CREATION EQUALITY - A FOOLISH VOICE FOR GOD’S CREATION AND THOSE IN IT

- BY AGGE ANGUSSON

In the 1940s, Bing Crosby started performing the song “White Christmas”. It is nowadays the world’s best-selling single in terms of sales of physical media1, perhaps you have heard it? One can YouTube the song and view Crosby performing it for Christmas TV specials in 1950. Listening to the tunes, I get emotional. remember, not the 1950s, but the years of my youth. The years of 1997-2007 had a whole lot of more white Christmases than we do nowadays. mean, I do live in the north, in Sweden – the land of the Vikings.

I’d like to believe that the famous line from the TV series Game of Thrones “The winter is coming”, was inspired from my hoods. But the truth is, it is January, the coldest month of the year; I am looking outside the window and there just isn’t any snow. To visualize this, I will show some climate maps on Sweden’s average monthly temperature for January. Starting with the year of 2004 to the left, following up with the year of 2022, with additional zoomins on my beloved region, called Skåne2.

Sweden 2022

Experiencing this reality, where the winters are becoming more and more nothing but a memory, I look outside my window and recon a feeling of fear that knots inside my stomach. The world is too big, am too small, and the balance of the climate is far too disrupted. But being a Christian, I get reminded every night, during my prayers, of a light that conquers all darkness3. There is a hope in the Christian Gospel, a hope that I believe is not only for the people of the earth, but for all of God’s Creation. This article aims to shine some light on that hope. Some light for the Light.

of Genesis begins with telling us the story of the Creation, The earth was formless and void ... God said, “Let there be light,”4, and this is a story I really do love to circle back to.

As the days of the first week passes by, one by one, God stops for a moment, and according to the verses: saw that it was good. In classical Hebrew these divine findings translates into Wayyar Elohim ki-tov5. I suggest that we gather one really important aspect from these verses and these moments, nowhere in the texts does it say, that the birds were better than the stones or that humans were better than the trees. The form of the adjectives does not change. In the creation story there is thus an equality that embraces all of God’s Creation. Now, some might tell me to go look at the 26th verse, namely the one that talks about mankind’s dominion over all the earth. As a crowning glory, along comes the humans. One might ask me, how does a suggested equality fit into a commanded dominion? And this is a valid point. I have asked myself this question, many times.

Before I address it, I would just like to say that I am aware of the somewhat different, yet still similar topic on gender equality that is evoked in the 27th verse. Since want to focus on this so called Creation equality6, will say nothing more about the issue of gender than this: I am pro gender equality and would love to even discuss the benefits of a queer perspective on gender, another time.

Addressing the mankind dominion over all the earth, I would like to keep Genesis 1:1-2:3 in mind, and simultaneously take a look at the second story of the Creation. The story of Adam and Eve, I argue, hides an important eco theological lesson. Remembering how the creation of mankind can be understood as the crowning glory of the Creation, when being the last one created as well as receiving a special assignment to rule over the earth; in Eden we are presented

Guinness world record: best selling single.

Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute: Climate Charts.

When I was interviewed by the Church of Sweden Youth, in their podcast “Tror du?” (Do you believe?), I was asked what Bible verse I most often return to when addressing ecotheology. did not have a prepared answer, instead I came to mind of the very beginning of the Bible. The book with a different version. Instead of being created last, God creates mankind first. It was on the day that The Lord God made the earth and the heavens, nothing had yet sprouted, no rain had yet fallen. God creates mankind, and first after having done that, God creates the rest. The order of things has turned, and this is the first reason to question the idea of any kind of inequality within God’s Creation. Secondly, when we in the previous creation story read about ruling and a dominion, in this other version we instead read that mankind are supposed to till and to keep it. Tilling something means to cultivate it. For many of us, this different use of words proves to be important in understanding the texts. When we cultivate something, we have a special assignment, but we do not consume it and we do not oppress it. Additionally, when we keep something, we protect it, we care for it. No harm will come to the object that we keep.

3 Psalms 139:12.

4 Genesis 1:1-2:3.

5 My transliteration.

6 A term I would like to use to describe an equality including all of the Creation.

Now, where do we find ourselves? We have two creational texts. They are different, as have been shown. They contradict each other, as have been shown. What do we do with this information and how do we move forward?

Before we move forward, I would like to highlight one last factor. For it is important to understand what it means to rule in the contexts of the Bible. Maybe, just maybe, will the understanding of what it means to rule, change our understanding of these seemingly contradictory texts.

I have studied the Bible for a few years. Both in university and within the churches study groups. But I am by all means not an expert. Nevertheless, please join me in looking at the following argumentation.

I would like to argue for a dualistic view on ruling, according to the Bible. There are those rulers that are bad rulers. Their ruling technique is bad. The bad ruler is manifested in the regular kings in the areas of Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Egypt by the years of 1000-500 BCE. Their number one bad character trait is that they have made themselves gods and, in their arrogance, they lost all respect for it and those over whom they rule. We read about such kings in the First book of Samuel. God clearly states that anyone that wishes to be a worldly king, ruling the land and the people, needs to be a king that is not a god. This command is to be read as a contrast to what the Hebrews used to have

(God as king and judges/prophets communicating God’s commandments), and to what the surrounding kingdom had (kings that considered themselves gods). recommend Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes book The beginning of politics for further reading on this topic.

The good ruler, on the other hand, is perhaps best manifested in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, God incarnate, was anointed just like the previous kings had been (King David, King Solomon etc.). But Jesus acted differently. Jesus taught people to see the need for justice, he preached peaceful ways to turn around a situation of abuse, and consistently refused to resort to violence in threatening situations. He showed that nonviolence can be both active and creative. Understanding what it means to rule, in the light of Jesus, gives us the basis we need for understanding the creational texts in a different way. Suddenly, there is no opposition between ruling and cultivating. No contradiction between dominating as a means for dominion, and keeping (meaning protecting, caring). What was darkness to us, became light through Jesus Christ.

And this is the light that we, as Christians, as disciples share in the world. As a way of cultivating the earth, as a way of keeping the earth, we share the Light.

Identifying myself as an evangelical Lutheran Franciscan, one of my main obsessions is eco theology. But perhaps not always as it would take form when we enter this topic.

I argue that this Creation equality, that is something that should be the case already but for some reason is not, has been neglected due to an alienation of the Creation. Much like when we discriminate and oppress another human being – we start with creating a line of thought that concludes that the other person (the object for the discrimination) is somewhat wrong, less worthy, dirty, bad, etc.

We actually have done the same thing towards animals, plants and such. In our line of thought we are at the top of a hierarchy, where animals and nature are at the bottom. Depending on what kind of animal it is and what context we are in, the levels with various amounts of distributed value looks different. Sometimes dogs are very valuable, as the “man’s best friend”, sometimes they are completely worthless. The same goes for elephants, cows, bees, and birds. The same also applies to different types of nature. There is not only a difference in value between my own garden and the nature that does not belong to my purchased land, but there is also a ranking between arable land, sea and desert.

How does the Christian Hope reach a world of thought, so systematic normalized that the most of us do not even reflect in this way? Francis of Assisi, after being caught preaching to animals instead of humans, earned the nickname “God’s fool”. Owning this nickname, he once said to a cardinal who was overseeing a gathering of friars: “The Lord has called me to be a new kind of fool in this world”. Is this not what we must do? When the normal thing to do is to follow the current, put on an act and continuously exploit the earth – then we need to act “like fools”. The number one foolish thing to do, is to do exactly what Saint Francis did. Talk to the animals, and talk to the plants.

Do not only talk to your own dog, but address the random birds in the streets, the squirrels and the badgers in the woods. Talk to the fishes, and while you’re at it, talk to the ocean. Talk to the trees, to the rocks, not only to your own flowers at home. Talk to the wind.

Is it not true, that one of the first steps in de-alienation is to respect the other in such a way that you actually address it in communication? In order to remove this sinful exploiting hierarchy and to replace it with a God commanded cultivation and keeping. Let’s share the Light to the whole Creation. Liberating not only our fellow human beings who are oppressed, but the whole Creation.

Amen

Agge is a student of theology and philosophy at Lund University. He joined the student christian movement in 2020 and has been the chairperson since 2021. Agge is a priest candidate for the evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden and a member of the Franciscan third order.

References:

Guinness world record: best selling single https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/best-selling-single [gathered 20th of January 2022].

Modern English Bible, on www.bible.com.

Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute: Climate Charts https://www.smhi.se/data/meteorologi/kartor/medel/manadsmedeltemperatur-medel/manad/ [gathered 20th of January 2022].