Jeremy Bruno is a tech writer who blogs about ecology, evolution, conservation and culture at The Voltage Gate. Visit the 
This is the first of a series of popular conservation and ecology book reviews to be posted at The Voltage Gate.
For the past several months, I have been following the recent surge of evangelicals shedding their anti-liberal and anti-environmentalist stances, accepting the facts about global warming and other environmental dangers, and becoming part of the existing environmentalist movement.
I have been extremely skeptical of the sudden change of attitude, especially after the fundamentalist evangelical involvement in political maneuvering for neo-cons over evolution/creationism in the science classroom.
When I saw that Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action was to be released, I immediately e-mailed the publisher for a copy.
The book is written by a J. Matthew Sleeth, a medical doctor who gave up his materialist ways and turned evangelical, buying a house in the country and making a commitment to "ministry." He retained and strengthened his love of nature and now tours the country, teaching other Christians what they can do to save "the creation", a turn of phrase Sleeth uses throughout the book, probably taking a cue from E.O. Wilson's latest. The book is, I'm assuming, the hard copy of those lectures.
Praise and criticism below the fold.
Much of the environmentalism in the book is standard fare. Sleeth gives recommendations for living a more environmentally-friendly life; he even includes a number of worksheets in the back for calculating your impact on the environment and how to switch over to a more green lifestyle.
What I like most about Sleeth's book is his emphasis on actual conservation, encouraging Christians to follow their dogma by reducing consumption. I have always been puzzled by the inclination of wealthy Christians to ignore the words of Jesus and go on about how much God has blessed them.
...I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.-Matthew 19:24
Ghandi was similarly confused:
I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time.
Sleeth emphasizes this sentiment to in almost every chapter, encouraging Christians to get back to their roots in the immaterial and leave "things" behind. It certainly appeals to my own socialist tendencies regarding consumerism and environmentalism. Use less, don't buy more.
That said, he goes a bit overboard in his personal life. Sleeth has reduced the number of appliances in his home to a sparse smattering, and admits to giving his daughter a hard time for heating up a cookie in the microwave for a few seconds, encouraging her to be mindful of the energy she's "wasting."
Ironically, Sleeth also seems to have a big problem with science, evidenced by his abandonment of medicine and several statements in the second chapter, including this one:
If one accepts a philosophy based on the reproducibility of scientific method, we must state a fact: The earth is the only place in the universe known to have life... The existence of life defies reason: Life contradicts the second law of thermodynamics and the tendency of all life to entropy... Science must accept facts.
The old entropy argument? I honestly expected better from a man who spent eight years studying science and decades practicing it. His statement almost certainly places him in the creationist camp, and that bothers me for reasons that perhaps are not entirely obvious.
Environmentalism, at its very core, should be based on science. As Mike addressed this week, science cannot make moral decisions for us. Science can only tell us that global temperatures are increasing and, if properly guided, assign responsibility (in this case, to human activities); it cannot take the extra step of acknowledging responsibility and taking action to remedy our destructive behavior.
Without good science, however, we have no basis for making any decisions regarding the environment, moral or not. Therefore, Sleeth's entire argument, at least in that sense, is baseless. Does that mean we refuse his help? No. We need every hand.
Perhaps my biggest gripe with Sleeth's case, upon which the title of this post is based, is found in an otherwise excellent chapter disassembling, point by point, the common excuses used by Christians for their anti-environmentalist attitudes. One of the points is called "Tree huggers worship nature. I don't want to be involved with them." Sleeth counters the argument by saying that Christians should care about all life on Earth, since God is responsible for its creation.
Then he starts talking about "nonbelievers":
When Jesus asked the pagan woman at the well for water, an opportunity for ministry presented itself. Because Jesus accepted help from a nonbeliever, many of the woman's town came to know Christ. The same opportunities abound for working with nonbelievers in the environmental arena.
Bingo. Naturally that set off a number of bells in my head. Sure, this is the crux of their personal philosophy, but is this the ultimate purpose of the sudden change of heart towards environmentalism? If so, it completely invalidates their efforts, and undermines the integrity of such a seemingly unifying stance: We will stand with humanity in protecting our home, no matter our personal beliefs.
It was a passing statement by Sleeth, and I am not completely in doubt of his sincerity. As a friend said when I expressed this to him, I hope Sleeth is mentioning this as an added bonus for evangelicals and not as the main driving force of the movement.
If this book is necessary to convince evangelicals to take a closer look at their habits and pitch in to stop the abuse of our resources and our wild places, then so be it. It is revealing, however, that these people can only be reached with repeated references to Biblical verse framed in a new way by a new preacher. E.O. Wilson's The Future of Life or The Creation are infinitely superior in presenting convincing evidence for environmentalism, which is exactly why it will probably not reach evangelicals. Wilson is most likely preaching to the choir.
I hope Sleeth's book is successful. I want evangelicals to get their hands dirty and force themselves to participate in the global community on equal footing with us "nonbelievers." Let's not forget that the potential for "evangelism" goes both ways. Perhaps we will rub off on them.
Comments
If Evangelicals discern a 'godly responsibility' to care for 'the garden' I applaud them. The vocabulary of 'believers' will certainly differ from that of naturalists when they interpret evidence. Good Works needn't be arrogant Dominionism! Help them along and don't say, "I told you so".
Good review, Jeremy Bruno, extend the 'hand of fellowship, for the task.
Posted by: Skeptic8 | April 25, 2007 12:20 PM
Interesting. I can see that christian evangelism can take a back seat to environmental evangelism [and should also be reciprocated]. What I am most curious about is Sleeth's and other christian environmentalists views towards population control.
If one really wants to look at the attitudes of these christians, I would consider them to be more *true fundamentalists* rather than the current Darbyites - hearkening back to some of the attitudes of pre-Constantine christianity.
Posted by: natural cynic | April 25, 2007 2:04 PM
A lot of people do things (both good and bad) for stated reasons which don't always make sense to us (or seem to be moral). One instance is the person who does good because he likes to do good, but wants to be accepted by aquantainces who considerthat sort of behavior indicative of foolishness. For instance I knew someone who regularly gave blood claiming giving blood releived the body of toxins.
Given the large amount of irrationality in the world, people doing good things for incorrect reasons should be encouraged for their actions, not discouraged because of their faulty reasoning.
Posted by: bigTom | April 25, 2007 3:38 PM
It's good to have more public opinion on the environmental side, but sometimes a differing motivation can sidetrack the overall effort. As an example, Uganda was prosecuting a great anti-HIV/AIDS campaign based on the education message of "Abstain, Be faithful, and use Condoms (ABC)". Billy Graham heard about the program and convinced evangelicals and the Bush Administration to get involved. Not only would it be a good work, but it could be used to spread the gospel. So, a lot of money was committed but the "C" in "ABC" had to be dropped. It made a mess of the program. Hopefully, evangelical involvement in the environmental movement will focus more on the good work than on the opportunities for ministry to non-believers that will present themselves.
Posted by: Ex-drone | April 25, 2007 10:44 PM
Hey!
I wanted to give you a different read on the quote that took you aback. I think what he might have meant was that 'nonbelievers' refers to 'nonbelievers in the environmental movement', not 'nonbelievers in religion'. In that case, all he would mean is that there are everyday opportunities where we can share our knowledge and passion with newbies. I don't think that this invalidates their position at all; it just parallels their view of how they can share their faith with others.
Just a thought :D
Posted by: jacqui h | April 30, 2007 1:08 AM
Interesting. The envangelicals who considered stewardship of the earth, as if it were the garden of eden in a slightly sullied form, have actually been with us for a while. Their numbers seem to increase as the grip of Inhofe and his sponsors weakens.
Posted by: greensmile | May 2, 2007 1:09 PM
I am an evangelical scienitst. Let me give you an inside perspective. An organization that should be noted is the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists. Cal DeWitt, their president, was recently interviewed on Living on Earth. What Cal noted was the opposition to mitigating anthropogenic climate change is 100% political and 0% theological. Evangelicals have become increasingly dissatisfied because of this and our support for the Religious Right and the Republican Party has waned. In my opinion evangelicals abandoning the Republican Party was a major factor in the congressional party switch last cycle.
BTW, we're really serious about this and the "hook" for us is mitigating the worldwide poverty -- in all its senses -- that anthropogenic climate change causes along with the issues of biodiversity. The largest evangelical relief agency, World Vision, is fully committed to dealing with the climate change issue. A poll of evangelicals has a majority that believe climate change is real, caused by humans, and needs to be dealt with even if the solution is expensive. And yes, EO Wilson does get through to us. He offered his hand in good faith, and we are taking it.
The history of evangelical environmental activism involved another Academy fellow, Sir John Houghton, formerly head of one the working groups of the IPCC. He showed the National Association of Evangelicals that climate change was indeed real. Since then there has been a running battle between those of us who believe that and the old guard, mostly from the religious right. Note the recent call by Jim Dobson for Rich Cizic of the NAE to resign because Cizic was expanding the "agenda" to mitigating climate change. Another player in this is the American Scientific Affiliation, of which I am a member and Francis Collins is a fellow. Our Executive Director, Randy Isaac, has been working with NASA's Jim Hansen to get the best information straight to our members.
Posted by: Rich | May 10, 2007 9:28 AM