I heard Brian McLaren talk on a podcast 2-3 years ago about how the Ecological Crisis is “the New Slavery”. It is like this in the following ways:
Slavery was an institution that operated as an economic AND physical, bodily form of oppresssion, to the benefit of those who wielded that “weapon”. It caused Christians to accept what was obvious (or should have been , even then) to all of us, a cruel and unjust system of extracting free labor, under threat of violence and death. The economic advantages led Christians to believe that it was “Biblical” and ordained by God, “according to the Scriptures”. This was, obviously, an “eisegesis” of current status quo economic policy onto the Scriptures. It blinded Christians to the systemic evil of it, even to the direct , viewable instances of cruelty that it inflicted upon the African Americans under it’s sway.
The Ecological Crisis is operating just like that on Christians today. The perceived economic benefits (which translates to “short term and immediate” benefits we receive from the fossil fuel burning , to power our vehicles and transportation and machinery and such) “wins us over” to the extent that we deny what should be very clear (if we observe the respect and “assumed validity” of what we do for practically ANY OTHER of the sciences — such as medical science— other than Climate Science. ) We find Christians siding with the political tribe (the “ProSlavery” political forces in the case of slavery, and “EcoCrisis Denial” in the case of our situation today, with the Ecological Crisis).
Like then, we have made EcoCrisis denial an article of faith, insisting that “the Bible says nothing about it” – making an argument from omission, made even more puzzling by the fact that the Bible was written 1900-2000 or more years ago, when the Ecological Crisis was not even an issue, nor the existence or invention of the things that we used to create the Crisis. IN fact, we use all manner of justifications to tell ourselves that our way of life is just so advanced and good and fruitful that it “just couldn’t be other than God’s good plan” that we have been able to enjoy the fruits of our ingenuity and creative power.
This observation is striking, all the more the deeper one takes the comparisons between the motivations (economic exploitation) and the propensity of Christians to “baptize” the continuation of the oppressive system. This continuation/perpetuation is the Idolization of the staus quo economics and “life benefits” we enjoy from it’s “fruits”.
We acquiesce or simply accept our complicity in support the oppression of the Earth (and as a consequence, visit the effects of our system upon all the earth’s inhabitants, including humans, mostly (for now, at least) humans out of sight and out of mind. We are pulling part the very systems God created to sustain life.
Thoughts?
