Quote of the Week: Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Bartholomew I
Respect for creation stems from respect for human life and dignity. It is on the basis of our recognition that the world is created by God that we can discern an objective moral order within which to articulate a code of environmental ethics. In this perspective, Christians and all other believers have a specific role to play in proclaiming moral values and in educating people in ecological awareness, which is none other than responsibility towards self, towards others, towards creation.
What is required is an act of repentance on our part and a renewed attempt to view ourselves, one another, and the world around us within the perspective of the divine design for creation. The problem is not simply economic and technological; it is moral and spiritual. A solution at the economic and technological level can be found only if we undergo, in the most radical way, an inner change of heart, which can lead to a change in lifestyle and of unsustainable patterns of consumption and production. A genuine conversion in Christ will enable us to change the way we think and act.
– Common Declaration of John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Bartholomew I, June 10, 2002.
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What is required is an act of repentance on our part and a renewed attempt to view ourselves, one another, and the world around us within the perspective of the divine design for creation.
Indeed, Henry – we must come to see the world not as a collection of resources to be used, but as a gift to be cherished and preserved.
Matt
And it is one of the things I love about the work of HH Patriarch Bartholomew I; he’s been very strong on the Christian need to engage the environment, to be good stewards of creation, and to realize that our sins (especially those which stem from consumerism) are indeed destroying the world. He is a great witness to the fact this is not “anti-Christian” hysteria, but the reverse; any incarnational Christian must engage this. And indeed, it ties to any authentic pro-life position.
Indeed, Henry. “One cannot serve two masters.”
Do you mean we cannot merely scream about abortion, unjust war et al. as Christians?
Henry,
There is a great need for a new philosophical anthropology that will serve as the underpinning for discussing the great themes of an authentic pro-life position.
Today too much discussion centers on behavior without regard to the origins and purposes of behavior. On the environment, for example, the cry is: “We must change our ways!” The dull response is: “Why must we do so?” The reply is: “We must change our ways because we are destroying the planet!” But such response places the national dialogue within the context of Fear. It is negative and carries little or no moral weight.
We really do need to know “Why?” we should change our stand toward the environment. But we need to know “why?” in a way that transcends Fear. The quote from Patriarch Bartholomew I lends itself to that deeper analysis. It takes one into the mysterious depths of the spirit. As a young man, I discovered that the writings of the great environmentalist, John Muir, moved in that direction as well.
The pro-life position will never gain the respect it deserves until it has developed a language that deserves respect. That language must flow out from the logic and dynamics of the person. It must be inviting, not repelling.
Mark,
If the “scream about abortion” had the qualitative impact of the following link, it might have value. But then it would not be coarse and repelling.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.scream.jpg
In spite of our disagreements as of late, I DO agree with the substance of this quote, and especially the end, where JP II digs at consumerism yet again.
In fact I wrote a whole essay about it not long ago and I think it mostly got lost in the shuffle here. Of course all of the Tiller stuff becomes the attention grabber.
http://www.geocities.com/joeahargrave/consumerism.html
Aside from our differences on the language we use to address the problem of abortion – myself preferring language that appears to some of you to be blunt and coarse – we really do agree on the source of the problem. Give me a read and tell me I’m wrong.
Geez Joe, I just typed something and my finger hit something that made everything disappear. I hate when that happens! But, I cannot hate, so now what do I do sitting in the void of non-hate. I digress.
Your piece[peace] took me back to the early ’70′s at Penn State during my post-military, long hair, long beard, anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-materialism, free love(which never really entered my life because of a strong neurosis and lack of cool), stand against the man, pretending to enjoy the paranoid effects of smoking dope formative years of narcissistic rebellion. Is that a sentence I wrote or a flashback?
Anyway, during that time the awareness that was developing in my studies with psychology and Buddhism and talks with friends during the enhanced paranoid episodes I refer to above, was the internal battle of love and fear as the driving force that led to the world in which we refusing to conform to.
Capitalism was seen as evil because it was based on competition and competition was the outcome of a fear-based eistential crisis of death and nothingness. Materialism and the drive to fill the void of nothingness created the fuel for competition and the illusion that this was the freedom that would liberate us and the world. The American Dream.
Transcendental meditation appealed to me because it started the process of reflection into the unknown of my psyche and how I contributed to the competition and materialism that was the result of my unresolved fear and lack of love. We anti-everything and all you need is love movement actually had our own competition and materialism contaminating the love that would truly change the world. By the way free love never entered my life at that time because I was not cool, even though I tried really hard.
I read a Buddhist book on economics entitled Small Is Beautiful during that time and its title says everything.
When I returned to our beautiful faith in 2005 I see now that it was the Holy Spirit guiding me the entire time to the discovery of God’s Love and as it states in Ephesians 4 the Truth that God is through all and in all.
I am going now for a morning run with God’s Gift of Love to me in 1974 who has endured and guided the rage and fear of my journey since then to find the source of Love.
God Blesses this journey every step and all of us who are always seeking Him in every moment of this journey.
All I can say is I AM NOT WORTHY.
rbrtb rt rtrt rttntanatttttttttttb