I just saw the movie Avatar and there are many things to say about the movie. One, of course, is the amazing visuals. It definitely set a new standard in special effects technology for movies, on par with what The Matrix did when it first came out. “Gorgeous” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Secondly, the plot was pretty good—a little predictable at times, but it surprisingly had a solid message. One of the messages it tried to convey was respect for indigenous communities (which actually is not a new theme—Star Trek’s “prime directive” is exactly that). Another message is that we are all interconnected, all peoples and our planet’s biodiversity.
You might scoff at this and dismiss it as New-Agey sentimentality (and in fact the way Avatar put it was more akin to The Force in Star Wars—like a mystical biochemical force that surrounds us). But though the literality of Avatar does not translate, the basic message behind it is true. Let me give you an example:
Americans love beef (I include myself in this, so I am no less guilty than any other American—this is as much a self-rebuke as anything). And we want cheaper sources of power. And the world caters to America because we have money. So what happens as a result? The people in South America start clearing the Amazon rainforest (the size of the state of New Jersey every year!) to feed cattle and to grow corn/soybeans for ethanol as an alternative fuel.
This has several effects:
-The level of CO2 in our atmosphere rises. As such, the globe is warming and polar ice caps are melting, making water levels rise and displacing some communities. Cows also are huge producers of methane waste which further damages our ozone.
-Poor people who could use that corn and soybeans to eat are relegated to a lower priority, and thus continue to starve, because those fuels are going to power cars.
-People who live in the Amazon are displaced from their homes. The natural biodiversity that lives there is also destroyed.
-With fewer trees in our world, it affects weather patterns worldwide. Did you know that South American trees affect the rainfall in Africa? With fewer trees in the Amazon, the rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa lessens, leading to smaller crop production and further people starving, requiring more aid from the Western world.
Conclusion:
We could be helping ourselves by something as simple as eating less beef, which leads to less Amazon rainforest destruction, which leads to fewer displaced indigenous South American communities and more rainfall in Africa, which leads to fewer people starving in Africa, which leads to us not having to pour so many billions of dollars in aid to dying people.
We are, indeed, all interconnected. Even if your (and my) altruism does not kick in, we should at least think that how we treat others affects our own well-being. But hopefully we do remember Jesus’ injunction to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. And the two greatest commandments, to love our neighbors as ourselves, which is inextricably related to loving God.
This is not tree-hugger liberalism (which is not based on the Bible or God), and it is not an Emergent Church kind of social justice (I wrote a blog here on why the Emergent Church is basically a Westernized form of liberation theology which is beholden to secular agendas and politics) but it is a Radical Evangelical type of holistic pro-life: Creation Care, the Golden Rule, and the Second Greatest Commandment all working in tandem.
Lest you still are not convinced that this is not some liberal agenda, don’t forget that environmental stewardship was a mandate given to humans from the beginning of the book of Genesis, and the word “conservation” and “conservative” have the same root—to keep things the same, as God intended all along.
