1980

In his book, Eaarth, Bill McKibben talks ruefully about the disastrous election of 1980. He reminds us that, in the Carter administration, there were signs that the downside of our addiction to fossil fuels was beginning to be taken seriously. We had an opportunity there to change our energy culture when there might still have been time to avoid the catastrophe we have now visited upon God's planet. Remember how Carter deliberately addressed the nation wearing a sweater, to emphasize conservation? Or how he put solar panels on the White House roof? Polls even showed majorities of Americans willing to move in a different direction.

I did not vote for Carter. Perhaps I should have. But his murderous adventures in Central America precluded my supporting him. I voted for Barry Commoner. Few people remember Barry Commoner. I was one of the only Commoner supporters on the Princeton Seminary Campus. Commoner was one of the leading environmental writer/activists of the 1970s. He had a well-articulated plan for weaning us off fossil fuels and moving towards an economy based on renewable energy. If Commoner's plan had been instituted thirty years ago, we would not be in nearly as bad a mess today.

But no. We elected Ronald Reagan. Instead of putting the brakes on our addiction to fossil fuels, Reagan and his people stepped on the gas. On January 20, 1981, God's planet was effectively doomed. That was our last chance to turn this around. In our "can-do," obstreperous, reality-be-damned, American arrogance, we decided that greed and growth were our gods.

Clinton was not much better, it turns out. His mantra, "It's the economy, stupid," did get him elected. But a better mantra would have been "It's the climate, or it's the health of the planet, stupid." Even with Al Gore involved, Clinton was woefully careless about our fossil fuel addiction. I voted for Gore in 2000, of course. But I would have had more enthusiasm about it had he been able to get more done on this when he was that close to power. Still, Gore did win that election. He was just prevented from taking office by the Supreme Court, in what was, in effect, a bloodless coup.

With Bush, of course, the whole thing got placed in the hands of oil and coal executives. And our doom was sealed.

The prophets of the Old Testament are quite unambiguous about what happens to people who choose to follow gods other than YHWH. In following after lies and falsehood, they foster social injustices, which in turn draw down horrendous catastrophes upon themselves. We -- and I mean we as a people, for we elected these people or allowed them to take office without being elected -- have brought this upon ourselves, and upon the whole world, for we are the global leader and example as fossil fuel junkies.

This ongoing apocalypse in the Gulf is only the most recent sour fruit of these disgraceful, self-serving, delusional decisions we have made as a people. The most depressing aspect of this is how, once these things become everyday occurrences, once they are not the latest news, we stop caring as much. Why aren't we boycotting BP? Why haven't these executives been arrested? How about putting stockholders in oil companies on boats to clean this up? ... Oh, right. Because that's ALL of us....

Reflections on "The Fly In the Ointment," by J. Russell Crabtree

There is a lot of good stuff in this book. There is also a lot that I have serious concerns about.

Crabtree is absolutely right when he talks about the obsolete institutional models and mindsets that are crippling the mainline churches right now. We act like we’re monopolies when people actually have options and alternatives. We act as if the role of the congregations is to support the mission of the presbytery or denomination, when the opposite is the case. Officials are good at double-speak, which gives permission not to change, as in, “we’re in a crisis… but on the bright side….” Crabtree mentions that breathtakingly ridiculous paper by Cliff Kirkpatrick, which pretends to be a “wake-up call” to the church… in 2005! If we hadn’t woken up by 2005 we’re in a coma! (He doesn’t mention Kirkpatrick’s solution, which is to have more babies… as if that were possible given our average age, and as if one of the biggest areas of loss hasn’t been our own offspring….)

He has some very good practical advice about inspiring and managing institutional change, doing leadership training, and resourcing churches. He is not afraid to be controversial, especially when he says presbyteries should charge fees for their consultant services. He clearly delineates the differences between the primary presbytery responsibilities and functions.

Crabtree does seem to understand that the mainline churches are in a death spiral, and drastic action, by which he means a change in culture, is necessary. I agree wholeheartedly.

But I am nervous when it is suggested that churches know what they want and presbytery needs to give that to them. I have discovered that what too many churches want is to be able to return to some version of 1956: pews full of people like us only younger, lots of children in the Sunday School, traditional worship, men in ties and women in dresses, and so on. They want Christendom restored. They want to keep doing the same things they have been doing for 40 years, and somehow get again the results they got on the 50’s, but which haven’t worked since.

On page 58, Crabtree talks about coaching to a vision. But it is hard to find any criteria evaluating the vision. Is it even remotely realistic? Is it based more on nostalgia than actual potential? Is it just a fantasy about the way things should be? Churches want to attract more families with young children. Fine. But (1) is an attractional model still relevant to every church? And (2) what about everyone else (which is to say a huge majority of Americans) who is not part of a family with young children? Single people, retirees, handicapped people, empty-nesters, non-traditional families, Gays, and so forth.

More to the point: what model do we get out of the New Testament? Jesus did not sit at home and wait for people to come to him. He did not institute a marketing campaign. He did not talk about clients and customers, and he most certainly did not let the latter set the agenda for his ministry. Jesus knew himself to be sent into the world. When he gathered his disciples, after training them, he sent them out as well.

I am wondering if the form of the ministry shouldn’t somehow be determined by the content of the message. Much of church growth literature, this book mostly included, is advice that would be germane to any organization that wants to grow. It comes down to basically have a clear vision and be able to articulate it to the people you want to attract. This basic model will work whether it is applied to a bowling league, a Masonic lodge, a retail business, or a branch of the KKK.

Crabtree talks about fostering “healthy, vital” churches. I think we need to speak even more basically about faithful and committed churches. Too often we let the culture determine what constitutes “health” and “vitality,” and this almost always happens quantitatively. But in the church, health and vitality can only be determined by Jesus Christ. We are healthy and vital when we are participating in his mission, when we are faithful and committed to him and the calling he gives to us. Instead of evaluating our ministry based on how many new “families with young children” we have been able to “attract,” we need to lift up those places in Scripture where Jesus outlines his ministry and commissions his disciples.

Like when Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
 He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Let churches tell us how they are doing according to these categories. Nowhere does Jesus say “go out and attract new members.” He does say “make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” So, our first task is to cultivate communities that obey Jesus. Part of this is being sent out to express the good news in the world by our actions of service, healing, and liberation. That is our attraction.

Jesus himself did not seek to attract “families with young children.” That’s because he wasn’t trying to live up to the example of 1956. He was not trying to exhume Christendom. He went to the needy, the sick, the possessed, and the outcast. He didn’t do that because that’s what his “customers,” ie. those wealthy women who supported him financially, wanted. He did it because it was what God wanted. And these women did not just mail in checks; they followed as part of his entourage.

When is someone going to write the book that says presbyteries should help churches (a) find out what Jesus wants them to do, and (b) obey him? That would be better than a “zero-based” mission model, it would be “Christ-based.”

Eaarth

Bill McKibben's new book is called Eaarth. It could be called Life on Earth 2.0. His main point is that we now live on a very different planet from the one that harbored civilization over the last 10,000 years. The difference is the accelerating warming of the planet's atmosphere, due to the dramatic increase of carbon, due mainly to humans burning fossil fuels.

Global warming is no longer something pertinent to our future. It is not something with which only our grandchildren will have to deal. It is now. The planet we live on today is significantly changed already. And these changes are only going to continue. Global warming is not a theory; it is a done deal. It has produced a different Earth, which McKibben indicates by adding that extra a.

McKibben makes his point in the first hundred pages of the book. His account is not exhaustive. But he brings up enough representative examples of how the planet has changed to be very convincing. Not just by recounting temperature readings, but by going through the litany of serious and destructive weather events that have increased in frequency and severity, all over the world. Draughts, glacier depletion, floods, melting tundra, disappearing icepack, hurricanes, dying forests, increases in insects and disease, decreases in crop yields, and so forth. All happening now, not a century from now. McKibben can even trace at least part of the reason for the current recession to the increase in fossil fuel prices.

Modernity is based on fossil fuels. The use of fossil fuels has corrupted the planetary climate; that and their depletion will mean the end of modernity and even civilization as we know it.

It would be a very depressing book if it ended after the first half.

But McKibben devotes the second half to lessons about how to change the way we are living to adapt to this new, less hospitable planet, without fossil fuels. Once again, this is mostly not theory. Rather, he tells stories of what people and communities are actually doing now, and predicts such strategies and tactics will continue.

Somewhat surprisingly, McKibben is very upbeat. This is not about hoarding foodstuffs and retreating to armed compounds. Though he allows that it could deteriorate to this. But mainly McKibben talks about things getting smaller, more diverse, and more local. He does a lot of quoting of Thomas Jefferson. (There is in fact a whole section on the history of the American Revolution.)

Conservation is important, especially now as we try to wean ourselves off oil. I thought of the eco-mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle, repair.

In the end it is a remarkably hopeful book. It attempts to point a creative and positive way forward through what will certainly be a very difficult time for the whole planet. I hope he is not being overly optimistic.

Tangentially, McKibben's earlier and first book, The End of Nature, now a classic, sounded more like the prophet Jeremiah: warning about a future disaster. Eaarth sounds more like the prophet Ezekiel, in a way, in that he is dealing with a disaster that is now happening, and he is seeking to hold/bring together a remnant faithful community.

The first half of the book also reminded me of the Native American Ghost Dance movement in the 1890's. That was also a response of lament and hope to a catastrophic end of a whole civilization. Much of this part of Eaarth could be read liturgically as a litany of mourning for a planet we destroyed. And the second part is almost a credal statement outlining the way to survival on this new planet.

Read it.