“Absolute" truth is an understanding I would think people might apply, and properly so, to the sanctity of life and the obligation of everyone to be “pro-life”. Commonsense would have us believe that this is an unconditional truth. “Simple” truth? No.
Addressing the Swiss Bishops (November 2006) Pope Benedict XVI observed that morality is “split in two”. The split is between justice/ecology and the protection of human life. He said:
“I believe we must commit ourselves to reconnecting these two parts of morality, and to making it clear that they must be inseparably united. Only if human life from conception to death is respected is the ethic of peace possible and credible; only then may non-violence be expressed in every direction, only then can we truly accept creation and only then can we achieve true justice.”
How to “reconnect”?
“We must make an effort above all to listen to the Lord in prayer, in deep interior participation in the sacraments, in learning the sentiments of God in the faces and suffering of others, in order to be infected by his joy, his zeal and love, and to look at the world with him and starting from him. If we can succeed in doing this, even in the midst of many no’s, we will once again find people waiting for him who may perhaps be odd—the parable clearly says so—but who are nevertheless called to enter the hall.” [AMERICA Magazine, John Jay Hughes, “Longing for a Pentecostal Church”, pp 23-26, Vol. 196, No. 10, Whole No. 4767, March 19, 2007]
Where is the disconnection? At face value, it is true that the intentional abortion of a fetus violates life and is a sad and tragic failure of morality and social justice. The dilemma of justice/ecology vs. human proliferation was/is at issue in the “Humanae Vitae” Encyclical of Pope Paul VI. The encyclical was undertaken with the intention of incorporating lay input in it. But after reading the lay input the pope opted to exclude it. The encyclical is now largely interpreted as a decision against family planning. The decision of unilateral action by Rome in issuing the encyclical continues to be a source of deep frustration and lay distrust of the Vatican. The Vatican is not seen as credible in the matter of a “consistent life ethic”, what cardinal archbishop Joseph Bernardin calls the “seamless garment” ethic.
The population overreach over the face of the Earth, human demands for food, fiber, water, space and fuel are causing radical and irreversible changes of climate, the mortal pollution of the environment, extinctions of species and the abortion of vital ecologies. The abortion of ecological life is massive and real, but gets pitifully little press from mainline religions as a moral issue of "religious" importance. This failure of justice/ecology by church and society seems to be the disconnection that the Pope refers to. The credibility of the church’s righteous talk about abortion is scant because of church’s selective blindness to ecological abortion.
“Absolute” truth? Yes. “Simple” truth? No. Too often now, choices in life are not between truth and falsity, good and evil, but between the lesser falsity and the lesser evil. So it is with abortion. The Pope's “Sacramentum Caritatis” must, in love and justice, address the reformation of conscience and religious “reconnection” to justice/ecology.
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Comments: 17
Jesus did shun politcal power and the religious power of the Jewish leaders of that time because they did not give honor and glory to God. However, I do not see a connection between Jesus's purpose of saving souls (For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Luke 19:10) and ecology.
Essential human/divine connectedness is in nature (land-promise) and it prospers as long as humans do not destroy the promise of nature. Scripture scholars recognize that God's "First Scripture" is nature. Science recognizes that nature's codes are script in the DNA of every living cell. Human connectedness to Nature/God will always be qualified by human fidelity and infidelity to Covenant promise—ecology.
Obviously, this brief resume leaves a lot unsaid but is in broad lines what Covenant history is about. It continues to be about us and whether or not we behave authentically in our relationships with nature and each other. The cry of the land, of nature, of life, of God, is for restoration of nature and return to fidelity to God/"Land".
Jesus never promised us that he would save us from suffering the consequences of our abuses of nature and one another. [The history of human culture, its rise and collapse, on Easter Island (and other collapsed cultures) is also an object lesson.] Hope this is some help.
Forgive me, but it seems a little mindless to ignore factual circumstances of the global predicament, for which humankind is responsible and which it can alter. Scripture tells us not to "put God to the test". Your rationality seems to me to be putting God to the test. I don't see the morality of your position. This is not an issue of faith, it is an issue of commonsense, of reason.
This is where liberal and some conservative politicians jump in so they can be the hero of the so-called crisis. 1Ti 6:20 "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:"
The truth is I am more concerned about souls dying and going to a Christ-less eternity than I am about the survival of the kangaroo rat in California. I've read the end of the Bible. The earth is going to be destroyed. (Re 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.) I am not advocating a total disregard for ecology, however it should not be our primary concern. The global predicament I am concerned about is God's judgement on those who do not believe and accept the substitutionary death and bodily ressurection of Jesus Christ.
Jesus expressly said that he came not to replace the law of the Old Covenant but to fulfill it. Humans are conscionably obliged to care for Earth (wherein God self-reveals) and each other — the New Covenant fulfillment of the Old.
All human subsistence is from web-life, and humankind is sustained, Providentialy, by and in ecology/environment. "Faith" that allows the undisciplined exploitation of Earth and leaves to God worry over the consequences, because Earth is going to be destroyed anyway, seems to me to be a "faith" conviction no more redemptive than that of minority Islamist terrorists.
Religion that concerns itself with things about which it can do what is right for common others seems to me more authentic than religion pre-occupied with things over which it has no control. It isn't for us to judge the truth in the heart of others, nor is it ours to control; that belongs to God. The communication of truth is in the authenticity of witness, as in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
Jesus did fulfill the law of the old testament by shedding his blood on the cross. The old testament law required a blood sacrifice for sin. The animal sacrifices offerred by the Jews were only a temporary down payment for the penalty of their sins. Because Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and lived a sinless life on earth he was the only perfect human "lamb" that could completely pay for the penalty of sin for all man. The only thing man has to do is believe and accept Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Jesus didn't sacrifice himself to save the eco-system from man but to save man from his evil self. I believe when God says in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world..." he means the people of the world not the physical ecologcial world in which we live.
Again. I am not advocating a total disregard for ecology. However, Jesus didn't say to his disciples, "Come, follow me I will make you tree huggers to save the planet." But he did say in Matthew 4:19 "... Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." The Great Commision in Mark chapter 19 is to "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to very creature." I Corinthians chapter 15 gives us an unadulterated definition of the gosepl. "Moreover, brethern, I declare unto you the gospel...how that Christ died for our sins...And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:"
I have no control on what other people believe. I can only hope to compel them to accept the truth of the gospel. I leave the results to God.
Compeling people to be enviormentaly minded may be good for ecology, but what difference is going to make if these people have a Christ-less eternity?
In the Avesta, the easier to understand of the two ancient texts, man creates God by learing to understand, measure and to some extent control his environment. God only ever says one thing, "I am." Allegorically this indicates the point in human development that we morph from Homo sapiens (man who know) to Homo Sapiens Sapiens (man who knows he knows - see Rummy was onto something) and the "laws of god" are the laws of physics, nature and natural justice.
So we are responsible for our world and for saving ourselves. We, with our intelligence that is unique among all life forms and our insticts which we hold in common with all life forms (even bacteria have a survival instinct) must save ourselves. No matter how hard we try to believe in Jesus and similar fairy stories that will not help.
We must practice contraception, we must cut down on our energy use, we must eat less and choose more healthy foods. The good fairy is not going to stretch out his almighty hand and make all the nasties go away and stop hurting us.
The challenge humankind faces is can we grow up and stop believing in fairies and magic?
The poet William Blake said "religion wages war on human nature." Think about that.
The newcomers to America "coveted" the land, they didn't "covenant" with it, that is, they didn't treat it as holy and deserving of great respect, quite unlike the indigenous Americans. We Americans have never developed a conscience toward land and nature; from "enlightenment" times we'v had an attitude that we must conquer, change and exploit nature in any way we see fit.
Ian, I agree generally with much of what you say, but I think that as a people not well practiced in conscience or rationality we are insufficiently informed to know in the specific what we need to do to change from devastation and disregard for nature and each other; certainly, doing more of both, to devastate and disregard, hardly seems to be a credible approach. One thing we need to do for sure is heighten our sensitivity toward nature and each other, and seek more seriously to understand consequences of whatever actions we take. And we need to begin yesterday.
Thanks to both of you.
Ian, archaelogy does not support the concept that Cyrus the Great invented the "Jews". It is true that the 10 tribes never came back to Palestine, only Judah and Benjamin -- that does not mean that Jewish history was fabricated. Cyrus was a great believer in diversity of religion, that does not mean that he invented Judaism.