Call Me Mister Yes-But

John Richards' blog links us to this article by Bill Moyers about the bizarre beliefs of some fundmentalist Christians ("The delusional is no longer marginal"). Their confidence in the imminence of the divinely-mandated end of the world and the "rapture" that will save believing Christians (while all others are consigned to eternal hellfire) means that they don't fear war in the Middle East, which is merely a sign of the end-times, to be welcomed rather than shunned. Nor do they worry about global warming, energy shortages, or any other possible environmental disaster. As Moyer reports:

[T]hese people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie . . . that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth . . . while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."

For me as a Christian, this philosophy is insidious precisely because of the element of truth it contains. Yes, the Lord will provide ("consider the lilies of the field"). Yes, God wants humans to enjoy life and its abundance. And yes, the world contains resources sufficient to support its population in comfort. BUT to leap from these assurances to the conclusion that environmental protection, careful husbanding of resources, and sharing of wealth to meet the needs of the poor are "secular or socialist" errors betraying a lack of faith in God is absurd.

Genesis makes it clear that we humans were given stewardship over the earth. A steward has what we might today call a "fiduciary responsibility": He holds property in trust and is responsible for passing it on to its rightful owner, or to the next steward, in better shape than when he received it. This is what environmentalism is all about. To take the Bible's assurances that God will care for humans as license to waste and ruin his creation is as if a teenager were to say, "Hey, my dad loves me and always will--so let's take his Porsche out for a joyride with a couple of six-packs."

Have pity on us progressive Christians! Life would be so much simpler if we could simply join our secular friends in denouncing the superstitious idiocy of the fundamentalists. But although I think the fundamentalists' reading of the Bible is deeply misguided, I respect the fact that they actually take God seriously as a factor in human history (as opposed to ignoring him completely, as secularists do). Not only do I think the fundamentalists are right about this--that is, I agree with their premise that God exists and is actively engaged in the course of world events--but as a purely political matter, we progressives will needlessly alienate millions of well-meaning people if we behave as if the only alternative to fundamentalism is atheism.

So rather than mocking the fundamentalists, I find myself constantly wanting to respond to them with a more nuanced, "Yes, BUT." In a world with little patience for nuance, it's a tough position to occupy--but I don't see any honest alternative.