manna?

Neopaganism…………..

Posted by rjberner

It was suggested last Sunday that those who are concerned about global warming could be neopaganists, or people who, in fact, worship at the altar of worldly idolatry.

What a bummer. I’ve worked so hard to leave other altars and come to Christ only to find out that I am, in fact, a pagan after all. It must be a clever new attack on environmentalists because my wife’s employer suggested the same thing recently as he ranted once again against inane and irresponsible environmental regulations. No doubt he got this zing from one of Rush’s golden spews—where he gets his news and outlooks on life, in lieu of a hopelessly tainted liberal media.

My brother, the PhD cell physicist and Christian archconservative, gets passionately apoplexic whenever I push his global warming button (which I do at times just to watch him get passionate about something).

I just scratch my head in confusion. Why are archconservatives (neocons) so passionately against the possible (if not probable) dangers of runaway carbon emissions and global warming? Why it is such an anathema to them that they now suggest that it is an un-Christian myth? Please help me on this. We could debate the global warming “facts” until the cows leave home but it would be like a discussion between arch Republicans and diehard Democrats – ultimately meaningless. I just want to know the psychology underlying the refusal to consider the possibility (if not probability) that we are fouling our atmosphere and our children’s futures and that we could do something about it, as God-directed stewards of mother earth. 

Is it a “let go and let God” philosophy? Is it a belief that global warming zealots are playing into the hands of demon-inspired globalists? Is it the fact that random flatulence from 6+ billion people and at least as many animals dwarf our industrial emissions, so why worry? What?

I wonder if Rachel Carson was a neopagan when she opined about the effects of runaway DDT usage, among other things. Were those who worked so hard to control the indiscriminate use of chlorinated hydrocarbons neopagans? Are those who lobby for tighter controls on PM10 (and lower) heavy metal –laced particulates neopagans? If so, may God overlook their abject paganism and bless their caring souls. 

Comments:

1. OK, Ralph, OK.

   First of all, I was the one who said it, not “Manna” as some collective entity, so direct your comments to me, not the community as a whole.

   Second: the point I was making was NOT about global warming science or environmental concerns or Rachel Carson or DDT or whatever.  I apologize for not being more specific and clear and focused in my comments, but by NO stretch of the imagination was the context of the passage or the message or that point of the message a discussion of climate science or concern about the environment.

   Third: what I tried to communicate, and apparently didn’t do so with enough clarity, was that at the beginning of the 21st century we have different competing worldview categories than Paul mentions in the 1 Corinthians 1 text that we were studying.  Paul mentions Greek philosophy and Jewish eschatology as two views that the Gospel competed with.  What I tried to say is that today the Gospel competes with Materialism and Neo-Paganism.  I said that Neo-Paganism didn’t look beyond the physical earth to a transcendent Creator, but “worshipped” the creation itself in various ways.  This is, I believe, the definition of paganism in both its traditional and neo flavors and it jives with how Paul defines paganism in Romans, chapter 1.

   Now, IN THAT CONTEXT, and in order to give an example of Neo-Paganism I said that some elements of the Global Warming Movement (and the environmental movement as well), approach the issue from a neo-pagan worldview (I also gave the example of how Stonehenge in England is now regularly used for neo-pagan and earth-worship services).  I stand by that.  And I didn’t get it from Rush.  Even back when I was a teaching assistant in the University of Colorado, Boulder philosophy department the concept of “Gaia” was being bandied around and I could site innumerable examples of how SOME ELEMENTS of the environmental movement have been heavily influenced by a neo-pagan worldview, if the are actually not neo-pagans in fact.

   That does NOT mean that everyone who cares about the environment or is concerned about global warming or DDT or plastic six pack tops strangling sea gulls in the harbor or whatever is a neo-pagan.  To represent what I am saying as an indictment of anyone with environmental concerns is a distortion of my argument.  And what I’m saying has absolutely NOTHING to do with the debate over the scientific debate.

   Sometimes people can be for the right things for the wrong reasons and sometimes they can be for the wrong things for the right reasons.  For example… my daughter likes animals and doesn’t like the idea of cows getting made into hamburgers.  Fair enough.  There is nothing wrong with someone who thinks that we should be kind to animals because God wants us to show compassion to creatures or a 12 year old girl who thinks that cows are cute with their big eyes.  But that’s real different than someone who believes that humans and animals are moral and ethical equals, like some members of the animal rights movement do.

   In the same way there is a big difference between a Christian who believes that man has a stewardship responsibility to care for the environment and some radical environmental philosophers who consider mankind a kind of “parasitic virus” on the earth (those are their words).  Both think we should pollute less, etc. but for different reasons.

   So no, Manna doesn’t think that you are a neo-pagan because you care about the environment and I don’t either.  Maybe I should have been more precise in my comments, but I don’t apologize for believing that neo-pagan worldviews are serving as the philosophical justification for some elements of the 21st century environmental movement.  I think that’s true, but I know for a fact that there are many christian environmentalists, including YOU, who share the same concern for the environment but for different intellectual reasons.

   Posted by  on  04/08  at  06:15 PM

2. Thank you for your clarification Greg. And I apologize for blasting this in front of our spiritual community—to a point. I waited for the transcript of your message to be posted so I could hear again what was said, and then respond accordingly. But it didn’t show, (and it still isn’t there this morning). So my thinking was, if my small mind connected these dots, then I’m probably not alone. And if I hadn’t done so, then we wouldn’t have had the benefits of your response. Call me foolish (I am) but I think it needed your response.
   
   Perhaps we need a good session on idolatry. What the heck is it, really? If we intentionally (or accidentally) discredit a message by inferring that its disciples could be darkly motivated, then good people will tend to reject the message – Spin Doctoring 101. We all become frozen by our Christian / Judeo fear of idolatrous associations. And things (good and bad) stay the same. I know this wasn’t your motivation but minds can go there, trust me.

   Again, I know this wasn’t your message, but humor me. No doubt the authorities passed the word that John the Baptist’s tires were more than a little soft and that he was an idolatrous worshipper of asceticism. One of their favorite put downs for Jesus was that he could exorcise demons because he was one. If I had the pulpit and I inferred that fully 50% of mission workers were in it for Church-sponsored vacations and frequent flyer miles, I might do some serious damage to the mission movement in tropical locations. And then when I decide to go in judicial defiance (and for the miles), everybody will be too puckered up to expense a much needed cooler full of Red Stripe beer.

   Perhaps we should leave it all alone; re-read this; and let God sort it out because I can’t (or am afraid of the real answer):
   
   1Co 1:27-31
   27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
   28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are,
   29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.
   30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—
   31 that, as it is written, “HE WHO GLORIES, LET HIM GLORY IN THE LORD.”

   Posted by  on  04/09  at  10:29 AM

3. Ralph, I couldn’t agree more that we need to be careful not to commit certain logical fallacies when we generalize about groups.  To your example about missions: some people go on missions out of a desire for travel, etc. but not everyone who goes on mission trips does (btw, Paul makes the same point when he says that some preach Christ for different motives, etc.).  We can think of all sorts of examples like that.

   But in the context of talking about major worldviews and intellectual movements and what implications those events might have in the world (which was the context of my comments) we are inevitably going to step on some toes and risk offending some people.  For example:
   -Not all supporters of the war in Iraq are conservatives, but almost all conservatives are supporters of the war.
   -Not all supporters of free-trade are capitalists but almost all capitalists support free trade
   So far, so good?  What about this one:
   -Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all the terrorism in the world today comes from Muslims.  Ouch… so terrorism in the world today cannot be discussed without some discussion of what forces in the Muslim world are generating it.  That discussion could get us in trouble…
   And here’s the one that started this thread:
   -Not all environmentalists have a neo-pagan worldview but almost all neo-pagans today are environmentalists… and to discuss the intellectual conflict between Christianity and neo-paganism and important point of contention centers on how we understand environmentalism.

   See, I think that both Christians and Neo-Pagans (and Muslims and Atheists and Taoists and everyone else) can and should share a desire not to “poop where we eat” (can I say that?).  But we have a very different understanding of the relationship between man, deity, the earth, etc. and thus our fundamental motives may differ.

   In your original post you said that you didn’t know why Christian neo-cons get all wound up about Global Warming.  I think I know the answer, but I’ve always tried to keep politics out of the pulpit at Manna.  If you push my button too hard I may “go all in” and tell you what I really think, though… ;-)

   Incidentally, here’s an interesting article by Michael Crichton, hardly a neo-con, on some of the religious overtones of the Environmental Movement… http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html

   Posted by  on  04/09  at  11:40 AM

4. Hey Greg:
   We can disagree about many things. We do. And that’s great.

   Case in point: “terrorism” is a multi-edged sword that can be both passive and aggressive. We can talk about the socio-poilitical and economic “terrorism” that may in fact have spawned much of the militant terrorism we are witnessing today. Hopeless men (and women now) in Saudi Arabia and Egypt can speak volumes about that. Say what you will about Chinese leadership, but they knew that they were only a heartbeat away from a potentially world-shattering revolution near the end of Mao’s reign of terror and that things had to change. Only the incredible passivism of Ghandi prevented a real horror story in India to end the Brittish reign of colonial “terror” there. We can name other current examples around this world, ad nauseum. So I disagree about your statement that almost all the terrorism in the world today comes from Muslims. Do I condone militant terrorism? No. But we need to talk openly about both sides as we demonize Muslim jihadists.

   Personally, I can’t stand most environmental zealots, just as I can’t stand most zealots. They (environmental zealots) are about as much fun as a convention of ultra Reformed Baptists – with four times the egos. I was deep into the business in most of my career, so I know. Our current regime largely ignores the environment but Bill Clinton ( and, by association, Mr. Environmental Gore) virtually destroyed the credibility of the EPA, as quasi-legitimate environmental watchdogs in this country. The blame game can cover everybody. Few people know that and Mr. Crichton is correct on that count. Mr. Crighton is incorrect about environmentalism being a viable religion. Just because NIMBYS and Hari Crisnas show up to “environmental hearings” doesn’t mean “environmentalism” is a, shudder, “religion”. That’s too easy. The heavy lifting in environmental improvements has been and will continue to be founded in good science and applied engineering. Perhaps my son’s ultra simplistic form of “environmentalism” is more to my liking, namely: Everybody should do everything in their power to consume as much non-renewable energy as is humanly and economically possible, post haste, so that it’s gone—as soon as possible.  And he’s a research engineer with Toyota.

   Sooooooooo……not to beat this horse until it’s unrecognizable, but my original question still stands: “What is it about the global warming issue that yanks your cranks?” Educate me privately if we’ve exceeded the bounds of this forum.

   Thanks dude, and rock on........

   Posted by  on  04/10  at  11:21 AM

5. OK, last post on this.  First, let me clarify what I originally said and then let me respond to your original question:

   My original point had to do with early 21st century philosophical/worldview challenges to Christianity.  The context was Paul’s point that “Greeks look for wisdom and Jews look for signs, but we preach the Gospel… which seems foolish to both” (paraphrase).  What I said was that today the Gospel isn’t so much challenged by Greek philosophy or Jewish eschatology but by other intellectual movements, one of which is a resurgent neo-paganism.  And I made the point that one place that the average person can hear an almost neo-pagan worldview articulated is by some elements/spokespeople on the environmental/global warming left.  All our discussion aside, I stand by that comment.  It doesn’t indict everyone who is passionate about the environment but to deny the intellectual confluence of neo-paganism (especially in Europe) and the radical environmental left is unrealistic.

   Now, your original question which you ask again in your last post was: what is it about the global warming/environmental left that provokes such a strong reaction from Christian neo-cons.  Hmmmmmmmm… well, first of all I’m not comfortable with the whole “neo-con” thing.  I think it’s about as fair a term as “commie pinko.”

   The negative reactions come from a variety of sources.  Michael Cricton is neither a conservative nor a christian, to my best knowledge.  He reacts strongly to what he perceives as poorly executed science influencing public policy.  Evangelical Christians in America dislike the whiffs of religious overtones the pick up from some of the more sanctimonious environmental blowhards (and yes, there are Christian sanctimonious blowhards, even preacher types like me).  However, about 100 of the leading evangelical leaders in America, including people like Rick Warren ("Purpose Driven Life” author) all signed onto some big global-warming initiative claiming that our God-given responsibility to be stewards of the earth requires us to support reducing carbon emissions, etc.

   And political, economic conservatives react negatively to… well, I’m going to stop here.  I’ve always tried to keep politics out of the pulpit at manna and off the manna blog.

   I’ll tell you what… buy me a pint and I’ll tell you what I REALLY think…

   Posted by  on  04/10  at  01:57 PM