Second Coming Ecology
Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, my children were leaving the little Presbyterian church in College Place, Washington, where they had been attending a program. They looked up at the sky, and a verse they had read in the Bible leapt to their minds. Jesus said that in the last days, the sun would be darkened, and the moon would not give its light. The sky was so preternaturally dark that my girls thought that the end of the world was upon us. They joined hands and ran the several blocks to our home.
What had happened was the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in U.S. history. Mount St. Helens had blown its dome, killing 57 people and destroying 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railway, and 185 miles of highway. The ash cloud darkened our skies, and the nasty stuff settled on our houses and yards and cars, making it impossible to drive without clogging the air intakes and harming the engines.
It was tricky to cope with the event for the next few weeks, but the damage near our home was minor compared with what people in western Washington had to deal with. But for my little girls—for just a moment—it was the end of the world.
Christians have consistently been end-of-the-world people, with at least one eye on matters related to eschatology or "last things"—final judgment, the second coming of Christ, death and the resurrection of the dead, the renewal of Creation, and the coming of God's rule in its fullest and most visible expression. Yet contemporary realities have forced Christians to explore what it means to be an anticipatory people with a strong orientation to these last things when facing environmental degradation, and perhaps even environmental disaster.
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Vinita Wright
Thank you for an exploration of this topic that takes us past the surface arguments and into the specifics of a Christian worldview. Nicely done!
J.S. Brooks
To the assertion that humanity cannot destroy the planet: this is true to a point. While we cannot obliterate the mighty sphere upon which we live, we can contaminate the Earth’s delicate ecosystem enough to make life on Earth for its dominant species impossible. Those who can, should reflect upon the narrative God has left us in the Earth’s crust, a story of one dominant species after another dying out as the global environment changed in ways beyond which they could adapt. The current rise in asthma rates should give you pause. God has given us free will and powerful, reasoning minds and God expects us to use them well … but God grants us the freedom to use them poorly as well, even to our extinction. God has already allowed us to damage portions of this planet enough from time to time that we have been forced to flee them. Look no further than the early 20th century "dust bowl" for an example.
mark
I can tell you so much about global warming in the bible. God used global warming when creating the the earth(Gen1:6,7)
Ephrem Hagos
Even if we do not understand it (for no other reason than our disobedience to undertake training in discipleship), the Second Coming of Christ has already taken place at His glorious death on the cross! There is time to check it up.
J.S. Brooks
Creation is a gift and one that it is our responsibility to tend and to love as it reflects our Creator's love for us all. The vision of one kingdom under God in which all unite is beautiful and tasks us to reach out to others. To do so we must put aside our bickering and our biases and the skewed views of humanity each and every culture and tribe produces. Rather than seeing them as others, we need to see them as neighbors and wish them well just as we wish ourselves well. To be effective stewards of God's creation we will need to work together toward that goal. Christians will need to work together despite our disparate views and disparate preferences, both those who believe in inerrancy and those who believe in infallibility, those of conservative ilk and those of liberal strain. Eschatology as presented here gives us a grand vision of Creation and grand goals to strive for each and every day.