I'm no environmentalist

I’ve taken a good bit of heat from colleagues in the environmental world and in the creation care movement for declining to call myself an environmentalist. I said it publicly at the Flourish 2009 conference:I’m no environmentalist.

Others are more comfortable with the designation. One of my board members (and one of my best friends), Peter Illyn, told an American Prospect reporter he was “irked by that attitude” (presumably by MY attitude) and that he fully embraces the term “environmentalist.”

Oh well, some of my best friends are environmentalists.

Part of my reluctance stems from professional considerations. In my previous career as a college professor, I continually challenged students to think straight about the difference between environmental science and environmentalism (a distinction I still find people confused about). It’s important to know which of our beliefs about the environment come from serious science, and which ones come from our ideological makeup. My students always left taking that distinction seriously, and I think the ones who went on to careers in activism did so better grounded in science and economics, and more able to make a difference in the world.

I’d say it’s equally important to distinguish the ideas we get from Scripture and which ones we get from the culture around us. Why? Because we use different forms of argument for each of those kinds of belief. And because as a Christian, I have more confidence in the ideas I get from the book of Scripture and the book of Nature (both of which reveal something about God), than in the ideas I get from the culture around me.

[And, no, I’m not so naïve as to think I can be completely objective in my reading of Scripture and of science. But neither am I so completely postmodern that I disbelieve in truth.]

The main reason I don’t like being called an environmentalist: it’s way too narrow. It smacks of single issue activism. In truth, I care about social justice, healthy families, strong neighborhoods, walkable streets, flavorful food, sustainable ecosystems, well-treated livestock, and good theology. Environmentalism relates to all of those, but it doesn’t subsume those concerns. I’m more interested in a redeemed anthropology, a grace-filled vision of what it means to be truly human on this blessed earth, than in adopting an overly narrow label that smacks of politics and protest.

Those in the “movement” too easily forget what a negative impression many ordinary Americans have of “environmentalism.” They see legalism, judgmentalism, and hypocrisy in the reliance on so many lists of so many things to do to save the earth. They see a conversation that too often includes reckless statements about “the population problem” and the problems of the market. They see an elitism that presumes a great deal of consonance between leftist and environmental values. And they see a sort of “environmental fundamentalism,” as my colleague Jim Jewell calls it—an attitude that says “you’re either with us or against us” and “if you don’t measure up to my list of environmental do’s and don’ts, then you’re not one of us.” If you’ve never encountered these attitudes about environmentalism, you need to get out more.

I’ve met too many young “environmentalists” who can’t tell a mockingbird from a thrasher and who couldn’t identify five trees in their neighborhood, who recycle religiously but don’t keep the Sabbath, who hang out in good environments and never in bad ones, who buy green stuff instead of less stuff, and who’ve never been fishing or hunting or even berry-picking. Getting people converted to a cause is far easier than building a community swallowed up in the idea of following Jesus the Gardener, the Reconciler, the Sustainer. We need a bigger vision of what we’re doing, and “environmentalism” just doesn’t cut it.

So, I’m not an environmentalist. I care about many of the same things they do. I love spending time with the good-hearted ones. But we don’t all have to become environmentalists.

Having said that, I think a goal of building bridges is in order. I think just about everyone who is going to come into the environmentalist fold is either there or on the way. Recent environmental activism has amounted more to harvesting than to cultivation. It hasn’t changed hearts and minds. We need environmentalists, social conservatives and social justice activists, nature-lovers and culture-lovers, and community organizers and church planters, to cultivate a new sense of what it means to live together thoughtfully and intentionally. It’s a community in which our attitudes and actions toward the environment play a part, but it’s going to be a lot bigger than that. For many of us, that is going to be grounded in our faith. It will be as big as the vision of Paul, who wrote that God was interested in reconciling “all things” to himself, in making peace through the work of Jesus.

Rusty Pritchard lives and works in inner-city Atlanta, where he and his family are learning to love God, love their neighbors, and care for creation. He is the President and co-founder of FLOURISH: Reviving Lives and Landscapes (www.flourishonline.org).