This Week

The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, 
cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; 
upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the 
days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, 
and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, 
and you will strike his heel." To the woman he said, 
"I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; 
in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall 
be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." 
And to the man he said, "Because you have listened to the voice 
of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, 
'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; 
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; 
and you shall eat the plants of the field.  
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return 
to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, 
and to dust you shall return."
----Genesis 3:4-19
	
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth 
comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing 
of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, 
not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, 
in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage 
to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 
and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first 
fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, 
the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. 
Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?  
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 
----Romans 8:18-25

Especially since the Enlightenment, many Protestants have identified 
their faith with a very individualistic relation to God and to neighbor. 
The rest of creation has either dropped out of the picture, been viewed 
sentimentally, or been seen as a field of conquest. This form of 
Christianity has lent itself to cooperation with the dominant economic 
order and the theory that supports it. For this reason, the fact that 
these teachings are simple and basic ones does not mean that the 
theological task of repentance and transformation is an easy one. 
The deep separation Protestants have often made between creation 
and redemption must be overcome. Without losing the important truth 
in individualism, Protestants must recover an authentic doctrine of 
the church and also of the wider human community. Without ceasing to 
appreciate the distinctiveness of human beings as made in the image 
of God, Protestants must overcome the modern dualism between human 
beings and the remainder of the created order that modern hermeneutics 
has imposed on the Bible. There is much work to be done. 
---- John Cobb Jr, "Christian Faith and the Degradation of Creation," 
Simpler Living, Compassionate Life

Our generation can bring to an end to the bloody history of wars, 
the degradation and destruction of Earth and with the grace and 
help of God see Earth's redemption. We can bring into being the golden age. 
We have the raw materials, the knowledge, the technology. 
We have the means today to provide a healthy, peaceful, creative future 
for every man, woman and child on Earth. 
---- www.earthsite.org/yes82pu.htm, Earth Care Campaign, 1982

Two years ago, the American Museum of Natural History took a poll 
among biologists. They asked a simple question: 
Are we in the middle of a mass extinction? 
Seventy percent said yes....
We happen to be in that moment when the worst thing that's 
happened to the earth in sixty-five million years is happening now. 
That's number one. Number two, we are causing it. 
Number three, we're not aware of it. 
----Brian Swimme, "Comprehensive Compassion," What is Enlightenment, Spring/Summer 2001

• Do you think God cursed the earth? Why does the earth groan? Does the earth need redemption?
• Does the earth need redemption or does the earth need to be saved from us?
• How are we as faithful people supposed to care for the earth? Can we save it? Can we kill it?
• How does our theological and societal dualism (they way we think separately about mind/body) affect this issue?
• How do you find hope? What is God doing?