Against the stream

This week in our group, we have been discussing the future, and how it is seen by Christians. The radical right - dispensationalism - has all the stuff about Armageggon, Rapture, Tribulation, etc. Tota terror as a way of bringing people to faith. Interesting to ask our folk how they see the future. Discussion of evolutionary changes, the eventual end of our sun, but little reflection on the ultimate end for individuals. Perhaps too personal, and unfamiliar? More of that today.

I noticed the Edmonton Sun's headline on Wednesday: "We want 'em!" Could you guess this was a response to surveys conducted by the Sun on the Northern Gateway Pipeline and the XL pipeline? Coud you guess that Albertans would vote any other way? The citizens of this province stand to earn hug dollars building the pipeline, and hawking the local bitumen all over the world.I found it fascinating and ironoc that a survey commissioned by the United Church showed that Albertans highest value is the natural beauty of the province. Our lowest value: environmental concern. It makes you shake your head. I try asking people, when I have the chance, what kind of province they plan to leave for their grandchildren. Almost nobody wants to answer that question.

I think there is a connection between the dispensationalist's view of the future and the lack of environmental concern here in Alberta. If the world will end soon, perhaps tomorrow, then why worry about trees and land? Live for NOW and hope for salvation a bit later. Of course, not allAlbertans subscribe to a lieralist theology, and those who don't, like me, lament the blindness of our neighbors, ready to piss away some of the most beautiful land in Canada, while singing God's praises for "saving" them.

Some local people complained when Beatrix read the Moderator's Pastoral letter about climate change and the environment. There is active opposition here to the idea that things are changing, and the land is being degraded. Pictures of the TAR sands taken from the air show a wasteland, a moonscape, a dead peace of earth. And it could become as large as Florida!

When I rant like this, I feel helpless, because I have no idea how to have an impact on this stuff. Although no one will own up to voting Conservative, this is Heartland for Harper, with no obvious change in sight. Provincially, the only likely change is further to the right, with the Wildrose Alliance gaining some seats in the Legislature.

I've been reading a new book by Walter Brueggemann, The Practice of Prophetic Imagination. In it, he lays out the possibilities and pitfals of ingesting his work on the prophetic imagination (from 1978), and integrating that into a preaching style and content that challenges the values of our contemporary culture. Brueggemann's thesis is that the Christian community, seen through the eyes of the great Hebrew prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and Amos, is counter-cultural. Christians are to be, ike Jesus before them, going against the stream of contemporary life, calling the community to acknowledge our Creator, and to live with respect in creation. Hard work for the contemporary preacher/leader. Churches all seem to be bastions of convention, going with the flow of our self centered and consumerist culture. I'm hoping that by the time I finish the Brueggemann book, I'll have a few more clues from him about how we are to do this. At rhe moment, the image in my mind is of Jesus being crucified for challenging the Roman/Jewish way of "doing" society.

Sombre morning, I guess. But there it is today!