I enjoyed Avatar—a lot. But then I generally like sci-fi movies anyway. Of course, Avatar is widely seen as a pro-environmental movie, some might even say that it was radically so. It has already made the top ten green movies of all time in a number of lists (http://www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/top-10-environmental-films-of-all-time).

Christians rightly “pan” the pantheistic themes in the movie. Eywa is an energy force that pervades and binds everything together on the moon, Pandora. The native blue humanoids, the Na’vi, worship Eywa as a mother goddess. But in rejecting the pantheistic elements of Avatar Christians may go to the opposite extreme of separating humans from nature completely and ignoring our connectedness to everything on earth.

It seems to me that when it comes to how we relate to the natural world we are often confronted with only two alternatives. Either we go the pantheistic route or we go the dualistic route. One reacts to the other by going to the opposite extreme. But the opposite of one error is not necessarily the truth. The opposite of one error is often an error itself. Read on »

How about that! I actually saw a cerulean warbler. But it wouldn’t have happened without some help. At Lost Valley Trail in Weldon Spring, MO, I ran into a more experienced birder who went by the name, Rad. It was he who could identify the song of the Cerulean Warbler when we were in the deeper part of the forest. Once I could recognize the song, I just sat down until I could spot movement in the upper canopy and then focus in with my binoculars.

But that’s not all. Over the past few weeks, I saw for the first time the following: Cerulean Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Worm Eating Warbler, Yellow Throated Warbler, Yellow-bellied Chat, American Redstart, Hooded Warbler, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Ovenbird, Eastern Bluebird, Swainson’s Thrush, Wood Thrush, Brown Thrasher, Red-Eyed Vireo, Killdeer, American Kestrel, Eastern Kingbird, Northern Oriole, Northern Flicker, Rose-breasted Grossbeak, and my favorite, the Pileated Woodpecker. These twenty-one hardly compare with experienced birders who might identify a hundred or more on a single day. But it’s a start!

It’s been fun and rejuvenating to reconnect to nature. Pope John Paul wrote  “Our very contact with nature has a deep restorative power; contemplation of its magnificence imparts peace and serenity” (“For the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, 1 January 1990). He spoke of peace with God the Creator and Peace with all of creation. Discovering the beauty of creation and our connection to it will be something that we’ll explore in future posts.

A few weeks ago I reviewed a fascinating book by Scott Weidensaul about the migration of birds in the western hemisphere. Here in St. Louis, we are in the peak week when the highest number of birds migrate through on their way to their northern breeding grounds. It is a time of delightful discovery of God’s creatures. Why birds? Two reasons.

First, as Jonathon Rosen points out, birds connect us with nature. In fact, they are about what’s left of the wild nature that lives among us (aside from insects). At the same time, as we learn about them they they draw us deeper into the woods, the meadows, and the swamps where we go to discover more of them (Audubon, March-April 2008, 138-139).

Second, birds can introduce us to nearly every kind of habitat (and the ecologies of those habitats) that exists on earth. So the more one goes birding the more one becomes acquainted with a variety of successional habitats from woodlands to riverlands to grasslands along with the niches filled by various creatures.

I hope to see a Cerulean Warbler this spring. It is something of a poster “child” for shade grown coffee. In the winter it lives in the canopies of old forests in Latin America, many of which are being cut down in order to make way for sun-grown coffee. A few cerulean warblers, I learned, can still be found in the riparian woods west of St. Louis.

Last year in a little article, “Can Lutherans Observe Earth Day?” I asked if being theologically conservative required us to be politically conservative on social issues like the environment. After all, Luther’s recovery of the Gospel led him to revalue creation as our good home. This year, I’ve inquired into what some of our  schools are doing in this area.

Concordia University-Austin recently moved to a new property on which there is a wilderness preserve. Within this context, Prof. Paul Puffe has conducted a seminar called “Christian Creation Care” year for students that combines a growing awareness of our connectedness to the wider creation with training in the “Leave No Trace” program.

Concordia University-Wisconsin, located on Lake Michigan, has established the Concordia Center for Environmental Stewardship (CCES). Under the leadership of Prof. David Bessert, it will provide research and education programs related to the Great Lakes ecosystems, wetlands, and fresh water issues. This week, a student led group called Project Eden is sponsoring a number of discovery and servant events in connection with Earth Day.

In the past students at Concordia Seminary have set up a booth at the earth day celebration in Tower Grove Park and will do so again this year. In addition, we are celebrating God’s creation in chapel after which students and faculty will plant trees in an area that has seen numerous trees lost to disease.

I am greatly encouraged!

My colleague, Tim Saleska, put me on to an op-ed in the New York Times regarding a ballot initiative that was passed by Californians to ban certain factory farm practices. In particular, it states that farm animals cannot be confined for their entire lives to cages in which they cannot move.

I’m glad that it passed. But not because I support “animal rights.” The author believes that the passage of the measure shows that the “animal rights” movement has become a mainstream issue. The problem with the “rights” approach is that it blurs the distinction between human creatures and non-human creatures.

As Christians we reject the notion of our “kinship” with other animals as developed by Darwin. But we can’t correct this error by rejecting our common creatureliness. That’s why I like Luther’s phrase, “together with all creatures.” It can highlight our common creatureliness while maintaining our distinctive creatureliness.”

I thus find the “compassionate” approach of Matthew Scully (a Christian, Republican, and a vegetarian) in Dominion to be more helpful than a “rights” approach to the question of animal welfare. This approach recognizes that we care for a creation “in travail” (Rom 8). This side of the new creation we (vegetarian or non-vegetarian) are not be able to live without harming other creatures—try as we might. We can only seek to limit that harm. And we can act out of compassion for the well-being of other creatures.