If you would like an insight into the recent initiative by some evangelical leaders regarding global warming, you might read the chapter entitled "Why I Am Green" in Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy. After positing, with a broad sweep of the brush, that Evangelicals are in the back pockets of corrupt capitalists, bent on raging consumerism, driving gas-guzzling SUV's, and tossing their McD's fry bags out the windows while anxiously awaiting God to rapture them out of this hell-hole (I exaggerate, but the steroetype McLaren paints is unfair), McLaren presents a "theological succession" he sees looming on the horizon. Here are his six elements:
1. The standard, stagnant theology of creation/fall is giving way to a more vigorous theology of continual creation.
McLaren thinks Western Christianity has taken the doctrine of original sin too far. The "ontological fall" leaves nothing in God's handiwork to love and appreciate; we only exploit an already dying world. He looks "to the Eastern Orthodox tradition and to emerging narrative theologies" for a more sacred view of a creation that is still seen as "very good."
2. The eschatology of abandonment is being succeeded by an engaging gospel of the kingdom.
Evangelical-dispensational eschatology is the natural by-product of modern-day Christians who perceived nothing but ultimate destruction as the ultimate future for a society rooted in the values of secular humanism. "Pop-Evangelical eschatology" ignored the failed conclusions of previous generations in this regard, as well as the teaching of Jesus about the presence of the Kingdom of God.
3. Increased concern for the poor and oppressed leads to increased concern for all creation.
The same forces in the world that cause pain among the less fortunate of society, also bring hurt upon nature itself. Championing the cause of social justice will naturally lead to ecological justice. St. Francis and Mother Teresa breathed the same air, namely, the air of the spirit of Jesus.
4. There is a succession in our understanding of ownership.
McLaren imagines a world where words and concepts such as private, ownership, and enterprise are replaced by communal, fellowship, and mission. He contends "private ownership currently fuels a greed-based economy" versus a model of stewardship that "could someday fuel a new grace-based economy."
5. There is a succession from the local/national to the global/local.
McLaren envisions a world where the fictions of national boundaries and political states are erased, or at least subjugated, by global concerns and ecological habitats. The compartmentalization of the modern must give way to the globalization of the postmodern.
6. A new understanding of neighborliness is replacing an old sense of rugged (a.k.a.) individualism.
Our thinking must extend beyond the self to the larger structures that surround us as we serve our neighbors and future generations. The conservation actions of the individual (recycling, reusing, abstaining) must expand to impact the systems of transportation, farming, advertising, farming, etc. McLaren suggests the nuclear family be replaced by the molecular family--an intentional family where extended members live in interdependence.
Just a couple incomplete and unthorough thoughts (not intended to be a full review by any means):
First, while he may indeed be pointing out a mote in the evangelical eye, like much of McLaren's writing, the stereotypes and glittering generalities, sans documentation, get difficult to swallow. Perhaps he did not drink from the healthier streams of evangelical thought earlier in his ministry, but that is no excuse to paint the entire community as morally concerned for only family values, nationally concerned for only a strong military, socially concerned for only the better life, and theologically concerned for only the salvation of souls and the eventual, hopefully soon, abandonment of the planet.
It is true there is a contingent of evangelicals who roam the halls of political power seeking moral reformation, and beat only the drum named "here we have no continuing city," but there are others who have developed a full-orbed theology of common grace, Christian responsibility, and biblical stewardship of creation while we await the return of our Lord. While reading D.A. Carson's Becoming Conversant With the Emergent Church, I came across a reference to an article by J. Gresham Machen entitled, "Mountains and Why We Love Them" found in his Selected Shorter Writings. It is a first-person account of Machen's ascent of the Matterhorn in the 1930's. The article is significant because it is a glimpse into the mind of a theologian who sees the political world around him imploding. He looks out at a boiling Europe from the unchanging peak and ponders Mussolini and Hitler. Nevertheless, the transcendent beauty of the Matterhorn dominates the scene; respect for the mountain jumps from the page. And this from a theologian battling in, and shaped by, the modernism McLaren so despises and considers extinct. Machen even laments a vast industrial machine, the destruction of forests in Maine, and the child-labor amendment. He will say such things as:
One thing is clear--if you are learn to love the mountains, you must go up them by your own power....There is one curious thing about means of locomotion--the slower and simpler and the closer to nature they are, the more real thrill they give. I have got far more enjoyment out of my two feet than I did out of my bicycle; and I got more enjoyment out of my bicycle than I ever have got out of my motor car; and as for airplanes--well, all I can say is that I wouldn't lower myself by going up in one of the stupid, noisy things!
I'll forgive Machen his attitude toward flight (he may have changed his mind had he lived to see the earth from Apollo), but I am impressed that deep Protestant orthodoxy rooted in foundationalist thought produced a mind and a man very much a steward-lover of his Creator's handiwork.
Second, McLaren is too ready to dismiss evangelical positions as the product of modernist thought, and consequently, too eager to have his theology shaped by post-modernist thought. Is contemporary dispensationalism simply the reaction of a frightened people to a modern world bent on self-destruction, or is it the product of a coherent system of interpretation? Is the doctrine of original sin, and its attendant consequences on all of creation, the brainchild of neo-platonic theologians, or the result of careful biblical exegesis? Are the ideas of personal property, nationalism, consumerism, individualism, and the like, totally incompatible with scripture, or is it possible to grasp these things in a kind of tension as we seek heavenly values and earthly good? Have these concepts contributed to the development of cultures? What do cultures resemble that prize McLaren's suggested values (communal, fellowship, mission) sans a biblical worldview (in Africa for example)? Mclaren's chapter is noteworthy in its lack of biblical references. He makes no attempt to deal with texts regarding the extent of the Fall or the subsequent human condition.
At the end of the day, I don't think McLaren advocates an any richer view of creation stewardship than has already been expressed in biblical orthodoxy, albeit at times veiled in practice. What McLaren does do, however, is express a kind of self-hatred that seems motivated by a negative exposure to one wing of evangelicalism. I wonder as well, if he has sipped very much from the well of reformed theologians who grasp the truth of Christ and culture in paradox? His low view of original sin allows him to propose solutions that seem hopeless outside of a community over which Christ reigns. I am all for Christians (the community of the redeemed) fleshing out Kingdom values in all of life, but the fruit of redemption that McLaren seeks, may not be ours to give. We await the coming King who will make all things new. In the meantime, I'll wait to throw out my milkshake cup until I get home.
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