To Protect and To Serve

“And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and guard and keep it.” Genesis 2:15

A few years ago, when we were hearing quite a bit about lowering our carbon footprints, my kids and I had an ongoing joke. Because there seemed to be such a push to do away with all carbon output, taken to its logical, albeit extreme, conclusion all the earth’s animals would have to stop breathing and if there was no carbon at all, the earth’s plants would all die. Realizing the impossibility of that, whenever we heard someone talking about shrinking their carbon footprint one of us would call out, “Save the trees -- exhale!”

All that is to make a point and ask a question – the first is that sometimes in our zeal to correct one problem we create at least one other one, and second, to what lengths should we, as Christians who believe in a literal 7 day creation go to take care of the planet that God created as our home?

Sometimes it seems like those who believe in evolution are more interested in saving/protecting the planet than many Christians. That seems backwards to me. If someone believes that the entire basis of nature is “survival of the fittest” why should they expend any thought or effort on protecting the snail darter or any other endangered animal? Jesus clearly told us to look after those who are the least in the world’s eyes.

What is the extent of our responsibility when it comes to looking after our planet? Do we go as far as the president of Bolivia did on April 20, 2011? That day, “marked the International Day of Mother Earth with a ceremony in the Plaza Murillo, the center of political power. An ancient ritual shared center stage with speeches in which authorities in this Andean nation extolled the Law of Mother Earth - the world's first legislation that grants to all nature rights equal to humans.

“The [Bolivian] Government intends to establish a Ministry of Mother Earth to implement the Law of Mother Earth, which will establish new rights for nature, including:

• the right to maintain the integrity of life and natural processes

• the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered

• the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration

• the right to pure water

• the right to clean air

• the right to balance, to be at equilibrium

• the right to be free of toxic and radioactive pollution

• the right to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.”[1]

That all sounds great, except I think it’s a bit late for the “free from human alteration” bit. That ship has already sailed. So how would the Bolivian government go about implementing these rights? Is that what God intended when He put Adam in the Garden of Eden to “tend and guard and keep it.”?

Of course, tend, guard and keep do not mean that we have the freedom to exploit nature in any way. That kind of thinking has created events like the Dust Bowl and hunting the bison to near extinction. Far from allowing people to exploit nature, we are asked to be wise stewards of all that God has placed under our care.

As stewards our job is to carefully shape and cultivate nature to produce the very best results – to benefit the most people and to glorify God. I think one of the ways in which the “Law of Mother Earth” and other secular earth protection movements, go wrong, is they make man 100% of the problem – Earth would be better off without people. Whereas, according to God, man is His crowning achievement. He put man in the garden to take care of it, even before there was sin to destroy it.

“Will we consider this? In its human wisdom, the world knows not God. Its wise men gather an imperfect knowledge of God in His created works, and then in their foolishness exalt nature and the laws of nature above nature’s God. Nature is an open book which reveals God. All who are attracted to nature may behold in it the God that created nature. But those who have not a knowledge of God in their acceptance of the revelation God has made of Himself in Christ, will obtain only an imperfect knowledge of God in nature. This knowledge, so far from giving elevated conceptions of God, so far from elevating the mind, the soul, the heart, and bringing the whole being into conformity to the will of God, will make men idolaters. Professing to be wise men, they become fools. Those who think they can obtain a knowledge of God aside from the Representative whom the word declares is “the express image of His person,” will need to become fools in their own estimation before they can be wise. Christ came as a personal Saviour. It is impossible to gain a perfect knowledge of God from nature, for nature itself is imperfect. A curse and blight is upon it. Yet the things of nature, marred as they are by the blight of sin, inculcate truths regarding the skillful Master Artist. One omnipotent in power, great in goodness, in mercy, and love, has created the earth, and even in its blighted state much that is beautiful remains. Nature’s voice speaks, saying that there is a God back of nature, but it does not in its imperfections represent God. Nature cannot reveal the nature and character of God in His moral perfection.” (E.G. White, Manuscript 86, 1898, p. 348)

Do you remember the first time your parents left you “in charge” of your house while they ran an errand or went out for an evening? No matter how long your parents were away, you felt the responsibility for taking the best care you could of your home. You were very careful to maintain it in the way your parents had left it.

God has left us “in charge” of our home until He comes back. We have a responsibility to take the best care of Earth as we can, not because we worship it, but because we love and worship the One who created it.

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[1] “Bolivia Celebrates Law Granting Rights to Mother Earth,” Environmental News Service, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2011/2011-04-20-01.html, accessed 3.1.2013

S.of the F. v. the G. R.

(Survival of the Fittest versus the Golden Rule)

Where does morality come from? How do humans decide how to behave? As a Christian, I would say that moral behavior is a product of my belief in a Creator God. But what if a person does not believe in God? What dictates his morality?

That’s a huge question. If people reject the Creatorship of God, then, if they’re honest with themselves, they also have to reject God’s pronouncement of what’s right and wrong. Some folks try to have it both ways by claiming that morality is a natural evolutionary step, but macro evolution, to my knowledge, says little about absolute rights and wrongs but quite abit about the importance of survival.

Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, quotes from a sermon by Phillip E. Johnson called “Evolution and the Christian Faith.”

 “‘If there is no Creator who has a purpose for your life, then there is no such thing as sin, … ‘Sin would mean that you are in a wrong relationship to your Creator. Well, you can't be in the wrong relationship with the particles. They don't care. So you don't need a Savior to save you from the consequences of your wrong relationship with the particles.’”Mattingly then concludes, “When you give away creation, you have given away everything.”[1]

That’s a pretty harsh conclusion, isn’t it? But I don’t believe we can deny the truth of it when we look around at what has happened in society since the theory of evolution has become the popular way to explain the existence of our world.

Evolution teaches that only the strongest, healthiest, and smartest survive, a concept that is completely incompatible with the concept of the Golden Rule.

“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12

Surprisingly, I’ve found that the Golden Rule is harder to teach than you might think. I mean, out of context, many people wouldn’t immediately assume that it was a text from the Bible. You could say it was just a good rule to live by. But in 20 plus years of teaching in one capacity or another, without the opportunity to back that statement up with a belief in God, it has little impact on individual behavior. The response I most often get when I try to explain the Golden Rule to one of my students is, “Why?” In fact, they often completely turn the whole concept around, “They’re not going to treat me the way I want to be treated, why should I be nice to them?”

You have to admit that by today’s standards, the Golden Rule is counter-intuitive.

The Golden Rule says, “Share.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “Take yours first and let the rest fend for themselves.

The Golden Rule says, “Lend a helping hand.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “If you can’t keep up, get out of the way.”

The Golden Rule says, “Look out for one another.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “Every man for himself.”

Counter-intuitive or not, our Creator has both told and demonstrated to us how we should behave as we represent Him.

“Your relation to God and your fellow men demands a change in your life. In the Sermon on the Mount the injunction of the world’s redeemer was: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” These words are of the highest value to us, a golden rule given us by which to measure our conduct. This is the true rule of honesty. Very much is comprehended in these words. We are here required to deal with our neighbors as we would wish them to deal with us were we in their circumstances.” (E.G. White, Testimonies of the Church, Volume 4, p. 359)

But without God, there are no such requirements. Facing each day without the belief that each of us is a special creation of the God of the universe, leaves each of us to find meaning and truth in our own way. And that has led to moral relativism and situational ethics – the belief that there is no absolute truth, no right and wrong and no consequences for poor choices.

Where does that leave us?

Well, according to William Watkins, it leaves us with ten core beliefs that govern the lives of those people today who claim there are no absolutes. (Try to wrap your brain around that!)

Anyway, here are The New Absolutes.

“(1) Religion interferes with freedom and must be banished from the public square.(2) Human life is valuable only as long as it is wanted.(3) Marriage is a human contract made between any two people, and can be terminated for any reason.(4) Family is any grouping of two or more people.(5) Sexual intercourse is permissible regardless of marital status.(6) All forms of sexual activity are moral as long as they occur between consenting adults.(7) Women are oppressed by men and must liberate themselves.(8) People of color should receive preferential treatment.(9) Non-Western societies and other oppressed peoples and their heritage should be studied and valued above Western civilization.(10) Only viewpoints deemed politically correct should be tolerated and encouraged to prevail.”[2]

Call me old fashioned or simple minded, but I prefer God’s Absolutes. God absolutely created each of us, loves each of us and wants to spend eternity with each of us. You know where I’m going with this:

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16-17

Now that’s an absolute, I can live with!

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[1] Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, from his column "Phillip E. Johnson”

[2] William Watkins, The New Absolutes (Bethany House, 1996)

An Accidental Life

When my sons were little, we spent a huge amount of time watching shows or videos about animals. And, initially that sounds awesome because then they were learning things instead of watching mindless kids’ shows (they watched those too). Nature shows are so much fun to watch – the photography is beautiful. Except that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had to throw in its mandatory this-animal-evolved-from-that-animal line. At which point I would feel the need to disagree with the voice-over out loud so that my children would not get the idea that I agreed with those kinds of statements. I did it so often that we could all recite my various responses together.

I have a huge problem with the theory of evolution … well, I have several, but my biggest problem with it goes beyond all of the scientific impossibilities and unlikelihoods of life just popping up out of nowhere. My biggest problem with the theory of evolution is that believing it changes the way a person sees themselves and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. I believe that so many of the things for which we are trying to find solutions are outgrowths of believing that life is merely the result of a biological accident.

In the interest of full disclosure, I went to public schools for most of my academic life and I worked in public schools first as a teacher and then as a school psychologist. My children also went to public schools. I grew up in a time when only the theory of evolution was taught in science classes and formal prayer was not allowed. So, that may all flavor my opinions to some extent.

One of the first side effects of teaching our children that they are nothing but biological accidents is the loss of the knowledge that each individual is inherently valuable. If we can no longer believe that we were knit together in our mothers’ wombs by a loving Creator God, then who are we? And why are we here? To fill the void of our value through our Creator and Redeemer, educators started trying to artificially produce self-esteem in each student. The self-esteem movement has become almost a joke – everybody gets a trophy for participating, teachers shouldn’t use red ink, don’t tell a student they’re wrong – but has not been able to instill in anyone a healthy knowledge that they were created and loved by God. Artificial value then has to come from how we look and what we have.

Unfortunately not everyone is considered beautiful and not everyone has the funds to buy the things that will make them valuable – expensive athletic shoes, clothes, fancy cars or any other thing that is considered a symbol of a person’s importance in society.

In my opinion, one of the reasons that bullying has become such a devastating problem is that children who have been artificially infused with self-worth have no positive way to maintain it and so try to build themselves up by pushing others down. Those who are being pushed down have no resources with which to protect themselves and are emotionally devastated, sometimes to the point of suicide.

A huge casualty of being taught we were accidents was morality. Teenagers who have been told they are nothing more than a step along the evolutionary ladder – just a little higher than monkeys, are no longer bound by the morals of individuals who were created just a little lower than angels.

“What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,” Psalm 8:4-6

That’s a very different way of thinking of humans than most people use, isn’t it? A being just lower than an angel has value, and purpose. A being just higher than a monkey has neither of those things.

One of the most tragic and heartbreaking of the consequences of being taught we are nothing more than glorified monkeys and have no intrinsic value in and of ourselves, is the proliferation and acceptance of abortion.

We no longer think of life like King David did:

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” Psalm 139:13-15

An inconvenient pregnancy is easily and thoughtlessly ended with little thought about what miracle is taking place. From there we can apply the same lack of value for life to so many other aspects of our society – school shootings jump immediately into my mind.

If we are nothing but biological accidents, where does that leave us? What is our purpose for being here? Who cares that we’re here? Our hearts and minds are essentially a vacuum that was supposed to be filled by God, but is now just empty and waiting for whatever comes along. 

“Those who leave the Word of God to account for His created works on scientific principles are drifting without chart or compass upon an unknown ocean. The greatest minds, if not guided by the Word of God in their research, become bewildered in their attempts to trace the relations of science and revelation. Those who doubt the records of the Old and New Testaments will be led to go a step further and doubt the existence of God. Then, having lost their anchor, they are left to beat about upon the rocks of infidelity.“The Bible is not to be tested by men’s ideas of science. Skeptics, through an imperfect comprehension of either science or revelation, claim to find contradictions between them; but rightly understood they are in perfect harmony. Moses wrote under the guidance of the Spirit of God, and a correct theory … will never claim discoveries that cannot be reconciled with his statements.” E.G. White, From Eternity Past, p.67

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John 1:1-5

How would you rather live your life?

Happy Accidents

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for 1.14.12

Has this ever happened to you?  You’re watching a wonderful nature program with fantastic film of some animal, all up close and personal.  The voice over is calming, resonant and sincere:

“Hummingbirds are the lightest birds in the sky. Of their roughly 240 species … the largest, an Andean ‘giant,’ is only eight inches long; the smallest, the bee hummingbird of Cuba, is just over two inches long and weighs a single gram.
“Delicacy is the trade-off that hummingbirds have made for their unrivaled powers of flight. Alone among birds, they can hover, fly backward, even fly upside down. For such small birds, their speed is astonishing: in his courtship display to impress a female, a male Allen's hummingbird, for instance, can dive out of the sky at sixty-one miles per hour … (Diving at 385 body-lengths per second, this hummer beats the peregrine falcon's dives … and even bests the space shuttle as it screams down through the atmosphere at 207 body lengths per second.)
“Hummingbirds' wings beat at a rate that makes them a blur to human eyes, more than sixty times a second …. They are little more than bubbles fringed with iridescent feathers—air wrapped in light …. In most birds, 15 to 25 percent of the body is given over to flying muscles. In a hummingbird's body, flight muscles account for 35 percent. An enormous heart constitutes up to 2.5 percent of its body weight—the largest per body weight of all vertebrates …. A person as active as a hummingbird would need 155,000 calories a day …. Each [hummingbird] is just a speck … yet each is an infinite mystery.”[1]

And then the voice says something like, “Millions of years of evolution have brought the hummingbird to where it is today.”  Essentially saying that this amazing and complex creature is nothing more than a happy biological accident. 

At that point I want to throw something at the television!  Don’t misunderstand, I believe the world is full of happy accidents:  hitting all green lights on the way to work, the elevator doors opening just as you get there,  and being able to get your phone out of your purse/pocket before it stops ringing.  Those could all be described as happy accidents, but a miraculous creature like the hummingbird?  I don’t think so.

The problem, for me, isn’t creationist or evolutionist, it’s who you believe came first – God or man? 

“[In his talks, author Phillip Johnson quotes] the Gospel of John, which states: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.’
“After reading this, Johnson asks: ‘Is that true or false?’
“Then he turns this Scripture inside out and creates a credo for use in sanctuaries aligned with the National Center for Science Education. It sounds like this: ‘In the beginning were the particles and the particles somehow became complex, living stuff. And the stuff imagined God.’
“After reading this, Johnson again asks: ‘Is that true or false?’
“Johnson argues that today's debates over science, creation and morality are, literally, clashes between people who believe there is scientific evidence that God created man and those who believe there is scientific evidence that man created God.
“‘If there is no Creator who has a purpose for your life, then there is no such thing as sin,’ he said. ‘Sin would mean that you are in a wrong relationship to your Creator. Well, you can't be in the wrong relationship with the particles. They don't care. So you don't need a Savior to save you from the consequences of your wrong relationship with the particles. …
“‘When you give away creation, you have given away everything.’”[2]

I’ve never heard the creation/evolution debate brought down to such a clear line before, but I believe he’s right.  If you give up the Creator, you also give up the Redeemer.  You also end up losing a clear cut reason for being here, and if you have no reason for being, no purpose, what’s left? 

But if God put us here because He has something for us to accomplish, that puts a whole new slant on things.

“Man is allotted a part in this great struggle for everlasting life; he must respond to the working of the Holy Spirit. It will require a struggle to break through the powers of darkness, but the Spirit that works in him can and will accomplish this. But man is no passive instrument to be saved in indolence. He is called upon to strain every muscle in the struggle for immortality, yet it is God that supplies the efficiency.”[3]

What would you rather believe, that you and I are the result of biological mutations that happily mutated their way into human beings or that a God who wanted companionship placed us on a planet made just for us?

“Dr. Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the SETI Institute, points out in his course ‘The Search for Intelligent Life in Space’ what conditions favor the development of life in the universe:  The system's star ("sun") must not be a giant star, because these burn out too quickly before life can fully develop.  The system's star must not be a dwarf star, because such a star locks in the close planets, meaning ‘one side of the planet forever faces its sun, resulting in horrific weather and unlikely venues for life.’  The system's star cannot be a double star, because the unusual gravitational forces created by a double-star sun might not allow stable planetary systems.  The system's star must not be a young star, because stars less than 1 billion years old have not had enough time, so astronomers think, for life to develop.
“Ideally, the planet would have a large moon, which creates active tides.
“The planet should have tectonic activity, which causes metals to be pushed up to the surface, since metals are valuable to technological civilization.
“The planet should have a large planet farther out in its solar system, which by its great gravitational pull cleans the inner solar system of deadly asteroids and comets.
“The planet should not have a highly elliptical orbit, which is unsuitable for incubating life.
“For life to live on the surface, the planet must have an atmosphere. ‘Very small planets lose their air, and very large planets tend to sport poisonous atmosphere. Earth-sized planets are ideal.’
“And it just so happens that all these conditions fit our earth!”[4]

Hmmmm, the creation of a loving God or a happy accident…I choose God; what about you?

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[1] Sy Montgomery, Birdology (Free Press, 2010), pp. 78-103

[2] Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, from his column “Phillip E.”

[3] E.G.White, Our High Calling (1961), page 91.

[4] From "The Search for Intelligent Life in Space" course outline (The Teaching Company Limited Partnership, 1999); submitted by Kevin A. Miller, Vice President, Christianity Today International

We’re Descended from Monkeys

Do you believe that?  If you do, do you remember when you figured out whether you believed in creation or evolution?  I have to say I was pretty much grown.  Somehow, for my whole childhood, I held parallel truths.  I had been taught evolution at school and creation at church.  I’d seen Walt Disney’s Fantasia and hadn’t noticed anything wrong with it.  Then, one day, it hit me.  They can’t both be true.  As soon as I realized that, though, the rest was easy.  I knew that I believed in Creation.  And sometimes, even though my belief has never wavered, it has landed me in some uncomfortable spots.  When I taught, one of the units in the 4^th grade curriculum was “Dinosaurs”.  Thankfully it was a unit in reading, not in science, but it still produced some challenges.  How does one stand in front of 25 4^th graders and “teach” something, in which you don’t believe.  I was not allowed to present an opposing theory.  And I absolutely refused to use any sentence containing “millions of years” in it without making sure no one thought I believed that. 

I made it through.  I must say I made it a very short unit.  I managed to always preface what I considered the “lies” with disclaimers like, “some people believe,” or “according to this story” and so forth.  Things were going pretty well, I thought, until one day one of my students raised her hand and asked, “But Mrs. Lopez, what do you believe?”  I tried, “This isn’t about what I believe; let’s read on” along with several other deflections, but she would not be sidetracked.  I finally shrugged, took a deep breath and told the class what I believed.  Then I waited to be called into the principal’s office because I had discussed **gasp** creationism in a public school classroom.  I was amazed though; nothing more ever popped up.

I don’t believe my own kids have ever not known what I believe.  They were both dinosaur freaks, much to my frustration.  Their obsession, though, gave us lots and lots (!) of opportunities to discuss both evolution and creationism even before they were old enough for school.  I wasn’t sure if they were getting it, until one day one of them came home with a story entitled, “Archaeopteryx and other evolutionary malarkey”.  In which, he proceeded to debunk evolutionary theory.  I was really proud of him for having the guts to write a dissenting opinion in the 3^rd grade.  God had made sure the message was getting through.  What a relief!

Do you think people who believe in creation view life, the world and everything, differently than people who believe in evolution?

Hey, if creation is intelligent design, would that make evolution, Stupid Design?  I’m just askin’. 

Do you think these different beliefs make people act in different ways? 

I heard someone (sorry, can’t remember who) theorize once that we could trace the loosening morals of America to the Scopes trial and evolution being taught in public school.  I’m pretty sure loosening morals go on back to Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, but this person’s theory did have some good points.  The main one being that, if a person thinks of themselves as just a highly functioning animal, then his/her actions will reflect that.  Reasoning becomes less important than instincts and feelings.  Truth becomes relative.  What’s right becomes anything that feels good…to me.  And wrong becomes anything that I don’t like.  Emotions rule our everyday lives, and restraint almost never comes into play.  Everyday is all about what we want; how we feel; what we deserve.  When we think this way, our world becomes smaller and smaller.  Water circling a drain. 

This belief system then affects everything about me – I’m not responsible for my thoughts or actions because I’m just doing what comes naturally. 

You probably know people who are searching for meaning in a life without God.  That’s not something I’ve ever experienced, so I don’t know what it’s like, but it seems like it would be a hopeless way to live.  Maybe I’m wrong; I don’t know.

But I do know this:  I believe in a loving and creative God, and I’m not just a tailless monkey.  Psalm 8:5 tells me, “For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor.”  That verse is telling me exactly where I belong in the classification system of heaven! 

What a relief!  We’re not just a little higher than the monkeys; we’re a little lower than the angels.  We’re NOT genetic accidents; we are the sons and daughters of God.  And that makes all the difference!  We are the children of a God who loves us so much that He’s been counting the days until we can be together forever since Eve took her first bite of forbidden fruit.

Which would you rather believe?  I’d rather believe that I carry “the fingerprints of God.”