Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 15, 2024
Father Vincent Pizzuto, Ph.D.
St. Columba's Episcopal Church
Wisdom 7:26–8:1 + Psalm 19 + James 3:1-12 + Mark 8:27-38
+ Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen.
In March of 1967, Lynn White published a controversial article with the American Association for the Advancement of Science entitled, “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis.” Only four pages in length, White argued that with its triumph over pagan animism, Christianity fostered a sense of indifference toward the world—and a domination over nature, thus paving the way for environmental exploitation.
Animism is an ancient belief system found in various forms throughout the world, which, despite many cultural and geographical differences has in common the belief that all things possess a soul or spiritual essence. This belief in the distinctive spiritual essence of all things can be extended to animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, even hand-made objects, and in some cases even words. As such, each entity in question is believed to be “animated,” possessing self-agency and free will. Hence the term, “animism.”
In short, White levels an indictment against Christianity for replacing animistic beliefs, effectively desacralizing nature, which he claims was among the root causes of environmental destruction in Western society. His article produced a storm of controversy, but over the past near-sixty years his conclusions have been rightfully mitigated and, in fact, debunked by many critical responses, even among leading figures in our current struggle against climate change.
Without rehearsing that long history of academic debate, at the core of White’s misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Christianity is a thorny problem that, despite the debunking of his article, will never the less remain forever with us. And that is, the complexity of an ancient global religious tradition whose origins are distanced from us culturally, linguistically, temporally, and so on. Whose evolution has taken many winding and various paths; whose co-option and corruption by ancient monarchs and nation states is palpable; and whose essence has often been obscured by ambitious despotic leaders (even at times within the church itself) and by historical theological accretions that may have made sense in one time or place but which is in serious need of reform.
And yet, Christianity too is a tradition that has survived all of that – and is surviving still. So, the issue is not Lynn White’s indictment of Christianity. The issue is the persistent, specious, and overly simplified assumptions about Christianity upon which his argument is based. Arguments which are too easily gobbled up by an uncritical, and if you will pardon me, naïve secular society, all too willing to bash Christianity for whatever personal gripes they have toward it.
Let me be clear that I am not making the case that Christianity should be exonerated for real crimes perpetrated against humanity, social and environmental injustices, much less political complacency or worse complicity with colonizing ambitions or racist policies of the nation states in which Christianity itself was thriving. If we want to talk about complexity, these horrors cannot be glossed over or minimized for what they are.
But what they are, is a Christianity coopted by Empire. What they are, is a Christianity that has abandoned its own Gospel – which in no way could ever authentically be used to support these kinds of initiatives. Christianity’s relationship with Empire has always been complex, and still is. Unlike Judaism whose scriptures record its rise to the nation-state of ancient Israel, and Islam which was explicitly founded as a monarchical form of government known as Caliphates, Christianity, by contrast was precisely founded as an anti-Empire movement.
“My Kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus says repeatedly throughout the gospels. And indeed, for the first three hundred (plus) years, Christianity grew as a pacifist, yet persecuted community, on the edges of the Roman Empire, forbidden to carry weapons, and peaceably spreading its message of Good News. It was not until February of the year 313 that Emperor Constantine passed the Edict of Milan, giving Christianity both legal status and reprieve of persecution throughout the Empire. This would pave the way for the Edict of Thessalonica promulgated in the year 380, which ultimately recognized Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire.
While it is understandable why Christians of the day would have sought this protection, the Edicts of Milan and Thessalonica solved one problem for Christians (no longer fearing persecution) but at the same time established an unholy alliance that has marred the Gospel ever since.
Because that alliance with Empire gave rise not merely to a global Christianity, but to the political entity of “Christendom.” Once the church found itself in bed with the Crown it was forever in danger of losing its soul, of being coopted or complicit by the political agendas of nation states. It is no surprise that Augustine’s Just War Theory is introduced precisely at the same time that the Roman Empire is “converted” to Christianity. For a pacifist movement of over 300 years to suddenly find the forced conversion of the Roman legions (soldiers) Augustine had to find a way to mitigate the use of force by the Empire through the Gospel of Christianity. Attempting to mitigate its use for advances, annexation of other empires, the use of force for the spread of the gospel and so on. So that correlation is not happenstance.
But we don’t need to turn to the 4th century to see how malignant this kind of political alliance can become. Think only about the current resurgence in our own country of Christian Nationalism (itself an oxymoron, by the way) and which I venture to bet everyone in this church today would patently reject as even a remotely authentic expression of the Gospel. Yet at least as far as the media and public perception of Christianity goes, that modern-day heresy – let’s call it for what it is – is winning the day.
Again, an example, I recently met with colleagues of mine, clerics from here in Marin County with our bishop for the first time, in what we lovingly call our “beericus” meetings (its where we have a beer together and talk shop). And in that meeting what became patently clear is how many of us are ashamed to say publicly, “I am a follower of Jesus.” And that should tell us something about the shame we carry around how Christianity is being maligned today by yet a new phase of Christian nationalism.
So, when one reads Lynn White’s article one could be forgiven for coming away with the notion that up until the establishment of a radically anthropocentric Christianity, the Roman Emperors and their subjects were nothing more than a bunch of animistic flower children, running around the hills and mountains, fields and forests of the ancient Mediterranean world, skinny dipping and smoking weed like teenagers straight out of the Summer of Love. Much as I wish that were true, I can assure you nothing could be farther from the truth.
One can point singularly to the Roman wars and their own historian’s description of their wars to make the case. The Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace,” as it was called with no small degree of propagandic B.S., really referred to Roman wars and the annexation of other nation states through violent military force. A case in point is the devastating war between Rome and Jewish Zealots fighting against imperial control of Israel that spanned from the year ad 66 to 73.
In response to the Zealot uprising, Nero dispatched his general Vespasian to lead over 6,000 legions to what he said would be to “pacify” (that is to say, “destroy”) the rebel strongholds in Galilee. This led to the infamous destruction of the Jewish Temple in ad 70, the remains of which can still be seen in the holy site of the “Western Wall” in Jerusalem today. It was never rebuilt.
The description of the utter destruction of forests outside the walls of Jerusalem where the rebels were hiding and then inside the walls – where trees were turned into battering rams – is devastating to read. The abuse of animals for the cause of war, the complete annihilation of natural habitats for military ends and the construction and expansions of cities is horrific.
How many of us realize that ancient Palestine used to be full of endless dense forests, destroyed not in the modern era of capitalism for which Christianity paved the way, but an exploitation that occurred in the pre-Christian world of ancient empires. How many of us realize that all the seven hills of Rome or once covered with thick dense forests that were at one time deforested to colonial urbanization or commercialization, or because of agricultural expansion, leading to unchecked erosion that washed away fertile soil, that dried up streams, and lead to the rapid spread of disease because of the establishment of dense human populations with no proper waste management. How about the accumulation of water whose natural courses were disrupted by Roman expansion, were damned or dried up, led to the accumulation of stagnant water in the low lands, and the subsequent emergence of huge mosquito populations that plagued imperial cities with malaria and similar diseases.
This is to say that nothing of ancient reports of other forms of environmental degradation are also alive and well within the Roman Empire: Air pollution due to the intentional setting of fire to crops, to forests, and cities as a means of “pacifying” them; the scarring of land due to intense mining projects which had the deleterious effect of poisoning Roman waterways with lead, arsenic, and mercury. And perhaps most tragic of all, the maiming, torture and killing of wild animals used as weapons of war or for sporting events in the Roman Colosseum. And this is only one of many empires of the ancient word, or should I say the ancient ‘animistic’ world.
How many people realize today that in ancient pre-Christian Rome, it was legal for a father to smother his newborn infant if he didn’t want the child. How many of us realize it was an empire, as Samuel Torvend reminds us in his book, Monastic Ecological Wisdom, “that had a little regard for the virtue of mercy, a quality of relationship it viewed as pathological, as something to be avoided by all free males who valued their public reputations.” (Torvend, 2-3). How many of us realize it was a society built upon massive poverty and a slave economy and supported by the conviction that mercy and compassion should never be shown to those who suffer because the god’s decreed their tragic status in life – and who would risk – who would dare risk – the provoking the wrath of the gods by questioning the fate they held out for us? (Torvend, 3).
In fact, the now unrecognized and unrealized origins of the value of caring for the poor or outcast or oppressed, or marginalized found throughout Western secular democratic governments is an explicitly Christian value introduced into history with the proclamation of the Gospel in direct, and subversive contradistinction to ancient Rome’s real pathology of merciless patriarchy oppression. Now, whether such secular governments live up to that value is questionable. But its place in the modern world is directly related to Christ’s proclamation of an alternative Kingdom not of this world.
Take for example the infancy narrative of Luke’s gospel, which is his version of the birth narrative. As any rigorous biblical commentary will make abundantly clear, when understood in its proper social and cultural context the proclamation of the birth of the messiah by angelic choirs to shepherds watching their fields by night is not the cozy, romanticized Christmas story we have all come to think it is.
When the angels declare, “I bring you good news of great joy to all people” (Lk. 2:10) they are, in fact, usurping the very word “euangellion” (good news, or what we translate “gospel”) straight from the pages of Roman War propaganda, which used the exact same word when declaring some promulgation from Cesar that masked the truth of what, in fact, they were really doing, much like the way they used the word “pacification” to mean “We are going to war to annex a neighboring nation state to our empire.”
When the angel says to the shepherds, “For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2:11) they are again usurping two titles that in Rome were permitted exclusively of Caesar alone: Savior and Lord. The angel’s words are “fightin’ words” and we oughtn’t forget it!
When these words are proclaimed to the most outcast and impoverished members of a town already colonized by the empire of Rome, they are not merely offering sentimental Christmas good tidings. They are proclaiming in no uncertain terms that Caesar Augustus is in fact not the savior of the world. They are proclaiming a politically subversive message that the peaceable Reign of God is in direct conflict with the violent reign of Cesar.
And every infraction of every sin, every injustice, every complicit or co-opted turn in the road that Christianity has made in contributing to oppression, colonization, and certainly environmental destruction can be traced back to one primordial sin: it’s seduction by Empire to the abandonment of the Gospel. And let us make no mistake: The United States is a modern Empire.
Only when we begin to understand this do we understand that hope is found the reclamation of the Gospel, over-against its complicity with the real culprit: Empire. It is a fuller embrace of the radicalism of the Gospel, not its abandonment in favor of a return to a superstitious and animistic religious world view – which itself has been grossly misrepresented in the modern world, to say nothing of how deeply it has been romanticized. Misrepresented in the examples I have provided here, and romanticized by the idea that the spirits which inhabited the various objects around creation were necessarily benign. They were not. And thus, animism inevitably led to superstitious fears of retaliation for incurring on the turf of forest or river or mountain spirits, as it were. A fear which obviously impacted a naïve peasant population, but did little to stay the hand of the empire with its mechanisms of war and the destruction of the environment.
The enduring problem which plagues White’s article and so much secular social discourse eager to blame Christianity for all the world’s problems, is that when it comes to the Bible and the complexities of a long Christian tradition, it is easy to be a literalist and hard to be a contextualist. It is easy, in other words, to misread scripture because we do not understand the context in which these texts were written, as for example, Luke’s infancy narrative that I just pointed to.
It is easy to see simply what is on the page and read into those texts black and white responses that are born of ignorance and naivety. It is hard work to be a contextualist because it demands we know something, we learn something, we investigate something about the history, context, culture, language, and so on, in which these texts came into being. The fact is, interpreting the Bible is hard work. It will always be hard work because of how distanced these texts are from us culturally, linguistically, historically. And it can easily be misunderstood, or worse, read into by any kind of political, or nefarious, or racist agenda.
I will give you an example I’ve actually witnessed here over the last several years. Some years ago, I introduced an online course called Portraits of Christ. It is taking a line by line, verse by verse, granular historically contextualized approach, in this case to the gospel of mark. I began with over 100 participants from around the country and around the world. We are now five years into it and down to somewhere between 40 and 50. The feedback that I have gotten is that it’s “too complex.” “I don’t want to go that deep… I just want to know Jesus loves me.” But the reality is we have a responsibility to understand these texts because of how easily, how simply they can be maligned by Christian nationalist today.
Similarly, it is easy to be a Christian nationalist and hard to be a Christian contemplative. Because the complexity of the Bible can easily be corrupted in the hands of xenophobic, misogynistic, ignorant, fearful nationalists who projects onto an ancient text their own pathological ideology. And it is hard to be a contemplative Christian which requires introspection, education, thoughtful discernment between what in the Scriptures is a result of an ancient world view, authorial limitations, and cultural biases of the ancient world (all of which we need to leave behind), verses what the text continues to speak today in universal terms. The proclamation of universal peace and compassion, and joy that lay at the heart of the Gospel.
As we reflect on the readings today in light of Creationtide, I invite you to pay close attention, for example, to the subjective language used of Lady Wisdom. And more so, if you take a look at the Psalm 19 which celebrates aspects of nature which are presented not as objects but as subjects, not as inanimate but as alive, infused by the incarnation, as Christians would read it, with the presence of Christ in all things (cf. Col. 3:11). So we read, for example, “The heavens declare the glory of God…and “one night imparts knowledge on another…” and finally, “the Sun…rejoices like a champion….” You hear the subjectivity! These are active agents in creation being celebrated both in Jewish and in Christian tradition.
Indeed, there is much that can be mined in scripture. There is much to be challenged in our tradition. There is much to be segregated between Empire and authentic commitment to Jesus Christ in order that we might come to a mature appreciation of the beauty of our ancient scriptures, the subversive power of the Gospel, and the capacity for the incarnation and its theology to open the way for Christians to become inspired leaders in the fight against climate change and in fostering a sustainable future through a spiritual vision that refuses to segregate God from the world.
What is called for here is nuance, conviction, and responsible discipleship. It is work better done in community than alone. I invite you then to consider how we might each of us, in our own way, educate ourselves in the beauty of this tradition that has, since its inception, held out a subversive and undying hope for all the world.
+ The Three-in-One and One-in-Three. Amen.
Sources:
Kiel, Micah D. Apocalyptic Ecology: The Book of Revelation, the Earth, and the Future. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017.
Torvend, Samuel. Monastic Ecological Wisdom: A Living Tradition. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023.