Created as a collaboration between World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Ben Lee and Leo Burnett, “Space Monkey” carries a message about our planet, and features Ben Lee’s track, “Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe”.
This is a pretty interesting ad by the World WIldlife Fund that causes us to think about what the planet look like if we were to spend the next 65 years in space and then return…
Often times in the church our response to ads like this, or even a conversation about taking care of the planet is “This world is not my home, I’m just passin’ on through,” and we discard or disregard our communal responsibility to the resources that God has given us. Our poor theology has given us license to participate in the continual cycle of destroying the beauty within the world that God has created for us to enjoy.
Going green seems to be a new fad within our country (perhaps because evangelicalism has lost its grip on culture). In years past the month of April has been dedicated to celebrating green living by networks such as NBC by changing their logo green and doing more PSA’s to raise awareness of sustainable living within the world. But I wonder if it’s really changing the dialogue within our culture. I have the privilege of living in the second “greenest city” in the United States, San Francisco, just a smidgen behind Portland, Oregon as the greenest. Everywhere you turn there are recycling bins, compost bins, solar power, green spaces, rooftop gardens, etc… it’s at the forefront of conversation within our city. However, whenever I take a trip anywhere outside SF I find the conversation to be non-existent. Is “Earth Month” really doing much?
I think a lot of the challenge or resistance to this dialogue is as a result of our theology as a church (even though evangelicalism has lost its grip on culture, in a great majority of the country the reverberations of dominance are still being felt). This is a topic of conversation that the church should be leading the way in, yet our “evacuation theology”–this world is not my home, I’m just passing on through–causes us to be poor stewards of what God has gifted us and in turn push the conversation to the fringe as unimportant… If this conversation will gain any traction throughout the Church and if the Church is to lead the way, we must first move away from this “evacuation theology” narrative and towards the narrative of Scripture. We must move away from our understanding of the earth as resource to be used and abused because it’s going to be destroyed and begin to see it as a precious gift that God gave to us to reveal himself to us. I wonder what it would look like for us (the church) to change this conversation, to change our narrative and lead the way?
Something to think about: If God used General Revelation to communicate to us his presence and love (the use of nature and natural means outside of Scripture), then why would it not be a good thing to preserve this method of communication for future generations–not to mention ourselves?
Related posts:
- conversant with don carson
- post-emergent.
- sexual innuendo’s and church signs.
- sunday, bloody sunday…
- the doctrine of preemption.
