisting upon going our own way.  Fortunately, our God is a steadfast God that never will abandon us.  When we repent, we receive the forgiveness of sins that Christ won and are washed clean.  In this way, we live like the Israelites of the Old Testament.

The biggest difference between us and the Israelites, however, is that they were bound by the law.  Their covenant was a covenant of human obligation, one that they must earn.  Our covenant is in the blood of Christ, acted by Christ, and sustained by Christ.  We could not come to God without him first loving us, and we could not earn the salvation without the blood of Christ, and we would soon despair if not held up by the Word and sacrament.  In this we are a world different than the Israelites.

This is not to say that we do not have to do anything.  Saint James tells us that a faith without works is dead, and if we are saved by grace through faith, then that faith must surely be alive.  The problem that we can run into is thinking that God does the first part and then all of the rest is up to us.  I think that thinking like that can be exceedingly dangerous, for it puts the weight of our salvation upon our own shoulders.  We must remember that our faith is sustained by the Holy Spirit, which does come to us through Word and sacrament.  We must stay in the Church, in scripture, to continue to grow as Christians, and the good works will flow out of that.  For, if we truly understand how God loves us, and that our neighbors are created in the image of God, how could we stand to watch another suffer?

This was one of the biggest things that Judges made me think of.  This train of thought led me down many paths that would be too lengthy to mention here, but I will try to summarize it the best that I can.  God never abandoned the Israelites, and he will never abandon us.  My faith comes from God, is strengthened by God, and, if I cling to him, I know he will never leave me, regardless of how many times that I wander.