Carl Safina Speaks To Christians At Vineyard
Carl Safina reading from his book, Song For The Blue Ocean
Today at church, our guest speaker was Carl Safina, a scientist whose focus is life in the ocean. Both Carl Safina and our pastor, Ken Wilson, are members of the group Scientists and Evangelicals United To Protect Creation. In this blog entry, I report on this event, as well as topics from a discussion group after the service.
Sunday, March 22,
2009
Carl Safina Speaks to Christians at Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor
Ken Wilson, the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, loves science. How much, you may ask? Well, some time ago, when he got a sabbatical for six weeks, and he used it to read science books the whole time! As a member of the Ann Arbor Vineyard, I get the benefit of often hearing bits and pieces of science that he brings to us when related to points in his sermons.
About two and a half years ago, Ken did a sermon series on Creation vs. Evolution, called Science and Faith at the Crossroads of Creation, which, since Ken holds that evolution is scientifically accurate, made for an interesting sermon series. The focus of his series was to make room for people who don't believe in young earth creationism or hold similar beliefs; he wanted to let people who think the evolutionary model makes scientific sense to feel welcome at our church. The crux of the issue for Ken is that the church has been unnecessarily blocking people from connecting with God and Christians due to a dominant theme in the evangelical church that to believe in the Bible means to not believe in evolution. Ken sees this as making a prerequisite to potential Christians that they be willing to forsake scientific knowledge in order to come into the fold. It is his mission to break down that barrier. Since we live in a town where a major research university practically owns the whole city, this is a major group for this congregation. But this message has significance to many other towns in this country, also.
As part of this effort, Ken and some other evangelical pastors and leaders have joined with some scientists who have seen the need to break down the barriers between scientists and Christians, particularly when it comes to the need of taking care of Earth. From this group, Ken has developed a friendship with the oceanographer Carl Safina, and one result of that friendship has been that Carl Safina came to the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor to speak.
Ken Wilson, senior pastor of Vineyard Ann Arbor, with Dr. Carl Safina
Now, this is something not likely to happen at many evangelical churches because Dr. Safina is not a Christian. I don't know exactly how he would label himself, but as far as my knowledge of him goes, he does not hold any religious beliefs. But something that our Vineyard church seeks to do in general is to break down the divisions between sacred and secular and view all humans as creations of God, that we're all in the same boat, loved by him and troubled by sin. Breaking down the artificial barriers between Christian vs. non-Christian makes an exchange like this not problematic at all.
We're in the Same Boat
And that was one of the points Dr. Safina made in his presentation. We're all in the same boat together--whatever happens to the Earth, happens to all of us together. He believes that we have common ground, scientists and evangelicals, even if from a slightly different perspective. Scientists of nature have a deep awe of the wonders found in nature; many of them have a nearly religious experience as they discover and take in the complex beauty of nature. From an appreciation of that beauty, they have a desire to not see it trashed by human recklessness. The people of Yahweh were given charge by him in Genesis to take care of the Earth, God's creation. If we are to follow the directive of God, it means doing our part to make sure humans don't trash God's beautiful creation. But even beyond that specific directive, whatever we do not do to help preserve nature, we--or moreso, our children and further descendants--will suffer the consequences of. Dr. Safina, and other members of the Friendship Collaborative, realized that a major group of Americans (evangelicals) have turned a deaf ear to these potential consequences, while at the same time scientists have been building barriers to being heard by showing contempt for religion in general and evangelicals in particular. Meanwhile, the Earth continues to get trashed. So the Friendship Collaborative was set up to break down the barriers and heal the wounds in order to work on caring for the planet.
A slide during Dr. Safina's presentation points out that Christians and scientists are in the same boat--Planet Earth
Dr. Safina grew up loving to fish, but when he got older he realized that the fish were disappearing. This concern drove him to study what was going on and see what he could do to alleviate the problem. During today's talk, he described the destructive methods that are being used for fishing. For example, to get shrimp, they net all kinds of sea creatures, take out the shrimp, and throw out the rest. This is a huge, wasteful killing of creatures, which has an effect on the ecology of the sea. Another example he gave was how some fishing is done to get fish that hide out in coral reefs--they just go to the bottom of the ocean and scrape it all up. He likened it to using a bulldozer to find squirrels.
"We privatize the profit, but socialize the cost."
One significant point of his talk was this: "We privatize profit, but socialize the cost." In the shrimp example, the private shrimp companies get the profit from selling the shrimp, but the government has to clean up the pollution. He gave others examples of this in the fishing arena, where the fish companies get the profit from the fishing, but we all have to pay the cost of cleaning up the damage they do through their methods. He compared that to the current banking crisis, where the greedy lenders got the profit from the reckless borrowers and all the rest of us are left to pay the bill to bail them out.
This point really struck me, because one of the objections to the environmental movement among conservatives is how much money it will cost companies to comply with environmental regulations. It's decried as a way of making it difficult for companies to survive, by forcing the extra costs on them to take care of their polluting effects. But this view ignores that by not making the companies themselves pay for dealing with the pollution, the rest of us have to deal with it through taxpayer funded cleanup. So which method is truly more capitalistic and less socialistic? Under the "privatize profit, socialize cost" model, the people who buy shrimp get it for cheap, but the rest of us subsidize the shrimp diners by paying for the cleanup. Shouldn't the consumers of shrimp be the ones to pay the extra money to make shrimp-catching safe for the sea creatures? By doing so, this will give the shrimp companies incentive to find cheaper ways to catch shrimp in a way that's safe for the environment.
One example of how easily this can sometimes be done is the case of the albatross. Albatrosses eat fish, and so they would often follow fishing boats to get what was in the net. Trouble is, they get caught in the net and die. This was happening at such a large rate that the albatross population was dwindling. So how did they figure out to deal with this problem? Simply make a red-corded side net that goes up vertically out of the water, that surrounds the fish net. The birds see the red cords and don't get into the fishing net. This simple, low-cost method has helped keep the albatross population from diminishing further.
The Ocean Is Not That Big
Something else that struck me from Dr. Safina's talk was the fragility of the ocean. He stated that we tend to think that the ocean is so big that we can't really affect it that much. But he showed a graph of the dwindling of species, and those in the ocean were dwindling at the same rate as those on land. There are other factors going on, too. When the water of the ocean is too warm, corals die. They rely on algae staying on them, because through that photosynthesis, the corals get fed. When the water is too warm, the algae leave, and the corals turn white and die. Also, the acidity rate of the ocean changes as it heats up, making it more difficult for animals such as oysters to properly form. Even the fish have more trouble breathing when this happens.
Seeing It All with New Eyes
Although this is not the first time in my life, by any means, to see examples of the effects of pollution (he showed a number of pictures on the screen to illustrate his points), it was like hearing it all for the first time today. I guess it's because always in the past, I heard it through a different framework. I grew up in the 1960s, and the hippies were the ones clamoring to save the environment. There were big drives to save the planet (Earth Day was initiated then, for example), and lots of talk about changing our ways of living. The hippies later became environmentalists, but the hypocrisy of a number of environmental groups has been documented, making them appear to many to just be another political action group seeking to perpetuate their pet cause.
Today, though, in the context being created by the Friendship Collaborative, all of this presentation of the damage pollution is causing has hit a different button in me. God cares for us humans, but he also cares for his other creatures. He created the Earth to be beautiful, and he put us in charge of the creatures who have less intellectual capacity--or to put it in another way, the creatures depend on us, and it's on us to be faithful to God in caring for them. For one thing, the Bible frequently condemns greed, yet it is greed that is the cause of many of these problems in the ocean.
Evangelicals & Environmentalism
After the talk, there was a small discussion group for anyone who wanted to chew on the topics presented. (This group was hosted by Green Vineyard, a group at Vineyard that has a special heart for God's creation.) Dr. Safina's talk focused on how he became interested in the ocean and what he has discovered in the course of his work, particularly in terms of harm to the ocean. The opening question for this group was, so where do we go from here? I was going to attempt to report on the consensus from that, but after trying, it seemed I could mostly only remember the things I had said, so this will be a bit of a skewed reporting of that discussion.
The discussion began by pointing out that Dr. Safina's talk did not really address suggestions on what we should do to deal with these issues. I brought up that for me, what he did today was what I needed--just to see it all first. I took it from there that the main task of green-focused evangelicals is to first open the hearts of other evangelicals to the issue. While different people shared their perspectives on how this can be done, I most clearly remember the ones I brought up, which follow.
What are the barriers to this acceptance of evangelicals caring for the environment?
1) Evangelical critics of the environmental movement charge that this takes Christians' eyes off of the ball, that their core mission is to "save souls," to use an old terminology.
The underlying worldview that produces this mentality is the "ticket to heaven" paradigm. The world is going to be blown up soon, so get as many people as you can to join the club to get on the train out of here before that happens. But I think this mentality is distorted, and actually is a detriment to evangelism. The alternative is the "Kingdom of God" paradigm that sees the present world as part of the future world, not instead of it. Included in this is the breaking down of the saved vs. non-saved mentality that recognizes we're all in this together. When those barriers are brought down, then it's easier to see that by working together with environmentalists, we can learn about their real humanity and they about ours, and the openness to the gospel is more likely because we're not espousing that the Earth doesn't matter. (I talk more about this in my website article, "Identity Crisis Of An Evangelical, Part 3.")
2) At least for older people, there is an association of environmentalism with hippies that still lingers.
For those who are too young to have been alive back then, the hippies were a major force of change in society. They were determined to remake the society on their terms. Environmental concerns were high on their list, but this group also strongly promoted free sexual activity, drugs, and rebellion against authority. Part of this environmental concern was a kind of worship of nature; hippies often talked about Mother Earth. As a result, many older evangelicals have a visceral association of environmental causes with the causes of a group that has caused much harm to society. Top that off with the worship of Mother Nature, and to them environmentalism is the worship of a false god that comes from an immoral people who despise Christians and the one true God. Taking this one level further, there is fear that acceptance of environmental causes in the church will cause the church to be infiltrated with secular thought...first acceptance of environmentalism, then an acceptance of evolution, then a belief that the Bible is not literally true (and, for example, the miracles described in the Bible didn't really happen), and then loss of power of the Christian faith.
3) Many evangelicals are politically conservative, and hold such views in relation to the environment.
Political conservatives come in two basic types--social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Many evangelicals are both socially and fiscally conservative. Fiscal conservatives deplore taxation beyond the bare minimum needed for things like the armed forces at the national level, and police and fire services at the local level. For them, any call to caring for the environment is seen with $$$, and $$$ make them see red. First of all, they don't usually see much need for environmental laws to begin with, but when such laws are promoted, and the cost is calculated, this is a red flag to them to stop the movement from taking all their money through taxes, or to stop the movement from causing businesses more expense in preserving the environment, because the business will pass on the costs to consumers, or leave the country to do their work where there are no environmental regulations to burden them.
In my view, these are the three largest obstacles to acceptance of a focus on creation care among evangelicals. Until these barriers are sufficiently dealt with, I don't think the green evangelicals can make much progress in getting much of a response from evangelicals.
"Nature, the world, has no value, no interest for Christians. The Christian thinks only of himself and the salvation of his soul."
--Ludwig Feuerbach, 19th century German philosopher & anthropologist
Conclusion / Resources
I made a special effort to make it to church this morning to hear Carl Safina speak. I am glad I made the effort; I found the presentation to be eye-opening and moving.
I recommend that you read the document below, Faith, Science, Earth by Carl Safina. This tells the story of how he became interested in getting involved in dialogue with evangelicals regarding care for the Earth. I found it to be interesting, so I wanted to make it easy for you to read this.
Carl Safina - Faith, Science, Earth.doc
Faith, Science, Earth by Carl Safina
(If this doesn't work for you, you can find it by going to http://www.friendshipcollaborative.org/resources/ [it's listed near the bottom])
In the above article, Dr. Safina quotes Glenn Scherer's observation that of the 130 Congressional members who earned approval ratings of 80-100% from Christian Right groups all got flunking scores from the League of Conservation Voters. See more on this in his article, "The Godly Must Be Crazy." In this article, he ponders why Christians hate the environment so much.
Finally, I'd like to include a link to Dr. Safina's own organization, the Blue Ocean Institute. Included there is a resource called the Lenten Seafood Packet, which lists for Christians observing Lent by eating seafood instead of meat the kinds of fish that are the most environmentally friendly to consume. The fact that there is even anything here directed toward Christians is the result of Carl Safina's involvement in the Friendship Collaborative. Ken Wilson contributed to this document.
http://blueocean.org
Carl Safina plays the drums! That's him back there pounding away during one of the songs in the church service.
About Carl Safina
Dr. Carl Safina is co-founder and President of Blue Ocean Institute. Seeking to inspire a closer relationship with the sea, he is author of three books: Song for the Blue Ocean, Eye of the Albatross, and Voyage of the Turtle. Dr. Safina grew up loving the ocean and its creatures. He now works to highlight, explain, and solve problems facing the oceans' wildlife. He is a recipient of the Pew Scholar's Award in Conservation and the Environment, a World Wildlife Fund Senior Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction, the John Burroughs Writer's Medal, and a MacArthur Prize. He was also awarded the 2007 Planet Defender Award by the organization Rock The Earth.
J Lee Harshbarger gets a photo op with Carl Safina.
Currently listening to:
Dreams & Visions
by Mary-Kathryn
I listened to this album today on the way home from church, and realized one of the songs was perfect for today's theme! It was her beautiful almost ambient version of the hymn "This Is My Father's World." Click the link below to listen to this song.
05 My Father's World.m4a
Carl Safina Speaks to Christians at Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor
Ken Wilson, the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, loves science. How much, you may ask? Well, some time ago, when he got a sabbatical for six weeks, and he used it to read science books the whole time! As a member of the Ann Arbor Vineyard, I get the benefit of often hearing bits and pieces of science that he brings to us when related to points in his sermons.
About two and a half years ago, Ken did a sermon series on Creation vs. Evolution, called Science and Faith at the Crossroads of Creation, which, since Ken holds that evolution is scientifically accurate, made for an interesting sermon series. The focus of his series was to make room for people who don't believe in young earth creationism or hold similar beliefs; he wanted to let people who think the evolutionary model makes scientific sense to feel welcome at our church. The crux of the issue for Ken is that the church has been unnecessarily blocking people from connecting with God and Christians due to a dominant theme in the evangelical church that to believe in the Bible means to not believe in evolution. Ken sees this as making a prerequisite to potential Christians that they be willing to forsake scientific knowledge in order to come into the fold. It is his mission to break down that barrier. Since we live in a town where a major research university practically owns the whole city, this is a major group for this congregation. But this message has significance to many other towns in this country, also.
As part of this effort, Ken and some other evangelical pastors and leaders have joined with some scientists who have seen the need to break down the barriers between scientists and Christians, particularly when it comes to the need of taking care of Earth. From this group, Ken has developed a friendship with the oceanographer Carl Safina, and one result of that friendship has been that Carl Safina came to the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor to speak.
Ken Wilson, senior pastor of Vineyard Ann Arbor, with Dr. Carl Safina
Now, this is something not likely to happen at many evangelical churches because Dr. Safina is not a Christian. I don't know exactly how he would label himself, but as far as my knowledge of him goes, he does not hold any religious beliefs. But something that our Vineyard church seeks to do in general is to break down the divisions between sacred and secular and view all humans as creations of God, that we're all in the same boat, loved by him and troubled by sin. Breaking down the artificial barriers between Christian vs. non-Christian makes an exchange like this not problematic at all.
We're in the Same Boat
And that was one of the points Dr. Safina made in his presentation. We're all in the same boat together--whatever happens to the Earth, happens to all of us together. He believes that we have common ground, scientists and evangelicals, even if from a slightly different perspective. Scientists of nature have a deep awe of the wonders found in nature; many of them have a nearly religious experience as they discover and take in the complex beauty of nature. From an appreciation of that beauty, they have a desire to not see it trashed by human recklessness. The people of Yahweh were given charge by him in Genesis to take care of the Earth, God's creation. If we are to follow the directive of God, it means doing our part to make sure humans don't trash God's beautiful creation. But even beyond that specific directive, whatever we do not do to help preserve nature, we--or moreso, our children and further descendants--will suffer the consequences of. Dr. Safina, and other members of the Friendship Collaborative, realized that a major group of Americans (evangelicals) have turned a deaf ear to these potential consequences, while at the same time scientists have been building barriers to being heard by showing contempt for religion in general and evangelicals in particular. Meanwhile, the Earth continues to get trashed. So the Friendship Collaborative was set up to break down the barriers and heal the wounds in order to work on caring for the planet.
A slide during Dr. Safina's presentation points out that Christians and scientists are in the same boat--Planet Earth
Dr. Safina grew up loving to fish, but when he got older he realized that the fish were disappearing. This concern drove him to study what was going on and see what he could do to alleviate the problem. During today's talk, he described the destructive methods that are being used for fishing. For example, to get shrimp, they net all kinds of sea creatures, take out the shrimp, and throw out the rest. This is a huge, wasteful killing of creatures, which has an effect on the ecology of the sea. Another example he gave was how some fishing is done to get fish that hide out in coral reefs--they just go to the bottom of the ocean and scrape it all up. He likened it to using a bulldozer to find squirrels.
"We privatize the profit, but socialize the cost."
One significant point of his talk was this: "We privatize profit, but socialize the cost." In the shrimp example, the private shrimp companies get the profit from selling the shrimp, but the government has to clean up the pollution. He gave others examples of this in the fishing arena, where the fish companies get the profit from the fishing, but we all have to pay the cost of cleaning up the damage they do through their methods. He compared that to the current banking crisis, where the greedy lenders got the profit from the reckless borrowers and all the rest of us are left to pay the bill to bail them out.
This point really struck me, because one of the objections to the environmental movement among conservatives is how much money it will cost companies to comply with environmental regulations. It's decried as a way of making it difficult for companies to survive, by forcing the extra costs on them to take care of their polluting effects. But this view ignores that by not making the companies themselves pay for dealing with the pollution, the rest of us have to deal with it through taxpayer funded cleanup. So which method is truly more capitalistic and less socialistic? Under the "privatize profit, socialize cost" model, the people who buy shrimp get it for cheap, but the rest of us subsidize the shrimp diners by paying for the cleanup. Shouldn't the consumers of shrimp be the ones to pay the extra money to make shrimp-catching safe for the sea creatures? By doing so, this will give the shrimp companies incentive to find cheaper ways to catch shrimp in a way that's safe for the environment.
One example of how easily this can sometimes be done is the case of the albatross. Albatrosses eat fish, and so they would often follow fishing boats to get what was in the net. Trouble is, they get caught in the net and die. This was happening at such a large rate that the albatross population was dwindling. So how did they figure out to deal with this problem? Simply make a red-corded side net that goes up vertically out of the water, that surrounds the fish net. The birds see the red cords and don't get into the fishing net. This simple, low-cost method has helped keep the albatross population from diminishing further.
The Ocean Is Not That Big
Something else that struck me from Dr. Safina's talk was the fragility of the ocean. He stated that we tend to think that the ocean is so big that we can't really affect it that much. But he showed a graph of the dwindling of species, and those in the ocean were dwindling at the same rate as those on land. There are other factors going on, too. When the water of the ocean is too warm, corals die. They rely on algae staying on them, because through that photosynthesis, the corals get fed. When the water is too warm, the algae leave, and the corals turn white and die. Also, the acidity rate of the ocean changes as it heats up, making it more difficult for animals such as oysters to properly form. Even the fish have more trouble breathing when this happens.
Seeing It All with New Eyes
Although this is not the first time in my life, by any means, to see examples of the effects of pollution (he showed a number of pictures on the screen to illustrate his points), it was like hearing it all for the first time today. I guess it's because always in the past, I heard it through a different framework. I grew up in the 1960s, and the hippies were the ones clamoring to save the environment. There were big drives to save the planet (Earth Day was initiated then, for example), and lots of talk about changing our ways of living. The hippies later became environmentalists, but the hypocrisy of a number of environmental groups has been documented, making them appear to many to just be another political action group seeking to perpetuate their pet cause.
Today, though, in the context being created by the Friendship Collaborative, all of this presentation of the damage pollution is causing has hit a different button in me. God cares for us humans, but he also cares for his other creatures. He created the Earth to be beautiful, and he put us in charge of the creatures who have less intellectual capacity--or to put it in another way, the creatures depend on us, and it's on us to be faithful to God in caring for them. For one thing, the Bible frequently condemns greed, yet it is greed that is the cause of many of these problems in the ocean.
Evangelicals & Environmentalism
After the talk, there was a small discussion group for anyone who wanted to chew on the topics presented. (This group was hosted by Green Vineyard, a group at Vineyard that has a special heart for God's creation.) Dr. Safina's talk focused on how he became interested in the ocean and what he has discovered in the course of his work, particularly in terms of harm to the ocean. The opening question for this group was, so where do we go from here? I was going to attempt to report on the consensus from that, but after trying, it seemed I could mostly only remember the things I had said, so this will be a bit of a skewed reporting of that discussion.
The discussion began by pointing out that Dr. Safina's talk did not really address suggestions on what we should do to deal with these issues. I brought up that for me, what he did today was what I needed--just to see it all first. I took it from there that the main task of green-focused evangelicals is to first open the hearts of other evangelicals to the issue. While different people shared their perspectives on how this can be done, I most clearly remember the ones I brought up, which follow.
What are the barriers to this acceptance of evangelicals caring for the environment?
1) Evangelical critics of the environmental movement charge that this takes Christians' eyes off of the ball, that their core mission is to "save souls," to use an old terminology.
The underlying worldview that produces this mentality is the "ticket to heaven" paradigm. The world is going to be blown up soon, so get as many people as you can to join the club to get on the train out of here before that happens. But I think this mentality is distorted, and actually is a detriment to evangelism. The alternative is the "Kingdom of God" paradigm that sees the present world as part of the future world, not instead of it. Included in this is the breaking down of the saved vs. non-saved mentality that recognizes we're all in this together. When those barriers are brought down, then it's easier to see that by working together with environmentalists, we can learn about their real humanity and they about ours, and the openness to the gospel is more likely because we're not espousing that the Earth doesn't matter. (I talk more about this in my website article, "Identity Crisis Of An Evangelical, Part 3.")
2) At least for older people, there is an association of environmentalism with hippies that still lingers.
For those who are too young to have been alive back then, the hippies were a major force of change in society. They were determined to remake the society on their terms. Environmental concerns were high on their list, but this group also strongly promoted free sexual activity, drugs, and rebellion against authority. Part of this environmental concern was a kind of worship of nature; hippies often talked about Mother Earth. As a result, many older evangelicals have a visceral association of environmental causes with the causes of a group that has caused much harm to society. Top that off with the worship of Mother Nature, and to them environmentalism is the worship of a false god that comes from an immoral people who despise Christians and the one true God. Taking this one level further, there is fear that acceptance of environmental causes in the church will cause the church to be infiltrated with secular thought...first acceptance of environmentalism, then an acceptance of evolution, then a belief that the Bible is not literally true (and, for example, the miracles described in the Bible didn't really happen), and then loss of power of the Christian faith.
3) Many evangelicals are politically conservative, and hold such views in relation to the environment.
Political conservatives come in two basic types--social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Many evangelicals are both socially and fiscally conservative. Fiscal conservatives deplore taxation beyond the bare minimum needed for things like the armed forces at the national level, and police and fire services at the local level. For them, any call to caring for the environment is seen with $$$, and $$$ make them see red. First of all, they don't usually see much need for environmental laws to begin with, but when such laws are promoted, and the cost is calculated, this is a red flag to them to stop the movement from taking all their money through taxes, or to stop the movement from causing businesses more expense in preserving the environment, because the business will pass on the costs to consumers, or leave the country to do their work where there are no environmental regulations to burden them.
In my view, these are the three largest obstacles to acceptance of a focus on creation care among evangelicals. Until these barriers are sufficiently dealt with, I don't think the green evangelicals can make much progress in getting much of a response from evangelicals.
"Nature, the world, has no value, no interest for Christians. The Christian thinks only of himself and the salvation of his soul."
--Ludwig Feuerbach, 19th century German philosopher & anthropologist
Conclusion / Resources
I made a special effort to make it to church this morning to hear Carl Safina speak. I am glad I made the effort; I found the presentation to be eye-opening and moving.
I recommend that you read the document below, Faith, Science, Earth by Carl Safina. This tells the story of how he became interested in getting involved in dialogue with evangelicals regarding care for the Earth. I found it to be interesting, so I wanted to make it easy for you to read this.
Carl Safina - Faith, Science, Earth.doc
Faith, Science, Earth by Carl Safina
(If this doesn't work for you, you can find it by going to http://www.friendshipcollaborative.org/resources/ [it's listed near the bottom])
In the above article, Dr. Safina quotes Glenn Scherer's observation that of the 130 Congressional members who earned approval ratings of 80-100% from Christian Right groups all got flunking scores from the League of Conservation Voters. See more on this in his article, "The Godly Must Be Crazy." In this article, he ponders why Christians hate the environment so much.
Finally, I'd like to include a link to Dr. Safina's own organization, the Blue Ocean Institute. Included there is a resource called the Lenten Seafood Packet, which lists for Christians observing Lent by eating seafood instead of meat the kinds of fish that are the most environmentally friendly to consume. The fact that there is even anything here directed toward Christians is the result of Carl Safina's involvement in the Friendship Collaborative. Ken Wilson contributed to this document.
http://blueocean.org
Carl Safina plays the drums! That's him back there pounding away during one of the songs in the church service.
About Carl Safina
Dr. Carl Safina is co-founder and President of Blue Ocean Institute. Seeking to inspire a closer relationship with the sea, he is author of three books: Song for the Blue Ocean, Eye of the Albatross, and Voyage of the Turtle. Dr. Safina grew up loving the ocean and its creatures. He now works to highlight, explain, and solve problems facing the oceans' wildlife. He is a recipient of the Pew Scholar's Award in Conservation and the Environment, a World Wildlife Fund Senior Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction, the John Burroughs Writer's Medal, and a MacArthur Prize. He was also awarded the 2007 Planet Defender Award by the organization Rock The Earth.
J Lee Harshbarger gets a photo op with Carl Safina.
Currently listening to:
Dreams & Visions
by Mary-Kathryn
I listened to this album today on the way home from church, and realized one of the songs was perfect for today's theme! It was her beautiful almost ambient version of the hymn "This Is My Father's World." Click the link below to listen to this song.
05 My Father's World.m4a
Posted: Sun - March 22, 2009 at 04:02 PM
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