The Anti-Abortion Movement will become the Green Movement

 

I’m early on this, but I’m ready to go out on a limb. I think environmentalism will replace the anti-abortion[1] movement in the next decade as the primary unified drive among younger Christians. Maybe not among my generation (who still call those inclined to creation care “tree-huggers” or “enviro-nazis”).  I believe a massive shift is coming over the next decade, especially among the emerging generations who will outnumber boomers beginning in 2010.[2] We older folk need to pay attention to what this new majority among Christians will be saying. It might be from the Lord. Why do I think this is going to happen among the coming majority of Christians? 

 

1. Environmentalism is pro-life.

The anti-abortion movement discipled the emerging generation to be pro-life. Protecting humans from pollution is a pro-life stance. For instance, in the USA as many as 3% of deaths are blamed an air pollution. Even if it is only [a more realistic?] 1%, pro-life younger folk value even that 1% of humans. This is especially true since these young folk may be breathing this air until they are 100 years old.[3] Reducing pollution is a pro-life stance.

 

2. Environmentalism is positive.

The younger generations reject the scolding negative Christianity they [think they] saw in their youth. They prefer a more positive witness based on making a difference or “being a World-changer.”  They are not inclined to rebuke the world’s darkness so much as light candles. One candle they will light will be a reduced lifestyle, simpler living and a more cautious use of energy.[4]  In the future when the world looks over at the church they don’t want them to see a scolding judgmental[5] angry crowd telling them they are nasty sinners, they want the world to see an examples of “creation care” that they ought to copy—right down to the way we build church buildings. Sure, there will be radical environmental groups who burn down new homes just like there were radical groups who bombed abortion clinics, but most younger folk prefer a kinder gentler approach to being a model to the world and care of the environment is one of those ways they believe Christians can have a positive affect on the world.

 

3. Environmentalism is global

Younger folk tend to be world Christians, not just American Christians. Most of my students already have a passport and have been in foreign countries. Their world view is, well, a world view.  They know air pollution, rising sea levels and deforestation affects the whole planet and not just the nation doing the polluting. The world is their backyard. While they act locally, they think globally. And, they are idealistic enough to actually think they can make a difference.

 

4. Environmentalism universal.

It is easy for me as a male to be against abortion—after all, I can’t have one. Indeed, abortion applies only to a minority of the population: women of child-bearing age. All males, women past menopause and all younger women who are not sexually active are off the hook. Protecting the environment is a universal issue—all men, women and children all can play a role. Younger folk prefer issues that apply universally to all people of all ages in all places and dislike picking out one group to preach at.

 

5. Environmentalism is micro-personal.

Before you go thinking these younger folk are “going liberal” I should point out that this is actually a conservative move—conservative as in conserving the environment. These younger folk are not impressed by stuff they can’t do—they want to be able to act personally on the big issues of the day. They don’t think government is the solution and they sense it might even be the problem.  They want to be able to act personally, do their share, and pull their own weight in solving environmental issues. They believe the solution is as simple as “act in a way so that if all people acted like me the world would be a better place.” It is an environmental twist on the Golden Rule. If I save my Styrofoam cup and use it for a whole week of drinking [Fair Trade] coffee knowing that if all humans did likewise it would make the world a better place, they’re happy. Creation care is accomplished best at the end-use level—at the demand side not the supply side. So, they don’t see the oil companies as the problem so much as their dad’s gas-guzzling SUVs and wandering lifestyle. They can control which car they buy and how often they ride their bike instead of start their car and they like micro-action approaches. [6]

 

6. Environmentalism is a macro-issue

Younger Christians, however, do not ignore the larger macro-issues. They do prefer to act personally and approach solutions with a one-life-at-a-time approach but they believe the entire earth is at risk from pollution and plunder so the whole earth needs to act together to save the planet. They have been trained to be one-issue voters by the abortion movement. I think many will become one-issue voters again as the environment becomes their primary issue. Both political parties will have to figure out how to address the environment in their own way if they wish to win the coming majority. Leaders who refuse to believe there is any threat to the environment will be like those in the past who refused to believe a fetus had any human worth. As the environment becomes the primary moral issue for younger Christians, they will look for a politician’s (or a preacher’s) stance on creation care before they even examine their other stances. It will be more than a personal issue eventually.

 

7. Environmentalism is Wesleyan.

I realize many readers of this column are not Wesleyans, but for those of us who are, we should remember that creation care was a particular specialty of John Wesley as Duke’s Randy Maddox has shown so well.[7]  We were not put here to pollute and plunder until the eject button propels us into Heaven but were made stewards of God’s handiwork. The redemption of all creation is God’s intention and he wants us to work with Him even now. When we care for creation, we are merely treating the work of the Original Artist with respect, dignity and care as he asked us to do.[8]

 

So, what do you think?

Click here to comment or read comments for the first few weeks after this posting

 

Keith Drury April 8, 2008

www.TuesdayColumn.com

Keith Drury is Associate Professor of Religion at Indiana Wesleyan University

 

 



[1] Face it, we’ve virtually won the argument on abortion. Even liberals now believe it should be rare.  The most ardent supporters of abortion “rights” now have grudgingly admitted a fetus is more than “a speck of protoplasm of no greater worth than a fingernail.”  While liberals want to keep abortion “safe and legal” they now also want them to be rare. All that’s left for the movement to do is make it illegal—and many of the anti-abortion movement’s leaders are only hoping to reverse Roe-Wade allowing each state to make their own laws one way or another. We’ve largely won the major argument with the vast majority—a fetus is human life.  Just imagine if we had been this successful with alcohol? If we had prohibition might have been overturned, but what if  even our opposition said “Drinking should be “safe, legal but rare!”

 

[2]  Though Boomers have imagined that they will forever outnumber every other age cohort  actually by 2010 the emerging generations will begin to outnumber boomers.

[3]  While life expectancy is currently at 77.8 years it has been rising at .4% per year—if this rate continues many of today’s young folk can expect to live to 100 and well beyond—no wonder they are so casual about getting serious about life until they are 30—they may have as many years for living after 30 as we had after 18!

[4] This inclination toward simpler living It comes just in time –they may have to reduce the standard of living anyway!

[5] this is not to say this emerging generation will have no list of sins. Indeed I predict that “Creation care” will become such a massive movement among younger Christians and it will mystify older Christians in my generation and “turn us into sinners.”  I think a neo-legalism will emerge with a new list of sins that we older folk practice daily. Many of us boomers will reject these new lists and we will “sin boldly” discounting our behaviors as “real sins” (just like the generation before us rejected racism as a “real sin”).  In the coming brand of Christianity, it us older folk who refuse to admit our sins—even refusing to believe wasteful living is a sin at all.

 

[6] We in the church need to recognize this insistence on the micro-personal approach to religious matters too. For instance “Missions” to the younger generation is less about sending others to do something on their behalf and more about what they themselves do personally. However, this is not to say there is not a whopping amount of hypocrisy among the young. For instance they will quickly complain about two sheets of handouts in class as “destroying trees” but do so after a 20 minute shower in their resident halls. And they are quick to condemn gas-guzzling SUVs but happily fly to Uganda for a one-week missions-vacation using as much fuel as their Dad’s SUV might use in a year. However, there is a growing number who take their total ecological footprint seriously and these are making a green lifestyle hip enough to influence others. I admit that what I am seeing could be a temporary blip—like the Hippies in the 60’s who made peace and simplicity a virtue then grew up to become Yuppies then the most self-indulgent generation of adults we have ever known.  So I could be wrong in seeing a trend here—I may only be seeing a fad. We shall see if I am correct or not soon enough. 

[7] You can read Randy Maddox’s excellent paper (delivered at Indiana Wesleyan University recently) on the Duke web site.

[8] If you read Randy Maddox’s paper you saw that Christians have been accused of being the problem with creating a world view encouraging pollution and plunder. He aptly defends us as many others have too. There is only one category of Christians who have been shown to have a plundering attitude—those committed to a dispensational eschatology –but this is not a classical Wesleyan approach to the ed times (though admittedly many Wesleyans are not Wesleyan at this point.)