Rapture Factor in Wildlife Conservation
I would like to direct your attention to a speech by Bill Moyers entitled ‘There is no Tomorrow’. The speech was delivered at Harvard Medical School in late 2004. Moyers is a well-regarded journalist and the former host of ‘NOW with Bill Moyers’ on PBS. I think the speech is tremendously important since it speaks to the (im)moral values that inform the current and future politics of wildlife conservation.
Moyers argues that delusional theological and ideological ideas in culture and government pose a particularly dire threat to the well-being of people, animals and nature. He takes particular aim at fundamentalist notions of ‘the rapture’, since it excuses a wholesale disregard for peace, justice and environmental integrity.
You can find Moyers comments online at the TruthOut website, www.truthout.org/docs_04/120504G.shtml. The rapture index and associated ideas can be found at www.raptureready.com. The wildly popular fundamentalist fantasy novels of the Left Behind series are available from www.leftbehind.com and major bookstores everywhere. A random blog that came my way, the Palm Tree Pundit, nicely encapsulates Moyers larger points about our moral/cultural/political challenge, palmtreepundit.blogspot.com. I mention this blog not as a direct example of rapture theology. Rather it represents a constellation of American conservative values that, often unintentionally, has damaging consequences for people, animals and nature. Once again, in both science and politics, it is ethics that matters most.
Cheers, Bill
William Lynn :: Feb.23.2005 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Religion :: 5 Comments »
5 Responses to “Rapture Factor in Wildlife Conservation”
Bill,
I was surprised to see my blog mentioned in your post, especially connecting me with Left Behind fans – I am not one! After our email exhange, and your subsequent editing of the post, I’m still surprised at the sweeping generalization of Christians and conservatives (and me), as having values which have “damaging consequences for people, animals, and nature.”
I’m also surprised that a person whose profession is ethics would make a blanket statement, especially without presenting any facts to back up the accusations.
So now I’m curious: How exactly do my values threaten people, animals, and nature?
And what is the basis for your ethics?
Bill,
You need to get out more. Meet some “fundamental Christians,” I think you may have to reconsider some of your comments. I find it curious that someone professionally focused on “ethics” would make such a broad, unsubstantiated statement; smearing a whole swath of people.
At my church, you can walk around my parking lot and see tons of CCA, DU, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, etc stickers on cars. Heck, there was even a prayer circle at the last Bay Clean-up. My church, by your measure probably a bunch of rapture crazed snake handlers, isn’t alone. Down the street, the left leaning Episcopal Church has plenty of Sierra Club, HSUS, PETA stickers.
My daughter goes to a Christian school that visits nursing homes. They also teach “stewardship” of God’s creations. Have you head of Samaritans Purse? Do you know that it was Christian missionaries and relief organizations that were the first to aid Tsunami victims?
You sound like a reasonable person that lives in a very insular, echo chamber world bounded by academia and The Nation magazine. Find a Southern Baptist or Catholic Church in you neighborhood and stop by for Wed. Bible study! Call it fieldwork.
If you walk into a garden supply shop or a nursery anywhere in the country, you’re likely to trip over bird baths and statuary depicting a famous Christian conservationist, Saint Francis of Assisi.
If you read the Christian bible, you’ll find Jesus citing God’s care for the lillies of the field and the sparrows. You’ll also find that Christians are called to be stewards (not masters) of God’s creation.
Nothing about any of that is incompatible with wildlife conservation or treading lightly on the Earth– that’s why Moyers was mistaken, and why I don’t understand your beef with Christianity.
Just FYI, I’ve tracked back to your post. See: http://bookwormroom.blogspot.com/2005/03/christians-and-progress.html
To give you fair warning, I take (polite) issue with your premise.
The bible addresses today’s religious people quite well:
2 Peter 2
False Teachers and Their Destruction
1But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
The Jesus I know and love is not the same Jesus the religious right worships. The churchianity practiced today is a worldly institution instead of the spritual organism that is the true church of Jesus Christ. The way of truth has been brought into disrepute these days especially by members of the religious right. If the real Jesus walked into one of today’s megachurches and told the “senior pastor” to sell everything and give the money to the poor, they’d be trying to kill Jesus just like their religious ancestors did in the Bible. Times change, religious people don’t. The Romans did’nt want to crucify Jesus, the religious people did…