Apr 25 2006
A Christian conservative that actually gets it (regarding the environment, at least)
It’s often baffling when looking at conservatives and you wonder how certain things tie in with each other, such as how is laissez-faire capitalism tied to gun rights, or opposition to abortion to anti-environmentalism. In his book, ‘Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think’, congnitive scientist George Lakoff tries to shed some light on it by breaking it down into two metaphorical archetypes that use family: the ’strict father’ and the ‘nurturant parent’ models. It’s a bit of a scholarly book, but worth a read, for a lot of it makes sense.
In particular, environmentalism being of interest to me, I’ve always focussed on the anti-environmentalism prevalent in the evangelical movement. A line of thinking is one that ties in with dominionism, basically saying that Jesus is gonna return soon and destroy it all, so why bother protecting it? Genesis says that ‘God gave dominion over the plants and animals’, and therefore they are here for us to use as we see fit. You might even remember James Watt, Reagan’s secretary of the Interior who publicly stated this position and was thankfully replaced because of the outrage it raised. Now, let me make clear that I am not insinuating this is how all evangelicals think, but it seems to be the prevalent viewpoint, at least publicly.
However, there is the flip side of that. The other evangelical viewpoint is that since God created it, it is good, and therefore humans should be the stewards and take care of what God has created for them. I now point you to this eloquent article by a Christian conservative by the name of Rod Dreher, a self-titled ‘crunchy con’, entitled ‘A Green Christian Conservative’. What struck me the most is how he takes on the one of the sacred cows of modern conservatism, an ‘arrogant refusal by a modern consumerist society to accept limits on its desires.’ He also talks about the spiritual duty to take care of the earth. I am hopeful that his viewpoint will be more accepted in the evangelical community as time goes on. It’s not going to change my mind about the idea that these are some generally severely deluded people, but it at least gives us one thing in common.
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