Jarrod S. Davis

Introduction

A Walnut in Our Bacon

“I think this piece of bacon came from the pig’s tail,” Castine, my oldest daughter, said, holding up a wavy end of bacon. “It’s curly, just like a pig’s tail.”

I smiled, loving her three-year-old logic. We were sitting around the breakfast table. In the middle was a bowl of bacon pieces, leftover from last night’s supper of chopped salad.

“It’s not from the tail,” I told her, “It’s from the pig’s belly.”

She accepted this and ate her curly piece, then reached for another one. “What about this one?” she asked, “What part of the pig is this one from?”

“The belly,” I said. “All bacon comes from the pig’s belly.”

She ate the second piece then reached for a third, inspecting it before holding it up for me. “This one isn’t from the belly,” she said. “It’s different.”

I sighed and said again, “All bacon comes from the pig’s belly.”

“This one’s different,” she said, then cautiously took a nibble. “Eww!” she cried, tossing the errant bacon onto the table. “This one’s yucky!”

Before I could react, my much more patient wife intervened, picking up the discarded bacon and looking at it. “She’s right, this one is different,” my wife said. “It’s not bacon. It’s a walnut.”

In our cleaning up the leftovers from last night, somehow a walnut piece ended up mixed in with the bacon bits. At a quick glance, it fit in with the rest of the bowl, the tasty bacon my daughter was enjoying. But a closer look revealed that it was different. It didn’t feel the same, didn’t smell the same, and definitely didn’t taste the same. Though she did not recognize it for what it was, my daughter knew right away that it was wrong, that this foreign imposter did not belong, that it did not have the bacony goodness of the rest of her breakfast.

It was a walnut in her bacon.

In my years as a pastor and studying theology, I have come across several walnuts in our bacon. The doctrines handed down to us are good and wise, and Scripture is full of truth, wisdom, and beauty. But some Christian teachings and theological perspectives I have heard are simply wrong: They are not biblically accurate, and they do not hold true to the words of Jesus Christ. They don’t fit with our traditions and ideals. They are walnuts in the bacon of our Christianity; they may look just fine at a quick glance, but a closer look reveals them to be inaccurate applications of the words of Scripture and Jesus Christ.

They are walnuts in the bacon of our Christianity; they may look just fine at a quick glance, but a closer look reveals them to be inaccurate applications of the words of Scripture and Jesus Christ.

One such teaching that I have encountered repeatedly over the years pertains to God’s creation. I have heard it declared from pulpits and in Bible studies and repeated to me in conversations that God has given this earth into the hands of humanity, to do with as we wish. It is within our rights, I have been told, to treat nature however we choose. I have even heard some claim that Jesus will return before our natural resources are used up or the environment becomes inhospitable, so by burning through these things faster, we are hurrying Christ’s imminent return.

This is wrong.

It is wrong for Christians to think that God’s creation is our property.

It is wrong for Christians to think that God’s creation is disposable.

It is wrong for Christians to turn a blind eye to the connectedness of creation.

It is wrong for Christians to hurt their neighbors through the abuse of creation.

Yet, under this false teaching, all of these things would be permissible.

In my experience, while this false teaching is out there and does have an impact on many lives, the majority of Christians do not believe it. However, our churches often lack biblically sound teaching when it comes to God’s creation. We acknowledge God as creator but do not take the time to understand what it means for us to be God’s creatures, living in the midst of God’s creation and surrounded by our fellow creatures. We know these other teachings are wrong, but we aren’t quite sure how to express that, and we aren’t quite sure what is right. If we want to push against false teachings and repair the damage such teachings have done, then we must start by understanding what the Bible actually says about creation and our place in it. 

Established: 1776

On December 24, 1776, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Joshua Davis, purchased some land south of Turner Swamp in eastern North Carolina. He farmed that land the rest of his life, and now, eight generations later, my family still owns that farm. It is one of the oldest continuously family-owned farms in North Carolina. My brother Josh, named after our sixth-great grandfather, now runs the farm.

Though I have never actually lived on my family’s farm, I have always considered it home. My immediate family moved and changed houses several times in my childhood, but the farm always remained. It is where we gathered on special days and for no special reason at all. It is where I played as a child and learned to work as I grew. It is the fields and the forests I have walked my whole life. It is the place where I have been placed , and the place I return to.

Each year, on Ash Wednesday, when the ashes are smeared across my head and I am reminded, “You are from the dust, and to the dust you shall return,” I know exactly what dust I will return to. I am from the dirt of my family’s farm, and I will forever have that dirt under my fingernails (metaphorically speaking).

It is my place.

One of my professors at seminary, Norman Wirzba, a man whose teachings drastically changed my life, explained the act of creating as making a place for someone other than yourself. That is what we see God doing in Genesis 1. As God separates the sky from the dry ground and the sea, God makes a place for creation to be. The sun, stars and clouds have a place. The trees, flowers, and grass have a place. The birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals all have a place. And when God has placed each creature in its place, God looks at it and declares it good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 31).

When I walk my family’s farm, I feel God’s presence in the place that has been made for me. I know alongside God, It is good to be here.

It is good. Good is a hard term to define. Our modern world does its best to quantify goodness. A place is good if it has an abundance of financially valuable resources, or if it can be sold for a substantial amount of money. But I cannot believe that that is what God had in mind when looking at creation and declaring it good. There must be in creation an intrinsic, nonquantifiable goodness that undermines our attempts to place economic value on it. As God’s creatures, we must recognize and cherish that goodness.

It is good to be. God is the giver of all good things, and God gives life. Therefore, our existence must be good, not because of what we can contribute or accomplish, but because God made us. To be alive is a good thing in and of itself; it would be a shame to waste this good gift by rushing through, ignoring it, seeking value in ourselves apart from the goodness of our Creator.

It would also be a shame to squander this good gift of life by declaring the existence of our fellow creatures as anything less than good. After all, God did not wait until you were born, or even until humanity was created, to declare creation good. God proclaimed all parts of creation good. It is good for your neighbor to exist. It is good for the birds at your birdfeeder and the clouds in the sky to exist. The tree outside your window is good. The raindrops hitting your umbrella are good. A lizard, a desert, the ocean currents, the changing of the seasons, yeast, honeybees and earthworms, all are good. As creatures made in God’s image, we, like God, must see the goodness of the rest of creation that surrounds us.

It is good to be here. God has placed us in creation and declared it to be good. We need to grasp the goodness of being here, the goodness of this place where we are placed among others. We must understand the good ways that God has connected creation, how none of us live in a bubble but are all reliant upon one another for life and the continuation of good. And we need to accept the responsibility of keeping this place good, of making it better, for ourselves and for all others. 

Where Do We Go from Here?

Unfortunately, humanity has taken God’s creation and stripped it of its goodness. We have made it so that it is no longer a good thing to be here for many creatures, human and nonhuman alike. Our fallen, sinful nature leads us to death and destruction, and that destruction is reaching never-before-seen, catastrophic levels. We have thoroughly violated God’s green earth.

Creation’s inherent goodness is not gone, but it needs our help. Creation needs us to understand our place in creation and the responsibility that God has entrusted us with. Christians, of all people, ought to be the ones leading the charge, pushing and working for the redemption and restoration of what God has made. We should never be satisfied until all of God’s creation can say, “It is good to be here.”

I start this book with the enjoyment of Creation, because I think that we will only succeed in caring for this creation if we view it with the same kind of love and pleasure God has for it. We will then consider how God intended for creation to be used, what the purpose of creation is, in chapter 2, followed by God’s trust in humanity in giving us dominion of Creation in chapter 3. Chapter 4 will explore human responsibility for and within creation, acknowledging how we have gotten it wrong. In chapter 5, we will consider the monumental task of redeeming Creation that lies before us. Finally, in chapter 6, we will come to an understanding of creation care as a fulfillment of the two greatest commandments that Jesus taught. Throughout this book, I will try to provide you with some practical ways and some practices to begin in which you, your family, your church and your community can better care for what God has made. This book does not offer all the solutions to the catastrophes this world faces. Nor does this book seek to place blame or explore in depth how we got into this mess that we find ourselves in. Rather, in this book we’ll turn our eyes to the scriptures. We’ll begin to see what the Bible teaches about God’s creation, our place in it, our responsibility for it, and the ongoing work that God does in creation.