Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Noah the Greenie

Published by

Matt Stone

2007-01-30

I made some comments to Sun Warrior earlier this evening that I thought deserved a wider screening.

I have been speaking of heroes in my recent post and I was reminded last night that Noah needs to be remembered as one of many heroes for green Christians. The flood story of Genesis is a story of ecological crisis. Humanity had gotten out of control and all creation bared the consequences. Sound familiar? What did Noah do? Did he stop just with saving his family? No. Did he stop just with saving domestic animals and food crops that were directly useful to humans? Again, no. He sought to save every species including all the wild ones. And when he had saved them, God made a covenant with them all. Not just with Noah but with all the creatures on the Arc. Irrespective of whether you credit this story with any historical authenticity or not, the fact is this is a formative story for Christians, one which we tell our kids, and it clearly expresses concern for wider issues than just God and Humanity. I see the path for us Christians is not to abandon the faith but to recover neglected teachings in this deep heritage of ours.

What reminded me was a talk by Professor Robert Barry Leal at Glebe Café Church entitled, “Is Christianity Green”. Afterwards I paused to consider the irony that the green movement has embraced the symbols from Noah story with a lot more gusto than Christians in recent decades. Do you find it curious that the dove and the rainbow spoken of in Genesis chapter 8 and 9 grace the bow of the Rainbow Warrior at the same time many Christians are dismissive of environmental activism as somewhat pagan? Personally I have always seen the Christian hope and the Green hope as very much intertwined, which goes a lot towards explaining my support of Greenpeace for over a decade now. With the Creator’s care for creation in mind I offer some of the words of Genesis for meditation:

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

Whenever you see a rainbow, pause to consider what we are doing to this planet of ours … and other creatures … and God’s. Pause to consider how we can live more like Noah – that ancient greenie who saved many an endangered species.

Interested Aussies will find Barry Leal’s latest book, “Through Ecological Eyes”, being stocked at Kentigern bookstore. Guess what I’m reading now?

Tags Nature, Noah, Pagan

7 responses to “Noah the Greenie”

Sun Warrior

2007-01-31

Actually, this is quite interesting from another perspective.
If God has this covenant with all the life in Creation, the mechanics of the ‘end of the world’ by aficionados may have to re-calculate.
To keep the covenant, that would mean the end of the ‘human’ world, while life continues for the rest of life. Certainly shows how out-of-sync with ‘reality’ humans are with God’s Creation.
Perhaps Noah IS showing the way, by his wholeness connected with God and ‘nature’ in one. Wickedness is perhaps the separation of the heart from ‘nature’ as it is from God and our fellow humans. Seems like a major chunk of Biblical history.
We have been looking for God in our fellow humans. Perhaps we could find some in the life of ‘nature’ as well. That is extremely new territory for modern urban dwellers. The heroism of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior and Noah’s Ark are perhaps trying to complete a circle.

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Matt Stone

2007-01-31

Actually if you read Genesis carefully the covenant with Noah et al entails a promise never to destroy the earth by water again but neglects to say anything about elements like fire, thereby leaving a loophole open.
But that being said, that’s not the end of the story. There are critical verses in Revelation and Romans which indicate that the ‘end of the world’ resurrection includes the resurrection (and by this I mean physical transmutation) of all creation, not just humans. Fire won’t have the last word either.
So irrespective of my first point there seems to be a much neglected theme in the Bible that the Creator will liberate the creation he called ‘good’ in Genesis 1 from human injustice.
Wickedness is a fracturing of relationship – from God, from nature, from each other, from ourselves. It has huge ramifications. Noah gives us an early gimpse of God’s intentions. I think if more Christians emulated him this planet would be a better place. Christians who distain the Creator’s creation are unwittingly playing into the hands of Abaddon – the destroyer. The green movement has prophetically awakened a growing body of Christians to this.
One of the favourite verses of evangelicals, John 3:16, says ‘for God so loved the world he sent his only Son’. Not just humans – the world. We should not trash what Jesus died for.
PS. Bonus points go to those who know where the dove and rainbow motifs arise again in the New Testament.

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Matt Stone

2007-01-31

PPS. While we are on this topic I thought it was also worth bringing attention to the Ark of Noah by He Qi . This Christian artwork invokes many of the symbols we have discussed plus one more for the mischievious. Actually, speaking of mischievious I was thinking of photoshopping a ti-dyed shirt onto a Noah image for this post.

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John

2007-02-01

Whatever else the Noah story may be about it certainly was not the description of an historical incident—that is one that involved an ark or boat of some kind.
Imagine how humungously enormous a boat would have to be to accomodate two or every species on Earth.
And what about food for all of them?

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John

2007-02-01

And the pooh too!

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John

2007-02-01

And the logistics of transporting animals from all over the world.
And of gathering all the necessary food.

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Sun Warrior

2007-02-01

Yes, Jesus did die for the whole world. Very good point. It seems He was working on the cancer. Very good way of putting it.

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