NATURAL FORMATION

‘Our convictions, however much they may be thought of as the conclusions of arguments, are often heavily indebted to environmental factors we fail to perceive because we are too close to them’. So writes Dale Allison as he explores the connection between practical things in our lives and our inclinations to believe or disbelieve in God and truth. As a people of Christian tradition, our slide into secularistic disbelief may very well be linked to our distancing our lives from the natural world, creation. Allison claims that,’ the more we have moved indoors, the less some of us have been inclined to believe. Reflection soon reveals that this fact is not mysterious. There are several good and manifest reasons why this should be the case’. Indeed, the apostle Paul writes in Romans that, ‘ever since the creation of the world God’s invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made’. It makes perfect sense that as we remove ourselves from the testimony bearing witness to our Creator that we might very well forget him altogether. So what exactly do we lose from living our lives in a man-made environment? Allison speaks of four things. First we lose our sense of wonder and awe. We no longer stand before many examples of things that we know of but cannot truly comprehend. Stars, birth and life cycles, the instincts of a bird flying to a home it has never been to, the change of a caterpillar into a butterfly, etc…. Transcendence is reduced to manageable facts that we store in our brains. Secondly, we lose the sense of fear, lack of control and even terror. ‘Industrialization, despite its many attendant miseries and consequent lamentations…has left in its wake a self-centered confidence in human beings. Even all the horrors of the twentieth century have not undone this confidence’. Christianity has always debunked the illusion that we are self-sufficient. That we control our lives. That we can solve our deepest problems. Thirdly, the mass migration of people from the land or country into urban crowds has resulted in a law of inflation where too much of something results in the lack of its value. In this case we have come to strip mankind of his/her dignity. We also hold our neighbors a little less cherished within our hearts. A journey into a city ghetto can confirm the former and life in a suburban subdivision the latter. Fourth and finally, living far removed from the natural world distances us from scripture. I would also add truth. Can we really understand the images, metaphors and stories when we have little understanding of the elements within those things spoken of? Can we relate to the people whose stories are told? This goes way beyond crossing cultures and centuries. I am reminded that so very much of the truth that we often categorize as ‘spiritual’ is reflected here in the material reality. A friend of mine teaches at a local junior high as a guest speaker twice a year. He speaks about the history and current economies of fur trading in America. To begin his lesson he reviews basic assumptions and realities of living. One of these is that for someone or creature to live, another creature must die. It is a truth of sacrifice resulting in life (perhaps best illustrated in the life of Jesus Christ). To make the connection with students my friend draws upon their own experience. He gives the example of how cows give their life for us to be nourished from hamburgers, steaks, etc… Sadly, in recent years no sixth graders knew that they were in fact eating the flesh of an animal. A hamburger was some food found curiously enough within natural plastic/foam boxes. Allison goes on to also explain, ‘Furthermore, the theological abandonment of the natural world, the handing over of it to the scientists, meant the sundering of the sacred and the secular…leaving us without a way of relating God to our environment’. Even to our very lives.

So all this begs the question. Why would we separate ourselves from creation, God, human dignity, beauty, mystery, understanding of truth? Perhaps many answers have been lived out throughout the years of this age. Today’s answer would seem to be linked with Allison’s second loss. We forfeit much that we might hold firmly onto comfort and the illusion of control.