The following is an excerpt from a paper entitled, “Kingdom Postponement: A Watershed Doctrine for the Dispensational Worldview,” presented at the 2021 Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics.
Current trends in Christian ecojustice[1] are posing threats to the divine institution of responsible labor by distorting the role that man plays in nature and ascribing guilt to Christianity for industrial use of natural resources. This often comes as a direct attack against the Bible as “Environmentalists think that latent within the Biblical commands to subdue and fill the Earth is the concept that people may exploit nature for selfish or even greedy purposes.”[2] Certain unsettling ecothological movements have generally stayed among Christian academia in recent decades, but they could be permeating Christian laity in years to come.
For example, the Hodos Institute is an Evangelical academic institution with an agenda to promote its ecotheology among Eastern Orthodox and Evangelical[3] Christians in Ukraine and Russia. Hodos has recently taken a survey and determined that “In general, Christians of both traditions fundamentally shared the belief that the main value of nature and animals was as a resource for satisfying the biological needs of humankind.”[4] They clarify:
For example, one Evangelical interviewee said, “The role of animals is to be our transport (like donkeys, horses), be our ‘living canned food,’ be materials for experiments. But animals haven’t been promised eternal life. They don’t have the ‘superstructure’ of the human spirit”. An Orthodox priest put it similarly, “Nature was created for humans. Sun, sea, water, air, the earth that feeds the whole population of the planet,—these are the exceptional providence of God for a human”.[5]
This shows that Christians intuitively believe that man is above nature (with the obvious call for responsibility), which is in line with the plain reading of the Biblical text,[6] but the researchers rebuked the interviewees, saying “This utilitarian and anthropocentric view has little to do with the Bible and/or Christian tradition and rather is rooted in the modernistic worldview. It is also rotted [sic] in the anthropocentric view of the salvific work of Christ and in the anthropocentric eschatological perspectives.”[7] A closer look at the roots of this ecotheological movement will show that the opposite is true, that ecojustice is based on an anti-biblical worldview that is more akin to postmodernism with roots in anti-biblical atheism and anti-biblical Eastern philosophy.[8]
Contemporary Christian ecotheologians borrow much from atheist perspectives on environmentalism. Much of the ecology debate between atheists and conservatives boils down to the debate between the Biblical worldview, which draws a clear distinction between the Creator and creation, as contrasted to the atheist worldview that sees a continuity of being between nature and a common source. Consider, for example, a quote from the atheist, Niel deGrasse Tyson:
We are all connected; To each other, biologically, to the earth, chemically, and to the rest of the universe, atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe; we’re part of the universe. We’re in the universe and the universe is in us.[9]
Notice the continuity. To the atheist, all life shares a common origin in the primordial soup whence life evolved. Moreover, we share origins with all matter since we were together in the Big Bang. This concept has been labeled “Continuity of Being,” and is similar to Pagan myths and Eastern philosophy, as opposed to the biblical view of “Creator/Creation Distinction.”
The continuity of being from evolutionary cosmogony has always been a driving force behind atheist ecology,[10] but the merge with Christianity into modern ecotheology is typically traced to a lecture delivered by a medieval historian named Lynn White Jr. in 1966 at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The text of the lecture was later published as an article entitled, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.”[11] While White identified as “a churchman,”[12] he also accepted the narrative of evolution and concluded that man is not superior to nature. White shames Christianity for their attitudes that “Despite Darwin, we are not, in our hearts, part of the natural process. We are superior to nature, contemptuous of it, willing to use it for our slightest whim.”[13] White summarizes his conclusion:
We would seem to be headed toward conclusions unpalatable to many Christians. Since both science and technology are blessed words in our contemporary vocabulary, some may be happy at the notions, first, that, viewed historically, modern science is an extrapolation of natural theology and, second, that modern technology is at least partly to be explained as an Occidental, voluntarist realization of the Christian dogma of man’s transcendence of, and rightful mastery over, nature. But, as we now recognize, somewhat over a century ago science and technology—hitherto quite separate activities—joined to give mankind powers which, to judge by many of the ecologic effects, are out of control. If so, Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt.[14]
White praised the beatniks of those days because they “show a sound instinct in their affinity for Zen Buddhism, which conceives of the man-nature relationship as very nearly the mirror image of the Christian view.”[15] It seems that from the beginning of the movement, Christian ecojustice has had roots in atheism and eastern philosophy;[16] indeed, Christian ecotheology has become dominated by panentheism (“God in all”),[17] which is softer than pantheism (“God is all”), but even non-dispensational Evangelicals[18] have identified this as a problematic doctrine.[19]
Ecojustice crosses several lines of demarcation that dispensational and non-dispensational conservatives alike should be willing to draw, but the dispensationalist has additional grounds for rejecting Christian ecojustice based on the kingdom programs that are prevalent in ecotheological trends. For example, Laura Ruth Yordy considers herself an ecotheology apologist who sees “Christianity as overgrown by weeds that obscure and choke its ecological guidance.”[20] Yordy proposes that the Christian life is a witness that demands ecojustice, which she clarifies:
By witness I mean a particular understanding of discipleship in which the communal lives of the disciples testify, through character, worship, and action, to the Kingdom of God as inaugurated, preached, demonstrated, and promised by Jesus Christ…
The Kingdom is not a generic ideal that Jesus happened to talk about during his ministry, but the realization of his redemption of the world. And redemption is another way of describing “bringing back to God.” So Christians witness to Christ and his work of ultimately returning all of creation back to God; that return, or communion, is the Kingdom….
Nonetheless, the Kingdom has only been inaugurated, not fulfilled, so that disciples continue to run the risk of being taunted, threatened, persecuted, or killed. Only when God establishes the Kingdom, when the Reign is fulfilled, will death be vanquished entirely.[21]
In other words, Yordy recognizes that a fundamental aspect of her ecotheological system is that the Christian life is to declare the kingdom as an already/not yet reality that grows “already” as Christians restore creation, while still anticipating a future, “not yet,” establishment of the kingdom.
This treatment of the “already” kingdom is key to many forms of Christian ecojustice. The Red Letter Christian Movement (to be discussed more thoroughly below) is a Christian movement with an ecojustice agenda. One of the founders of the movement has said:
Jesus said that this peaceable kingdom [of Isaiah 11:6] is already breaking loose in our midst. He said, “The kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21 isv). I see signs of the kingdom here and now, and I believe that his kingdom is increasing before our eyes. To be a kingdom people is to join God in what he’s doing, and to participate with God in rescuing nature from the mess we’ve made of it.[22]
Notice that he begins with an inaugurated kingdom that is “breaking loose” today. The result is legalism, as instead of accepting God’s promises as guarantees that He will fulfill, the promises become mandates that men must fulfill instead. However, if indeed the kingdom is not “already,” then it is not currently “breaking loose in our midst.” In other words, the theological side of this form of ecojustice falls apart if indeed the kingdom has been postponed.
After starting the Christian ecotheology revolution, Lynn White once remarked that he was amazed at how quickly churches abandoned “the old scion of Man’s Dominion over Nature,”[23] which includes what is referred to here as the divine institution of responsible labor. The issue is a matter of worldview; churches in the 1960s and 1970s simply were not prepared to defend the divine institutions. By no means must one be a dispensationalist to recognize the problems in the emergent trends in Christian environmentalism, but a proper understanding of the kingdom postponement and all that it entails is beneficial to developing a distinctly dispensational worldview that is safeguarded from current trends in ecotheology.
[1] Ecojustice is an odd term. A New Testament word that the NKJV often translates as “justice” is κρίσις (Matt. 12:18, 20; 23:23; Luke 11:42; Acts 8:33), which the KJV most frequently translates as “judgment” and occasionally even “damnation” (Matt. 23:33; John 5:29). Another NKJV word for “justice” is δίκη (Acts 28:4), which the KJV renders as “vengeance.” These words have negative connotations in the Greek, likely being related to κρίνω, which deals with separating, judging, and condemning (see Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2010), I.780–81, κρίνω). Are ecojustice advocates calling for eco-damnation, eco-judgment, or eco-vengeance? Not necessarily. It seems that ecojustice adopts the buzzword, “justice,” which is stripped of its actual meaning, and ecotheologians simply follow the world.
[2] R. Mark Musser, Nazi Ecology: The Oak Sacrifice of the Judeo-Christian Worldview in the Holocaust (Taos, NM: Dispensational Publishing House, 2018), 21.
[3] “The term ‘Evangelicals’ is used to denote those who belong to various Russian and Ukrainian Baptist, Pentecostal, and charismatic congregations.” Alexander Negrov and Alexander Malov, “Eco-Theology and Environmental Leadership in Orthodox and Evangelical Perspectives in Russia and Ukraine,” 18.
[4] Ibid., 8.
[5] Ibid.
[6] The researchers note, “it was noted that in expressing personal theological perspectives on ecology and ecological responsibility, Evangelical interviewees mainly concentrated on the biblical texts and used literal understanding of the Bible, while Orthodox respondents made references to the writings of the Church Fathers and used allegorical (figurative) understanding of biblical passages that they cited.” While the Eastern Orthodox use a different hermeneutic, they still seem to arrive at a similar conclusion. Alexander Negrov and Alexander Malov, “Eco-Theology and Environmental Leadership in Orthodox and Evangelical Perspectives in Russia and Ukraine,” 15–16.
[7] Ibid., 16–17.
[8] On the eastern and western influences of postmodernism, see Philippa Berry, “Postmodernism and post-religion” in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism, Steven Connor, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 20060), 168–181.
[9] Neil deGrasse Tyson, “We Are Star Stuff – Cosmic Poetry.” Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QADMMmU6ab8
[10] A chilling aspect of environmentalist history is the role that Ernst Haeckel, the 19th century German zoologist who even coined the term, “ecology,” played in the eventual development and rise of National Socialism. See R. Mark Musser, Nazi Ecology, 128 ff.
[11] Lynn White Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” Science 155:3767 (March 10, 1967), 1203–1207.
[12] Ibid., 1206.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] The Eastern philosophy has emerged to the surface again in a recent call for Asian Christians to participate in interfaith dialogue “for the development of contextual intersectional or liberationist ecotheologies which may redress this inequality” with practitioners of traditional religions, Buddhists, Confucians, and Daoists. See Anna Kirkpatrick-Jung, Tanya Riches, Towards East Asian Ecotheologies of Climate Crisis Religions 11:7 (2020), DOI:10.3390/rel11070341.
[17] As a notable exception, the socio-ecologist, Brian Snyder, modifies some panentheistic ecotheologies for a novel ecotheological perspective from the Creator/creation distinction (which he calls dualism), not in opposition to the former, but as “an alternative means of arriving at the same place.” See Brian F. Snyder, “Christian Environmental Ethics and Economic Stasis” Worldviews 23 (2019), 154–170.
[18] See, for example, Oliver D. Crisp “Against Mereological Panentheism” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11:2 (2019), 23–41.
[19] Some ecotheologians would disagree on the importance of an orthodox understanding of God. Laura Ruth Yordy makes the shocking statement, “The anxiety about pantheism, nature-worship, or other sorts of paganism overshadows the concern about creation. But why, in a culture as nature-despising as our own, should nature-worship be of such concern? It is almost as if we hesitate to feed the starving children in Afghanistan lest we make them fat.” Laura Ruth Yordy, Green Witness, 41.
[20] Laura Ruth Yordy, Green Witness, 40.
[21] Ibid., 85–86, 90.
[22] Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo, Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said? (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 103–104.
[23] The full quote is: As the inadvertent founder, it would seem, of the Theology of Ecology, I confess amusement at the speed with which the Churches have abandoned the old scion of Man’s Dominion over Nature for the equally Biblical position of Man’s Trusteeship of Nature. Since the Churches remain, despite some competition, the chief forges for hammering out values, this is important. I feel that before too long, however, they will find themselves going on to the third legitimately Biblical position, that Man is part of a democracy of all God’s creatures, organic and inorganic, each praising his Maker according to the law of its being. Quoted by Matthew T. Riley, “A Spiritual Democracy of All God’s Creatures: Ecotheology and the Animals of Lynn White Jr.” in Divinanimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology, Stephen D. Moore, ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 241.