American Christianity as a Cover for Racism

Column by Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin on 3 February 2022 1 Comments
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Question

For the past two decades, you and your wife have traveled North America evangelizing evolution and big history. But recently your focus seems to have taken a more eco-theological and pastoral turn. What brought about this shift, and what would you say is the heart of your message and ministry now?

Answer

Dear Reader,

The shift culminated in 2018, just after Living the Questions published my video course, “Pro-Future Faith: The Prodigal Species Comes Home,” but was actually decades in the making. Here’s how it unfolded:

I developed a passion for “evidential revelation” when I began my pastoral career in 1986, while attending Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Seminary). The following were especially significant. John A.T. Robinson’s book, Honest to God, and Gene Marshall’s essay, “What Reality Are We Pointing to with the Word ‘God’?”, helped me integrate the thinking of Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Gaian microbiologist Lynn Margulis, deep ecologists Joanna Macy and Dolores LaChapelle, and eco-feminist Sallie McFague were especially significant mentors. I discuss their influence in my video, “Honest to G🌎D: Reality 101”.

In 1988 cultural historian Thomas Berry, cosmologist Brian Swimme, and bioregional educator Sr. Miriam MacGillis inspired a passion for big picture storytelling. Henceforth, interpreting the epic of evolution in spiritually nourishing ways would be my calling.

My ministry took a practical, community organizing, sustainability turn in the late 1990s, and then expanded again soon after I remarried. Connie Barlow was a science writer and also a Thomas Berry enthusiast. From April 2002 until September 2020 she and I lived on the road, addressing some 3,000 religious and secular groups across North America on a range of subjects at the intersection of science, meaning, and "right relationship to reality.” (I see “reality” as God’s secular name, and “G🌎 D” as reality’s mythic name.)

In December 2012 I had a profound worldview shift. Watching David Roberts’ TEDx talk, “Climate Change is Simple (Remix)," woke me up to the looming climate consequences already unstoppable. Climate learning, advocacy, and activism took center stage, grounded in a passion to also learn the essentials of "ecological overshoot" (as presented by environmental sociologist William R. Catton, Jr.). I also dove deeply into the study abrupt climate change (10,000 years of change in half a human lifetime) and the rise and fall of civilizations. Key differences between unsustainable societies and Indigenous cultures are a current topic for learning and reflection. I find it helpful to regard the latter as having never been expelled from the Garden. Quite simply, Indigenous peoples did not violate what I now consider to be G🌎 D’s first law: “Limits are sacred; violate them and your society will perish in a hell of your own making.”

To freely share what I was learning in all these fields, I began audio recording and posting to Soundcloud classic books and articles that were only available in text format — a “sustainability canon” of sorts.

I also began to create both educational and pastoral videos about how to cope and even thrive in existentially painful circumstances, including the ongoing collapse of both the biosphere and business as usual. “Post-doom” was the term I began using in 2019 to signify that becoming aware of the unstoppability of social and ecological downturns need not end in "doom." There are still opportunities for “finding the gift” and applying "love in action."

As I see it, the shift from anthropocentrism (human-centeredness), to ecocentrism, (G🌎 D-centeredness) points to a distinctly prophetic role for progressive religious and secular folk alike.

Progressive faith leaders now have a once-in-a-millennium opportunity to speak on behalf of G🌎 D (Life/Reality) in prophetic, inclusive, and universal (i.e., non human-centered) ways.

This prophetic message is not grounded in old men or old books. Rather, evidential revelation (including the findings of science) is our "scripture", ecology is the heart of our theology, and our inspiration flows from the wisdom of women and indigenous leaders’ calls for environmental and intergenerational justice.

What a time to be alive!

~ Rev. Michael Dowd

 

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