The Bible and Me Part II - Creation

[I've struggled for a long time with my relationship with the Bible. It has been a rich source of insight and spiritual nourishment to me, but also at times, a source of deep doubt and confusion. My intention in this series is to share a little of how that relationship has developed over time. If you're a Christian and you're trying to work out your own approach to the Bible then it won't give you all the answers, but it may give you some questions and insights that could help you along the way. If you're not a believer, but you're interested in the Christian faith - or in Christians in particular - then it may give you a little insight into how some of us tick!]

[The Bible and Me Part I - Beginning to Question]

As I started to consider the idea that the Genesis creation account was a myth, I started to notice other things about the story that began to make a lot more sense. For example, God intially places Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden where all their needs are provided for, but as a result of Adam's sin, they are banished to the harsh world outside where he has to "work the ground from which he had been taken". But if the whole world was perfect, how come one bit was less perfect than the other? Had God been planning this "banishment" all along? Or does it make more sense to see the garden as a symbol of the goodness of a perfect relationship with God, which we are then excluded from when it all goes horribly wrong? Also, why is there a river flowing from Eden which separates out into four other major rivers? Rivers usually run into, not out of one another. Unless again, this is making some sort of symbolic point about the potency of this place - representing a perfect relationship with God - which is a source of the goodness of so much of the surrounding area. And where is the garden now, and what happened to the "cherubim" and "flaming sword" that God put there to guard the way back to the tree of life? There have been various speculations about its location, but it seems pretty clear that neither the tree of life, nor the sword, nor the cherubim have ever been found.

And what of the snake? Most Creationists seem to overlook this point, but if you're going to read the story literally, then read it literally! Adam and Eve were not tempted by the devil, they were tempted by a talking snake! And it is consistently referred to as "the snake" (my emphasis), so apparently there was only one of them - it didn't even have a mate! (This bit really does read like something from one of Aesop's fables!) And it seems like it must've had legs (although the text doesn't say so), or else God's subsequent curse - to "crawl on your belly" - wouldn't have counted for very much. Oh and also, as well as crawling on its belly, God told the snake it was going to "eat dust all the days of [its] life". But I don't know of too many snakes that do that...!

Or perhaps you could look at all this a different way...?: It is a common thread in Jewish and Christian literature and thought, that there are unseen and sometimes very powerful, non-human spiritual entities that play an important part in human life and history. The snake represents Satan - the adversary - who stands opposed to all of God's plans and purposes. Most Creationists accept at least this much anyway because even by their standards it makes more sense than the "literal" explanation given by the text for the snake's interference, which is simply that it was "the most clever of all the wild animals"! But when you begin to treat the whole story as more symbolic than literal, it suddenly begins to offer up other new layers of meaning. "Crawl on your belly" might not be much of a curse to a snake, but it is to a proud and powerful spiritual being - and it rings true! There are no depths to which the Adversary will not stoop. He has no honour - he abandoned all that when he decided to oppose God - hence the reason he is depicted as a snake in the first place. As for eating dust - snakes don't do that, but Satan does. There is no pleasure or fulfilment in a life devoted to destroying everything that is good and true. He is driven by jealousy and hatred and will never find satisfaction in anything he does. These are the kinds of important lessons that I think people are prone to miss, if and when they try to take the text too "literally".

There are actually two creation accounts in Genesis - a fact that is also easily missed when attempting to read this book as a straightforward historical narrative. The first account runs from the beginning of chapter 1, through to chapter 2 verse 2 (the chapter and verse divisions were added much later by Christian editors and unfortunately often bear little relation to the structure of the original text). The second account follows on from there. The distinction between the two can easily be seen by noting the different writing styles, the fact that the accounts overlap with one another chronologically, and the fact that they contradict each other in the detail (in the first account God creates plants on day 3 and mankind on day 6, but in the second account God creates Adam before any of the plants have appeared).

The second account (as just discussed) deals with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the story of the temptation, but the first is a beautiful chiastic poem describing the 6-day creation of the world. Chiastic poems represent the subject material in a symmetrical form, and are heavily used throughout the Old Testament. This may be done for effect, or to make a story easier to remember, or possibly both. This could be an indication that a story has been passed down orally for some time before being committed to paper.

The creation poem starts with 3 days of "separating" - the light from the dark, the water from the sky, and the land from the sea (and plants appear on the land). These are followed by 3 corresponding days of "filling" - the day and night are filled with the sun and the moon, the sea and sky are filled with fish and birds, the land is filled with animals and with man (who are given the plants for food). This is the reason for the rather strange order of events, in which light is created before the sun, which is its source! It really isn't necessary (or desirable!) to invoke strange cosmological arguments in order to try to interpret this in a "literal" fashion!

[The Bible and Me Part III - Inerrancy]
[The Bible and Me Part IV - Scripture vs Tradition]
[The Bible and Me Part V - Job]
[The Bible and Me Part VI - The Difficult Bits]
[The Bible and Me Part VII - The Supernatural]
[The Bible and Me Part VIII - Noah and the Flood]

The Bible and Me Part I - Beginning to Question

[I've struggled for a long time with my relationship with the Bible. It has been a rich source of insight and spiritual nourishment to me, but also at times, a source of deep doubt and confusion. My intention in this series is to share a little of how that relationship has developed over time. If you're a Christian and you're trying to work out your own approach to the Bible then it won't give you all the answers, but it may give you some questions and insights that could help you along the way. If you're not a believer, but you're interested in the Christian faith - or in Christians in particular - then it may give you a little insight into how some of us tick!]

I was brought up as an evangelical, Bible-believing Christian and the Bible has always been a central - indeed crucial - part of my faith. Without the Bible I would probably have a completely different view of God - if I even believed in God at all. Without the Bible I would probably have no idea who Jesus was and I wouldn't be calling myself a Christian. My faith is based on mine (and others') experience, as well as on the Bible, but without the Bible I would have no framework for that faith and would probably not have had the chance to encounter, or respond to God - or Jesus - in the way that I do today.

I was taught from a very young age that the Bible was "The Word of God". Although I didn't know the technical term at the time, I was also taught that it was essentially "inerrant" - i.e. because it was The Word of God, it contained no mistakes, factual inaccuracies or inconsistencies. It was to be believed unequivocally and without question. To disobey anything the Bible told me was to disobey God himself.

As I grew up it gradually became apparent that things were not quite this simple. There were some bits of the Bible for example - mostly in the Old Testament - that didn't apply to me. The old Levitical laws about things like not eating shellfish or not mixing together 2 types of fabric, applied only to those under the old Jewish Covenant and were not rules that I was expected to follow today. OK, so that made sense - so far so good!

I also started to notice that there were some events that were recorded in the Bible more than once, and that the accounts of these didn't always seem to match up. For example, there are some quite big differences in the way the story of Jesus' resurrection is recorded across the 4 different gospels. We did an exercise once in a church youth group that I belonged to, where we attempted to reconcile the 4 accounts by taking them all apart and putting them back together again in a way that made them all fit - in order to demonstrate the fact that they were actually compatible, just told from different angles with different bits missing. To my mind though, we had to work so hard in order to do this, that it was almost as though the accounts weren't really fully compatible with one another at all...

And then there was the whole question of creation and/or evolution. It was probably in my early teens that I first started to become aware of this potential dichotomy. At that time, a popular view on this (and fairly acceptable, in the Christian circles that I moved in) was that the "days" in the Genesis creation account could just as well refer to millions of years. This was justified on the basis that, "with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years" (the Bible, 2 Peter 3:8), and also on the fact that since there was no sun right at the beginning, then who could say how long a day was?! And the order of events in the Genesis creation account more-or-less corresponds to the scientific account anyway, so they're perfectly compatible! - except that when you get right down to it, it actually doesn't...

Then when I went to University I was introduced to a rather radical idea - and because it came from a visiting speaker at our Christian Union, who otherwise seemed to believe in and know the same God that I did, and because he was also quite a high up member of the London Bible College (I think he might've been the president, but I can't remember now), I was able to treat it with a little more credence than I might've done otherwise. The idea was this: What if the Genesis creation account is actually a myth? What if it isn't even intended to be treated as a literal account? What if it's just there to teach us stuff about God and about ourselves and about how we relate to Him and to the world? What if it isn't - and isn't meant to be - a scientifically accurate, historical account?

This idea made quite a lot of sense to me. After all, it seemed very unlikely that there was anyone actually there, that far back, who was able to write - and certainly no-one who was there before Adam and Eve to witness the first 5 days! If the Genesis creation account did come directly from God himself (the only other possibility!), then it had to have been somehow revealed to someone so they could write it down. But how would God explain something like that to someone who had none of the scientific knowledge that we have today? Surely the point of it wasn't to teach science in any case, it was to teach us about our relationship with God and with the world?

This was probably the first time I seriously entertained the idea that perhaps the Bible wasn't all meant to be taken entirely literally after all (apart from things like Jesus' parables, which were obviously just stories that he told in order to make a point).

[The Bible and Me Part II - Creation]
[The Bible and Me Part III - Inerrancy]
[The Bible and Me Part IV - Scripture vs Tradition]
[The Bible and Me Part V - Job]
[The Bible and Me Part VI - The Difficult Bits]
[The Bible and Me Part VII - The Supernatural]
[The Bible and Me Part VIII - Noah and the Flood]

Estranged

I am not a Biblical literalist. Well I am, about certain things. I believe, for example, that the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, was (and is) more than just a person. I believe that he was God come among us and that, after being crucified, he was physically raised from the dead. The early Christians - who lived during and shortly after his lifetime - lived and died for this belief, and I hope that - if it ever came to it - I would be prepared to do the same.

There are other parts of the Bible though, which go much further back, the origins and accuracy of which are much more difficult, if not impossible to trace or to verify. We still have many good reasons to value them and take them seriously though, and in my experience God speaks powerfully through them and they have a great deal still to teach us.

The earliest story in the Bible (that is, the one with the earliest setting), is of course the story of creation. This is not one of the stories I take literally, although I know this is controversial for some of my fellow evangelical Christians. It is a story though, that teaches us some very important things - about ourselves, God and the world around us.

One of the things this story tries to get to grips with is the problem of estrangement. Its author(s) plainly believed that God was real and that He was good - so why did He always seem so distant? And why was there so much evil in the world? The author(s) deal(s) with this by telling a story. In this story, God creates the world - which of course He must have done, somehow - and then makes people to live in it. These people are somehow more than just animals. They are in fact - in some small but very significant ways - like God Himself. God looks after these people - He gives them everything they need - and He trusts them. He gives them responsibility to rule over His world and - crucially - He also lets them choose whether they will be faithful to Him, or ignore Him and go their own way.

In the story, Adam and Eve - our actual, or metaphorical, ancestors - choose to go their own way. They give in to the temptation - presented to them by a serpent - of becoming even more like God than they already are. They eat from the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil" - which is the only thing God has told them they mustn't do. By doing this they are choosing to end their reliance on God's wisdom (and by extension His mercy) and rely on their own judgement instead. Shame and guilt quickly enter the equation as they realise that - without God's help - they are at the mercy of standards they can no longer live up to.

This decision excludes them from God's abundance and provision. They are thrown out of "the garden" - where all their needs have been met, and God has walked and talked with them - into the much harsher world outside, where they are left to their own devices (more or less) in accordance with the choice they have made.

However literally or otherwise we take this story, we can see the reality of it in our own lives and its effects on us and the world around us. Apart from the suffering and evil that are sadly so characteristic of life, God also seems extraordinarily distant, to the extent that many of us doubt, or have even altogether rejected, His existence. The signs of His presence are still all around us though - in the amazing beauty and complexity of nature, wherever and whenever we experience true love, joy or compassion, in our capacity for awe and wonder and in our searching and heartfelt questions about the nature and purpose of reality and of life.

The good news of course is that God hasn't entirely abandoned His creation. The rest of the first part of the Bible (the "Old Testament") is the story of His dealings with a particular group of people, as they struggle to understand Him and live in relationship with Him, and as He prepares a way to heal the rift between Himself and humanity and repair the damage that has been done.

The healing of this rift was the primary purpose of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth - the subject of my first paragraph. How exactly this helps, is the subject of my next post …

Outside the System?

I recently came across this post on the BBC website, discussing the influence of human hunting activity on evolution. The basic point of the article is that humans have evolved/developed predatory abilities which are far beyond those of any other organism on the planet, and that as such we represent a major threat to the rest of the system.

Normally - so the theory goes - organisms develop, in part at least, as a consequence of an evolutionary arms race between prey and predator. So carnivores for example, become faster runners or develop sharper teeth and claws, while the herbivores they prey on become faster or larger or develop tougher skin or other defences.

The problem is that humans have an incredible ability to out-think their prey, and to develop tools or technology that can get round any or all of their defences, and they have been able to do this so quickly that evolution no longer has any chance of keeping up. The consequences of this are obvious - we have already wiped out many species and seem to be well on our way to wiping out an awful lot more!

All of this raises the question though: If evolution has been such a wonderful system up until now, then what has gone wrong? This system has worked effectively for billions of years, allegedly producing living organisms from non-organic matter and then producing the mind-blowing quantities and variety of flora and fauna that we see today. Has this system finally broken in the last couple of hundred thousand years? Has it finally unbalanced itself by producing this strange new species of super-predator which somehow seems to have the capacity to destroy the whole thing?

There is another way to read this story. It's not a scientifically precise or complete way of looking at it, but in many ways it's a lot more useful. This version of the story has been around a lot longer than modern science or evolutionary theory and can be found - yes alright, you've guessed it! - in the pages of the Bible.

This version of the story says that human beings were made, "in God's image". In ancient times, long before the advent of modern communication, if a king ruled over a large empire it was common for him to put statues of himself in the places he ruled over, to remind the inhabitants of who was in charge. In the same way, according to the Bible, God has left a living statue of himself on this planet - that is, you and me! According to the Bible then, it isn't an accident that human beings have intellectual and other capacities which are far beyond those of any other creature - we've been given these capacities by God because we are here with a job to do. We've been given control of this planet and He expects us to look after it for Him, and to show the world what He is like by our wise and careful stewardship of it.

Of course it doesn't take a genius to notice that this arrangement also seems to have gone rather wrong! But the problem is with us. We know that we have the capacity to be wise and careful stewards, but we often choose to be selfish and short-sighted instead. This again, is either a sign that evolution has gone very wrong (if you believe that version of the story), or that there are other forces beyond mere evolution which are at play.

So then, are we independent creatures with the capacity for moral choice who are meant to reflect the good God who made us, but often don't and - it seems - have become estranged from Him in some way? Or are we simply evolved beings whose existence represents the fact that the impersonal system that created us has now finally over-reached itself? Or could there - possibly - be elements of truth in both versions of this story...? What do you think...?

Priests of Creation

I recently stumbled across this article by John Zizioulas (the Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamon(!)), and it's given me quite a bit to think about!

I've recently been reading "Virtue Reborn" by Tom Wright, which talks quite a bit about humanity's twin calling to be "rulers" and "priests". This starts in the garden of Eden, but is messed up when Adam rebels against God. The baton is then handed on to Israel, with whom God has a special relationship in the Old Testament, then taken on and fulfilled by Jesus - our great High Priest who is also the Messiah who comes to rule over God's new Kingdom. Finally, in the New Testament, Christ's followers are commissioned as a "royal priesthood" and in Revelation we are told that ultimately they will "reign on the earth".

Zizioulas has helped deepen my understanding of the "priestly" side of our calling, specifically with regard to creation. Here is my attempt to summarise the main points that stood out to me, intermingled with some thoughts from Tom Wright, as well as a few observations of my own:

1. Humans are part of creation. Contemporary scientific theory says we evolved from apes. Genesis 2 says we were made "from the dust of the ground". To my mind these are 2 different ways of saying the same thing (although I think the evolution "metaphor" actually says it better) - we are an indivisible part of the natural world.
2. In some way nevertheless, humans seem to transcend nature. In particular we have:
1. Rationality - the capacity to understand and make sense of our environment, to create order and to construct meaning. 
2. Creativity - the desire and ability to create new "realities" by reflecting and refashioning what is there, but in our own unique style.
Consequently, we are always trying to reach beyond nature. This can be seen in our spirituality and also in our pursuit of knowledge and technology.
3. Just as we are mortal, so also the world is finite - one day, like us, it is going to die (and at the moment, we seem to be speeding up the process!).
4. The Bible however, holds out the hope of resurrection - a re-embodied life after death - for us (through Jesus) and also for creation (see Romans 8:19-21, 2 Peter 3:13).
5. The only way creation can attain immortality is by being united with its creator - the immortal God (this is what Revelation 21 is all about).
6. Humans are in a unique position to bring about this unity - as part of creation we represent it before God (in the same way that the Old Testament priests represented Israel before God in the Temple), but because of our transcendent nature (or because, as it says in Genesis, we are made in God's image) we are able to reach out to God in a way that the rest of creation can't.
7. Human beings are therefore tasked with a dual role:
1. To reign over creation - to reflect God to it by our wise stewardship (this is part of what being in God's image is all about).
2. To act as priests - intermediaries between God and creation - thus bringing creation into full relationship with God and enabling it to fulfil its destiny.
8. We have messed up this calling, by trying to be like God ourselves (this was the temptation offered by the serpent when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit). Because of this we try to lord it over creation, imagining ourselves to be its masters, instead of ruling it wisely for its own benefit and on God's behalf.
9. Consequently, creation is cut off from God and doomed to decay and destruction.  Also though, we cut ourselves off from creation, as we imagine ourselves to be like God - separate and independent masters of it, instead of dependent on it for our very being.
10. God saved the day by sending Jesus, who "undid" mankind's rebellion through His obedient, self-sacrificial death on the cross and consequently became the first man to be resurrected to eternal life.  Through His sacrifice, it is now possible for us and God - and ultimately creation and God - to be fully reconciled.

To me, this seems to have massive implications. Here are a few that spring to mind:

• First of all, part of the fairly recent appeal of New Age and Pagan spirituality is its' sense of connectedness with the earth. Many people see this as a powerful antidote to the sense of estrangement they feel from the natural world, especially since the Industrial Revolution. Traditional Christianity seems to have had little to offer in this respect, but the perspective above addresses this quite powerfully.
  
  
• Christians usually seem to assume that God's salvation plan is just about human beings. Yes, we should look after creation, because God made it and He asked us to, but it isn't really a central part of our faith. The above perspective puts things the other way around though - God's plan was to save the whole of creation and He made us as part of His plan to achieve that! Yes, He could have left us out of the equation, but He wanted a creation He could relate to and which would willingly submit to His loving rule. Creation can't do this without us - we are its representatives and only we have the capacity to enter into willing relationship with God.
  
  
• Our pursuit of technology shows a constant desire to transcend nature and break away from its constraints. Creativity and innovation are part of our God-given nature, but we tend to do this recklessly and destructively, forgetting that we are part of the natural world and dependent on it for everything we do. This comes from our desire to be like God and an unwillingness to accept our "creature" status.
  
  
• To care for the world is to fulfil our calling - or at least a fairly central part of it. It isn't just a side-line - it's preparation for, and an anticipation of, our future destiny! We are part of creation and in relationship with it. God's plan isn't to rescue us from it one day, it's to save the whole of creation and us with it, and to bring heaven and earth - us and Himself - together in perfect unity!

A Modern Creation Myth

No-one knows for sure exactly how the world started, since none of us were there to see it.

The Biblical creation account in Genesis is, in my view, a God-inspired myth.  It's a story, set within the cosmos according to the way the Jews understood it at the time, which attempts to encapsulate what they knew about God, the world He created, and our place within that world.

Nowadays, modern science has uncovered a lot more about the way the world works and has advanced various theories regarding it's history.  None of these theories are complete and what we think we know is constantly being challenged and refined.

Here is a modern "creation myth" based on the generally accepted current understanding.  (I prefer to think of it as supplementing, rather than replacing the original).  I found it in Arthur Peacocke's "Paths from Science Towards God":

There was God. And God was All-That-Was. God's Love over-flowed and God said, 'Let Other be. And let it have the capacity to become what it might be, making it make itself - and let it explore its potentialities.'

And there was Other in God, a field of energy, vibrating energy - but no matter, space, time or form. Obeying its given laws and with one intensely hot surge of energy - a hot big bang - this Other exploded as the Universe from a point twelve or so billion years go in our time, thereby making space.

Vibrating fundamental particles appeared, expanded and expanded, and cooled into clouds of gas, bathed in radiant light. Still the universe went on expanding and condensing into swirling whirlpools of matter and light - a billion galaxies.

Five billion years ago, one star in one galaxy - our Sun - became surrounded by matter as planets.  One of them was our Earth.  On Earth, the assembly of atoms and the temperature became just right to allow water and solid rock to form.  Continents and mountains grew and in some deep wet crevice, or pool, or deep in the sea, just over three billion years ago, some molecules became large and complex enough to make copies of themselves and became the first specks of life.

Life multiplied in the seas, diversifying and becoming more and more complex.  Five hundred million years ago, creatures with solid skeletons - the vertebrates - appeared.  Algae in the sea and green plants on land changed the atmosphere by making oxygen.  Then three hundred million years ago, certain fish learned to crawl from the sea and live on the edge of land, breathing that oxygen from the air.

Now life burst into many forms - reptiles, mammals (and dinosaurs) on land - reptiles and birds in the air.  Over millions of years the mammals developed complex brains that enabled them to learn.  Among these were creatures who lived in trees.  From these our first ancestors derived and then, only forty thousand years ago, the first men and women appeared.  They began to know about themselves and what they were doing - they were not only conscious but self-conscious.  The first word, the first laugh were heard.  The first paintings were made.  The first sense of a destiny beyond - with the first signs of hope, for these people buried their dead with ritual. The first prayers were made to the One who made All-That-Is and All-That-Is-Becoming - the first experiences of goodness, beauty and truth - but also of their opposites, for human beings were free.

The Fear of Science

A few days ago I caught part of this programme on Channel 4: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/genius-of-britain/episode-guide/series-1/episode-5

Near the end they showed a two-way interview between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking.  During the interview, Hawking asked Dawkins why he was “so obsessed with God”, which I found quite amusing! I was also interested though, to hear Dawkins’ response. Dawkins said (paraphrased – I can’t remember his exact words) that science was all about asking questions and trying to understand things and he felt that belief in God got in the way of this because it encouraged people to use God as an explanation for anything they couldn’t understand.

To be honest I think this is a bit weak as many Christians are also scientists and this doesn’t appear to stop them from doing what they do.  In fact, the belief in an ordered world, which stemmed from a belief in a God of order, underpinned much early scientific research.  I do often wonder though, whether for many people, religious belief does sometimes present a barrier to honest scientific enquiry. I certainly think this is the case for many Creationists (in the narrowest sense of that word). It seems to me that hard-line Creationists have a very strong pre-defined view of what the world should be like, so that any “science” they employ is bent entirely towards proving this picture, rather than towards investigating what’s actually out there with an open mind.

On the flip side however, I think Dawkins actually does something very similar with his hard-line approach towards natural selection. He’s been quoted many times for saying that Darwin made it possible for him to be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist”. Dawkins doesn’t like mystery – he doesn’t like the unexplainable – and he believes that natural selection is able to explain everything about how the biological world – including humans – came to be the way that it is. But although most scientists (excluding Creationists) now accept that evolution has happened, there is no universal agreement on whether natural selection is the sole cause. Many (if not most) scientists would be happy to accept that there is still a significant amount of “mystery” around our understanding of what exactly has taken place.

For some Christians though, there can be a significant amount of fear involved in uncovering this mystery. What if we do manage to understand everything? Where would this leave God? If God is in the gaps in our understanding, where does He go if the gaps disappear? What if the things we discover disprove everything we thought we knew about the world?

First of all I think it’s extremely arrogant to assume that we will ever know or understand everything. For every answer we find there are - and always will be - a lot more questions. And if God is real, as Christians believe, then the mind of God will always be beyond ordinary human investigation.

Secondly though, what if the things that we discover disprove what we thought we knew? Well then, we should take it like men (or women)! Christians should have nothing to fear from the truth – it’s the foundation of our religion! If the truth we discover isn’t quite what we thought it was then obviously we have some learning to do! If God is real then we have nothing to fear from discovering His Universe. We should always be prepared to be surprised by God – and also by the truth!

Destroying the Earth

I find myself constantly horrified by the damage that humans are doing to the natural world - here's an article I spotted on the BBC a couple of days ago:  http://tinyurl.com/32pufen

"The global abundance of vertebrates - the group that includes mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and fish - fell by about one-third between 1970 and 2006, the UN says."

The main point of this article is that biodiversity is being reduced to the point that it will soon have a noticeable negative impact on our economies.  My first reaction to this is that it's a terrible shame that it seems to be necessary to talk in terms of monetary value before business people and policy makers will consider the natural world to be worth taking care of.  It seems obvious to me that nature has an inherent value which is far greater than all of the money that could ever be made out of it.  However, since (unfortunately) this does appear to be necessary, I am glad that somebody is taking the time to do it.  At the same time though, I can't help thinking how stupid and short-sighted greed makes people - of course if you destroy your environment, on which you are completely dependent for life and raw materials, then your capacity for making money is sooner or later going to be reduced!  Not to mention your capacity for happiness and ultimately, for survival!

As a Christian I have less to fear than some, from the destruction of the natural world, but it hurts me perhaps more because I see in it an amazing reflection of the beauty, ingenuity and creativity of it's maker.  One day, according to the Bible, the world will be transformed - there will be "new heavens and a new earth".  I look forward hopefully to that day.  In the meantime though, we have a responsibility to look after the world we have now - for our own sakes, for the rest of humanity both now and in future generations, and for it's sake and the sake of God who made it and entrusted it to us.

Believing that this world is temporary, in no way excuses Christians for over-exploiting it - any more than believing that one day there will be no more sorrow, could excuse you for being unkind to someone!  Jesus once said, "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come."  A similar statement could (pessimistically perhaps) be made about environmental destruction.

Finally, just in case there any Christians out there who are still not sure about this, the following is taken from one of the judgement scenes in the New Testament book of Revelation (chapter 11): "The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great— and for destroying those who destroy the earth" [my emphasis]!