The Savior Complex Still In The Driver Seat

Christian Institutional Power and Ecological Destruction

After a recent discussion, I became inspired to write about the role of Christianity as a social institution in ideologies that cause ecological destruction as well as colonization. Let me be clear that this is not an analysis of the spiritual origins of Christian faith. I know Christians who are powerful allies of the Earth, understand their place in the land, etc.

The role of the Christian social institution is defined by its social assumptions which consequently are ever present in Christian dominated cultures.

These include assumptions about God, and the inability of humans to fatally alter something God created, like Earth’s systems for example. There are also assumptions about the inherent nature of societies who don’t have Christianity or western civilization, specifically that they need saving both spiritually and physically. 

These assumptions are the driving force underlying the goals of human civilization and its justification for brutality and violence around the world to save the rest of the world from the “brutal and short” conditions Christians often assume have always been present outside their empire.

Let me start with an interesting story to illustrate my point. A few years ago I met a Navajo woman who had been converted to Mormonism. She approached me after a rally against oil exploration that had some Native-American speakers. She asked me what the rally was about. After explaining why Native people were opposed to fracking wells in the area, she explained to me that Native people had lost the land because they weren’t using it. Apparently she believed that the Christian God was not pleased by indigenous people who weren’t fully exploiting the resources of the land. So God gave it to white people. 

I cannot tell you how much this came as a shock to me, coming from a Navajo woman particularly. Indigenous cultures generally see the land and our planet as Mother, to be honored. I, a white man raised Mormon, later discovering an Earth-based spirituality, had met a weird reversal of myself. 

I once held similar views about God leading men around the world to spread his word and bring enlightenment. I am deeply ashamed to admit, but I once wrote a paper about how the war in Iraq was like a draining of a swamp to rid the environment of mosquitos, a metaphor for bringing democracy to the region that at the time made sense to me. 

Now, draining a swamp for any reason is a horrifying proposition, let alone going to war to install western democracy in another land. Swamps are part of the Earth systems that gave us life. They support unique plant and animal communities I honor as beings who belong, not nuisances to get out of my way.

My recent discussion on Twitter was with someone I won’t name, but who has some concern for the environment and has written a book about the solutions championed by Elon Musk. This is an intelligent person, though his wisdom will be interrogated here.

He was initially responding to a post from a Twitter account who advocates for degrowth. He wrote: 

Yes, but you want to do so by shutting down progress, I think, and reducing the coming age of abundance for the poorest of the poor. I want to do it through massive redeployment of technology that will help the climate and every human on earth.

Here’s the first indication that he believes that Western Civilization (the white Christians) will save the poorest of the poor around the world with massive redeployment of technology, and a cornucopian view of the present and future.

Sounds an awful lot like atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, a Christian herself. She too believes technology and abundance (presumably from the West) are the solutions to climate change, and it seems like it’s based on an awful lot of faith.

I responded to this gentleman with analysis done by scientists that show we’ve wiped out 70% of the wildlife in the last 50 years, that the extinction rate is 1,000 times the background rate, that we are making this so-called progress by plowing down ecosystems. This was his response:

Humans have been plowing down ecosystems since the first human arrived. All other animals, insects, plants also plow down ecosystems to survive. The better question to ask is which ecosystems are the most efficient ways to get our needs met.

Primary assumptions are that we are acting in ways no different from other animals, and that ecosystems don’t matter, other than in their ability to meet our needs. It’s our right to take what we need. Of course we take much more than we need. 

Not sure that the stats are accurate as most of the earth is almost totally untouched by human activity, both land and oceans. And I don't think we have the ability to access this info. However, I am worried about bees.

Assumptions: science that contradicts other assumptions about God must not be science; and the planet is abundantly full and can’t be diminished by the likes of humanity. Glad he’s worried about the bees.

Have you ever driven across the US, China, Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico, So America. If you have, you wouldn't need a study to tell you that the VAST majority of all land is wild. Then there are the oceans, seas, major lakes, rivers.

Monocrops, cow pastures and forests planted for wood harvesting aren’t wild. In fact, only 3% of the planet hasn’t been affected by humans. Most of what is largely still not paved, riddled with roads and human activity are places like boreal forests, deserts and tundras. The Amazon is disappearing rapidly. Watch a timelapse video online. It’s insane.

Apparently the science and a quick scan on Google Earth aren’t convincing. I asked how these studies didn’t alarm him?  I asked how then should we come to conclusions and make decisions if not for scientific data. 

100% love science. 100% totally KNOW that many scientists have agendas for a host of reasons. Know 100% that science is evolving as it finds out what it knew to be true wasn't. So, highly skeptical which makes me a good scientist.

I'd be more alarmed if I believed them. It was just a few years ago we were positive polar bears were going extinct. I applaud those whose mission it is to reign in overfishing, overfarming, etc. I applaud those inventing solutions that offer more abundance, too.

No ecosystem stays constant. Every animal is attempting to thrive and reproduce, and they are willing to destroy anything that gets in their way, from microbes to big cats.

Ah, but herd animals are limited by growth. It’s called overshoot and die off. It turns out predators self-limit their populations. Humans just overcome die off with innovations, but how long can the rate of innovation keep up with the exponentially smaller intervals required to avoid die off?

When I suggested there are limits to growth, and that humans should seek balance and homeostasis with the environment? 

Growth is a God-given impulse. Greed is not.

You are right. That is the question. I come down on the side of optimism and belief in God. The planet has survived in a state of balance only a creator and sustainer explains. Doubt if humans will be the ones who upset that stasis.

Why is it that when it comes to poverty, “God helps those who help themselves” but when it comes to ecological disaster, “nah, God will save us”?

I replied that I ultimately believe life and the force that creates it will go on, but this isn’t an excuse to take more than we need, and further, we face the consequences in our society.

Ok. I agree, except...We take more than is needed? Are you including you in that we? How about the folks in equatorial Africa? We have only just now been able to feed the world. I think that's pretty cool.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t the world fine before colonizers came? Haven’t the colonizers bled the resources out of everywhere it has gone, robbing people of the abundance they had? Like the abundance of buffalo that fed prairie tribes, all wiped out and the land taken by white colonizers. Without buffalo and without land, what happened next?

I must have read different history books than you. My wife is a Lit Prof and she has a different take, too. All of history prior to 20th century, life was brutal and short for most. After WWII, we seem to be on a pretty good track to end that.

Ah, the very foundations of manifest destiny and the white savior complex still fueling the ideologies of white western god-fearing people today. The Hobbesian fallacy that life before civilization was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” is a common belief. 

The science just does not back up these assertions about hunter-gatherer and indigenous people. It’s literally anthropology 101 that hunter-gatherers have much more egalitarian societies, more leisure time, and are very happy people. They live long lives, though averages are lower due to high infant and adolescent mortality rates. They were physically and mentally stronger and healthier too. 

No, this isn’t a romantic analysis. Hunter-gathers have challenges, have bloodshed with enemy tribes (though they generally  recognize the right of their enemies to exist in the landscape), and they struggle with disease and hunger during difficult times. Modern humans have their own plagues that are far worse.

His belief that all these “primitive” people have been saved by his culture is a common worldview about humanity that can only be described as western/white supremacist, probably without this person being cognizant of this fact. 

These were the same views used to justified the brutality and violence of European conquerors for the last 500 years across the world. These are views that continually drive brutality and violence across the world in Western Civilization’s expansive search and extraction of resources. 

This is also inherent in the goal to extract immeasurable resources, remove people, plants and animals from land, all to fuel a so-called sustainable development and green energy fueled growth economy.

There is no “post colonialism.” Manifest destiny, the Doctrine of Discovery, all the God-based assumptions that define our world order are alive and well. 

We have to see this for what it is. Christianity as a social institution is the driving force of these assumptions. If the spirituality of humanity was based on honoring all life and our Earth Mother, none of these things could be justified. 

If you are angry with me for bagging on Christianity, realize that Christianity has been used to further the purposes of those with power over civilization… by kings and emperors. Be mad at them. Christianity is just a name. It is “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Look at the fruits of Christian institutional power. It has been a nasty and brutish fruit.