Comments Olivia has made

  • "The Cross and the Rain Forest"

    When I was a religious conservative a few short years ago (I'm now a religious progressive, if I have to stick a label on myself), I bought this book from the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty (HQed in Grand Rapids, MI): "The Cross and the Rain Forest: A Critiqiue of Radical Green Spirituality," by Robert Whelan, Joseph Kirwan and Paul Haffner.

    Just yesterday, I remembered that I had never read it (I might've agreed with its premises back then). So I hauled it out, knowing that I would now disagree with it. I haven't gotten too far, but I can tell it gives MANY more reasons why some orthodox/evangelical Christians spurn environmentalism than just the apocalyptic theory spouted by James Watt.

    From what I've gathered, these authors think that "radical green spirituality" treats  environmentalism like a religion (eco-religion), animals (supposedly soulless) as equal if not superior to men (purportedly the only beings with souls), and the entire subject of caring for the Earth as if it is God (paganism, in a word).

    They start out by making sport of some religion-and-ecology books: "Green Christianity" by Tim Cooper, "The Greening of the Church" by Sean McDonagh, and "Greenhouse Theology," by Ron Elsdon, to name three.  

    I think they're trying to make the case that Christians should be concerned about the environment but should not dare work in tandem with "green" secularists. For example: "This chapter has attempted to set out some of the reasons for which Christians might want to give the Green movement a wide berth.... (p. 48).

    "The Cross and the Rain Forest" should make Dave feel even more secure in his atheism. I wouldn't blame him. But just know, Dave, that there are plenty of us Christians out here, even evangelicals, who do NOT fit into the closed-minded, evolution-spurning, sin-consumed, guilt-mongering, "Left Behind"-believing, neocon-supporting stereotypical Christian that the media defines as today's "Christian right."      

    "The whole creation owns Thy power"

    On Is there tension between them? posted 4 years, 6 months ago 41 Responses

  • Down with the Sickness


    Jim Motavalli's fine piece on the emergence of conservation medicine greatly interests me. Looking at the intersecting problems he cites from a different -- an entirely spiritual -- perspective, I come to a different conclusion. I believe that destructive thoughts and careless thoughts and selfish thoughts and fearful thoughts are objectified in the environment and its inhabitants. The result of mental dis-ease is physical diseases. Thus, if we want to prevent or eliminate physical disease, we must start, and stay, with an exclusively "mental" prescription.    

    A 19th century New England woman who discovered how to wipe out all manner of disease (by giving specific spiritual treatment to the dis-eased thought behind the diseased condition) says this concept better than I can.

    In the Preface of her seminal book on spiritual healing, "Science and Health," Mary Baker Eddy writes (page viii): "Sickness has been combated for centuries by doctors using material remedies; but the question arises, Is there less sickness because of these practitioners? A vigorous "No" is the response deducible from two connate facts, -- the reputed longevity of the Antediluvians, and the rapid multiplication and increased violence of diseases since the flood."

    In her life work (the instant, complete and permanent cure of all known sicknesses of her time, including medically diagnosed fatal diseases in their advanced stages) and in her writing, Mrs. Eddy proved, scientifically and systematically, that a correct understanding of the universe's one Cause and Creator (best described by the nouns Spirit, Mind, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and, above all, Love) and an equally correct view of that Cause and Creator's effect (spiritual ideas that we call men and women, animals, water, land, plants, sky, stars, planets, etc.)is what brings harmony to our lives.

    Our true medicine, she revealed and reasoned -- and demonstrated repeatedly -- is actually Mind, not matter. Our true nature, she maintained, is capable of being and doing and possessing only good (including good health), never evil (such as selfish and destructive acts, whether as victim or violator).

    On the subject of infection and contagion, the writer of "Science and Health" speaks equally boldly, and authoritatively. Take this quote on page 196, for example, where she states: "Many a hopeless case of disease is induced by a single post mortem examination, -- not from infection nor from contact with material virus, but from the fear of the disease and from the image brought before the mind; it is a mental state, which is afterwards outlined on the body."

    Or consider this radical statement, found in another of her books, "Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896" (pages 228-229): "People believe in infectious and contagious diseases, and that any one is liable to have them under certain predisposing or exciting causes. This mental state prepares one to have any disease whenever there appear the circumstances which he believes produce it. If he believed as sincerely that health is catching when exposed to contact with healthy people, he would catch their state of feeling quite as surely and with better effect than he does the sick man's.
         If only the people would believe that good is more contagious than evil, since God is omnipresence, how much more certain would be the doctor's success, and the clergyman's conversion of sinners. And if only the pulpit would encourage faith in God in this direction, and faith in Mind over all other influences governing the receptivity of the body, theology would teach man as David taught: "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling."
         The confidence of mankind in contagious disease would thus become beautifully less; and in the same proportion would faith in the power of God to heal and to save mankind increase, until the whole human race would become healthier, holier, happier, and longer lived. A calm, Christian state of mind is a better preventive of contagion than a drug, or than any other possible sanative method; and the "perfect Love" that "casteth out fear" is a sure defense."

    Not incidentally, students of Mrs. Eddy's writings and of the Bible's spiritual healings are today practicing these same principles, overcoming their own and their patient's supposedly incurable diseases, and disproving materialistic reasoning with all the authority and effectiveness of the spiritual healers of days gone by.      

    May the dedicated doctors, veterinarians and physical scientists who are striving to discover the links between environmental degradation and animal-to-human or animal-to-animal diseases dig so deep that they find the true, mental cause of such inharmony and, in so doing, learn to defeat it with the only Cause-and-effect Principle of the universe: the pure, permanent, all-powerful, all-present, perfect Mind and its infinite manifestation.

    That's something good to ponder.            

     On Doctors, vets, and scientists unite in brave new world of conservation medicine posted 4 years, 8 months ago 1 Response