"The Bible portrays our world as good, destined for reunion with God in Jesus Christ. . . . Unfortunately, among Christian believers, and especially among evangelicals, the theme of the goodness and permanence of the world is usually neglected, often forgotten, and sometimes denied entirely. Instead we are deluged with articles, books, sermons, and radio and TV programs warning us that the world, along with every human achievement, is going to be destroyed. . . . Because of such misconceptions, many Christians today. . . are shirking their divinely given responsibility to sustain, nurture, renew, and really live in God's world."
--from Heaven Is Not My Home
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Paul
Marshall Reflects on "Home"
interviewed by karen knott
If you think you've heard the name Paul Marshall, you probably have. Dr. Marshall is one of the world's leading scholars on religious persecution---he authored the best-selling book Their Blood Cries Out on that very topic. He has written or edited fifteen other books on such subjects as social and political theory and the nature of government, and has served in adjunct positions at Fuller Theological Seminary and at the Institute for Christian Studies. At present, he is Senior Fellow at Freedom House, a secular human rights organization based in Washington, DC. Dr. Marshall was kind enough to speak with me via e-mail about his latest book, Heaven Is Not My Home: Learning to Live in God's Creation.
Heaven Is Not My Home is a down-to-earth study of a down-to-earth topic--the Earth. It is a reflection on all the aspects of Creation--not only the created world God has given us to reside in, but also the cities, inventions, and institutions that Man has added to the mix. The book's overarching theme is the question, "What does it mean to live 'in the world, but not of the world'?" Marshall considers this issue from a fresh, hopeful, and--best of all--practical, perspective. He encourages us not simply to tolerate life in this world, but to delight in it.
If books like Left Behind and Tribulation Force have left you frightened and cynical about the future of Creation, pick up a copy of Heaven Is Not My Home. Better yet, pick up several copies and start a discussion group--the structure is ideal for a small group study.
CJ: In Heaven Is Not My Home, you mention that you were saved at a Billy Graham crusade in the 1960s and spent some time at Francis Schaeffer's community in Switzerland. What else can you tell us about your early experiences as a Christian? As a native of England, did you get involved with the predominant Anglican Church or seek something different?
PM: About my only experience was getting what the English call "being done" as a kid--that is, being baptized and christened as an infant. I do remember going to my aunt's wedding when I was about six years old. I honestly think those were the only two times I was in church before I was sixteen. The Anglican Church was just there--nobody I knew actually went. Remember, church attendance in England is about five percent of the population. This gave me the advantages (as well as the disadvantages) of a non-Christian upbringing. Culturally, I don't fit into the evangelical subculture. What got me involved was a kind of mini-revival in my (elite) high school. Over the years about one-third of my high school class became Christians (up from zero). Nothing dramatic, we just talked. I went to a Billy Graham crusade explicitly to become a Christian--I thought it was the sort of place where you could do that with some "finality."
CJ: You said you knew you didn't want to pursue "full-time Christian ministry" as a career. What career did you choose at first, and what path led you eventually to writing?
PM: I wrestled with that for a long time. My first career was as an exploration geologist in the Canadian Arctic. It was wonderful, joyous--mountains, rivers, forests, glaciers, salmon, grizzlies, wolves. For most of my first six years in Canada I lived in a tent. I still dream of it, and it's still a hobby. But it wasn't what I was called to do and be (it was both do and be). As I say in the book, God doesn't usually have a plan for our lives (not the one we know about); He has a purpose for our lives. To quote Heaven is Not My Home, "Our life's dance is not laid out for us in footsteps on the floor. . . . We simply have to judge which steps best fit the rhythms we hear."
In some ways, I fell into what I do now. I guess it's what theologians
would call Providence. I was always interested in culture, so I studied
more. I thought evangelicals did not think deeply enough, so I did
philosophy; I saw a political vacuum, so I studied and became a professor
of political philosophy. I worked on human rights, which brought me
into religious persecution. My writing on that topic became bestsellers.
Now I try to write about a lot of what is on my heart, though my main
job is still working in religious freedom issues with Freedom House,
a secular human rights organization. I feel overjoyed to be able to
try a range of things.
CJ: In the chapter "The Wonder of Learning" you contrasted learning that occurs in an academic setting with "real learning," which occurs when we face something new. You said "the heart of learning appears when we learn how to change, to grow, to adjust, to become something different. Universities can help, but it's the leper colonies...the demands of humility or courage, that teach us best." What do you think are the most significant "leper colonies" of your life?
PM: It's funny, I began that chapter intent on stressing the importance of real academic learning (I mean it--I do have six degrees!) and it is needed in the evangelical world--desperately. But as the chapter developed, that wasn't the point. Learning is when you really change and know something that you didn't before--and it is nothing to be afraid of. That's why I stressed the leper colonies.
My own "leper colonies" are the real, literal ones in the Philippines. That's where I learned not to care what people looked like, what it's like not to think of yourself, what it's like to stick your neck out. These are the hard things. The bruises of our families teach us more than most things in our lives--that's why God locks us in them.
CJ: In "The Church: A Boring Gospel?" you noted that so much of the Christian faith today is 'nice.' Cautious. Pleasant. Cheerful." You remarked that "often if we are interesting to non-Christians at all, it is not because of our faith, but in spite of it." Do you think there is a place in today's Christian community for those who dare to be less cautious, less pleasant, or less cheerful, or those who "make waves"?
PM: Yes. The question is whether there is a place for those who don't! Actually, there is, there's room for all, but we need the "wilder ones"!
CJ: In discussing our struggle with sin, you talked about "lifeboat theology" and "ark theology." I really liked those analogies. Could you describe what you mean and how these theologies are reflected in concrete terms?
PM: The ark rescued animals--and some people--with a view to bringing them back home when the storm had passed. Then life begins again. The "lifeboat," on the other hand, saves people from the ship which has already sunk. They never go home again; they go elsewhere, because their home has gone.
God wants arks--to bring things back home when the storm has passed. One concrete example is animals. They need to be preserved so they will be present on the new Earth. Another [example] is that we are not just trying to save human beings, we are trying to save good human achievements so that they will be present when the Lord returns. In our ark we should have animals and music and poetry and computers and sailboats and embroidery--everything which is or can be good.
CJ: We often hear sermons on Heaven, but we seldom hear much about the new Earth. Case in point: I heard a sermon recently in which the pastor was describing Heaven; ironically, he was supporting his position with passages from Revelation which specifically referred to "the Earth." Do pastors avoid the subject of the "new Earth" and the "new body"?
PM: What can I say? Exactly--precisely, yes. We are so conditioned to think that the future is literally "immaterial" that we simply read the Bible with blinders on. We literally do not see the new Earth and the new bodies it refers to.
CJ: Politically speaking, people on the Left typically are more concerned about "the Earth" (as far as the environment, endangered species, etc.), while those further to the Right, including many evangelical Christians, appear less concerned. Do you think Christians in general have an appropriate attitude toward the environment? Should we be taking a closer look at this issue?
PM: Yes. In simple terms, if we do not have the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah, as God, then we will try to make something else God. At the most basic level, there are only two other choices--ourselves (Humanism) or everything else (Nature). Humanism has had a two-hundred-year run; now the secular world has discovered its problems, and so it has switched to "Nature" as the new God or "norm." The Christian Left sees the problems of Humanism and sees the need to find the independent value of nature. The Christian Right sees the religious extremism of the new Environmentalism. Both the Christian Left and Right are correct in what they want to avoid--Man or Nature as God.
The word "nature" has no equivalent in the Bible. The Bible speaks of Creation, which embraces humans and nature in one order of the Cosmos, and is both for use and for preservation. Creation is not divine, nor is it "nothing." We should use it carefully.
CJ: I was especially interested in Chapter 11, "Imagination and the Arts." One of our goals here at Communiqué is to provide a forum in which Christians can express themselves creatively. You explain that while not all of us are called to be "full-time artists," we all are called to be artistic--even in such ordinary activities as how we cook, how we dress, or how we decorate. How we can incorporate imagination into everyday activities without erring on the side of vanity and materialism?
PM: We need to keep the theme of "servanthood" central. All of life is service to God and our neighbor, so creativity is a means of creating and giving gifts to others. The question of what will delight others should be ever forward. This helps us to combat vanity (though of course, there is no foolproof prevention of vanity, or any other sin). With regard to materialism, we must also consider the question of what we can afford (remembering that our life is not to be flatlined, but to alternate between feast and frugality). The key is not expense but playfulness, imagination, creativity, and the possibility of something new, or something old, well done.
CJ: You say that "if we try to make all our art, work, detective stories, or legislation simply a means to win others, we cause all sorts of problems." What are some of those problems?
PM: Our activities lose their own integrity and become mere means to something beyond them. Art becomes propaganda, a black-and-white cartoon, a tract. It never even "works," because it's obviously bad art and moves no one. Good art, however, will have many effects beyond itself, but not if it is made a means to such an effect.
Perhaps the most popular Christian works in the US are the Chronicles of Narnia. They awaken children to God, not by trying to, but because they open up an imaginary realm wherein good and evil and hope and sacrifice can make sense to a child.
CJ: I had to laugh when you said "many non-Christians avoid evangelicals like the plague: they don't want to get grabbed, buttonholed, 'shared with,' or otherwise commandeered." What do you think is a more effective way to evangelize?
PM: Our faith is usually much more obvious than we think it is. We should work to integrate it and engrain it in our lives, thoughts, ideas, emotions, hopes, and habits, so that it shows utterly, naturally, and unforcedly in what we do. When the time comes, people will ask. Also, we should make good friends outside the Church.
CJ: You discussed the role of technology in our lives without mentioning the much-hyped Y2K problem. Any comments?
PM: I don't think Y2K will amount to much in North America--certainly not the apocalyptic scenarios some Christians are offering--so I don't discuss it. Too many evangelicals look at things exclusively through the lens of eschatology and so get derailed. (Also, I want to sell copies of the book after January 1, 2000, so I don't want to make any claims that would have already been disproved!)
CJ: You quote literary critic Northrop Frye: "In what our culture produces, whether it is art, philosophy, military strategy, or political and economic development, there are no accidents: everything a culture produces is equally a symbol of that culture." What, in your opinion, are the dominant symbols of Western culture today?
PM: In the US, one of the symbols is being overweight--a sign of the separation of pleasure from restraint and natural desire. Another is the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, which affect a high proportion of the population. Also, the prevalence of city center buildings dominated by financial institutions, which produces many similar, square, glassy buildings because of the high function-to-cost ratio. The result is that many cities look alike.
CJ: Do you think it is possible for Christians to transform culture?
PM: Of course we can transform culture. The church has faced much more difficult situations--the Roman Empire and the "Barbarian" invasions, for example. In the eighth century much of Christendom was utterly devastated. It's good to read [Thomas Cahill's] How the Irish Saved Civilization. It could equally be called How the Church Saved Civilization. I have no idea whether we will transform Western culture, but we should have no doubts at all about the possibility of doing so.