Tread lightly on the things of earth

This Salon Premium article by Glenn Scherer highlights the aspect of current U.S. leadership I find most untenable and, for that matter, unforgiveable (save by God alone, maybe): George Bush’s war on nature.

Republican anti-environmentalism that results from putting immediate economic interests above all else (also known as greed) is at least comprehensible, albeit repugnant. But the right-wing conservative tendency to abuse Jesus’ teaching and Christian tradition to justify a mad consumption of the earth’s resources — “we’re gonna be raptured out anyway” — how can that be forgiven?

In light of our being charged as stewards of God’s good creation [1], how are we to answer to overseeing its destruction?

If we “see dying coral reefs, melting ice caps and other environmental destruction not as an urgent call to action but as God’s will,” how is this fantasy ideology any less destructive than that of radical Islam?

In closing the article, Glenn tells the story of ancient Sumer, one of the world’s earliest civilizations, on whose ruins modern Iraq is built. Under Sumerian skill the desert bloomed and fed many, a “human-made paradise.” But the Sumerians paid little attention to the damage they were doing to their lands in pursuit of more, more, more; by their inattention and unconcern they “destroyed the natural basis of their wealth.” What was their Eden is now barren desert. Similarly, Glenn points out,

While able to wield the greatest war machine in history, [America seems] unable to squarely face the threat of climate change, to clean up deadly coal-burning power plants or nuclear waste that could contaminate the planet for millennia. We, like Sumer, seem ready to march off to war and ask for answers from the stars, while ignoring the sinking fortunes of our own fields and forests.

I am saddened to tears by this refusal to accept stewardship responsibility, this disdain for creation. The Jesus I know weeps, too.

[1] See Christians for Environmental Stewardship for a thoughtful list of scripture references.