Save the World? Part One.

This begins a short series on 'saving the world'. There is lots to explore here and I welcome feedback and interaction with these ideas along the way!


In taking a few days off and catching up on some reading I came across this quote from E.B. White:

"If the world were merely seductive," he noted, "that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

These are insightful words. And I believe they point out two acute dangers for us and our generation. What I want to do is explore these dangers and ask what a theological account of 'saving' and 'savoring' the world might do to reorient these desires. In this post I will explore the desire to 'save' the world as i have encountered it and begin to sketch a theological response.

First, the desire to improve (or save) the world. Lazybones notwithstanding, I see this being drilled into my generation in a myriad of ways. In my work with A Rocha, most encounters with younger students (ages 16-25 say) make clear that there is little patience among these folk for sustained argument or theological depth. They know the earth is in trouble - and they want to FIX it. Show me how to SOLVE the PROBLEM! The Biblical stuff is nice, important, yes. But I want to jump ahead - how to apply this in my life and how to scale that up so that the whole world can be saved.

As I said, I wrestle with whether this is a good thing. I believe the desire to improve the world is a Holy Desire. Yet the framework for said improvement is often utilitarian - and thus consequentialist - and divorced from the sort of tempered life experience that is so needed. Consequentialism (for those who have been spared the joys of an ethics course) judges what is 'right' in terms of the consequence it produces. So if my desired outcome or consequence is to change the world, actions are right which contribute to that change and are wrong when they fail to contribute towards that end.

The problem, of course, is that we simply cannot ever know what the outcome of our actions will be. This is extremely evident when applied to environmental problems. Will legislation for increased biofuels reduce our carbon footprint? Well, Yes, it might reduce our consumption of fossil fuel. But, No, because it leads to rapid deforestation to make way for biofuel plantations. (And as my dad has pointed out, the carburetor business has skyrocketed - turns out 10% ethanol destroys the carburetors of most small engines.) The point is we never know the result of our actions, so predicating the 'rightness' of these actions on forecasted consequences is dangerous business.

Of course, as Alasdair MacIntyre so aptly pointed out, "I can only answer the question, 'what am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question, 'of what story or stories to I find myself a part.'" For people of faith, the outcome of our action may well look like a cross. And so it should. But the cross is hardly the sort of outcome a consequentialist wants. Success? Achievement? Improving the world? Or hanging dead as a political dissident. How do we make that choice?

So how to proceed? Is there another option? Well I believe we must continually anchor our desires to Save the world in the Story of God's own desire to Save and to Savor the world. We must learn to see our work and action on behalf of the world as wholly subsidiary to God's work in Christ. We will not 'save' the world! But the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated in Christ and the world will ultimately be saved! Knowing this, we work to 'save' and to 'preserve' the life of Creation - with its diverse creatures and peoples - in ways that are in keeping with this Kingdom. The weight of the world, rather than driving us to a brash consequentialist ethic, moves us towards God in worship and dependence, and to offer ourselves to the work of God in the world.

In offering this short account of how the Resurrection shapes our desires to 'save' the world I have carefully sidestepped a few issues. What does Salvation mean? Is the whole world going to be saved? Or just human souls? And isn't it dangerous to believe we can 'participate' in anything like 'salvation'? This will be the subject of the next post.


*After reading this I went to look for the source. Turns out it has been misquoted and reprinted thousands of times. After lots of sifting, it traces back to a New York Times interview with White, click this link to see the actual interview with White.