Serve God Save The Planet: A Winning Combination
by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
USA
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Gandhi
The earth was designed to sustain every generation’s needs, not to be plundered in an attempt to meet one generation’s wants. – Matthew Sleeth
What do you get when you cross the chief of medical staff at a large New England hospital with an evangelical Christian? In the case of Dr. Matthew Sleeth, you find an environmental crusader with both the scientific understanding of how the environment impacts our health, and the spiritual understanding of our moral obligation to reverse the destruction humans inflict on this planet. This combination may just save us and succeed where both environmentalists and politicians have failed.
In Serve God Save The Planet, Matthew Sleeth defines the moral challenge of protecting the environment for future generations. As an emergency room physician, Sleeth saw first hand troublesome rising trends in illness. His patients were sicker than ever from cancer, asthma, and other chronic diseases.
As a scientist he could relate increasing illness to environmental destruction. He began to understand how sick the planet is and the consequent impact on its inhabitants. Sleeth turned to his faith and the Bible for guidance. To Sleeth, the Christian responsibility to protect that which belongs not to us but to God, became very clear.
Last Monday I interviewed Dr. Matthew Sleeth. From the impressions the media had provided, I would have thought it impossible for me to discuss the environment with an evangelical Christian. Instead, I discovered I had much to learn from my new colleague. Matthew Sleeth is the kind of person people want to know. His commitment, tolerance, and humility are genuine. Matthew inspired me once again to action, this time with the sense of moral obligation I did not have before.
My passion for conservation first came alive in high school after I read Ehrlich and Ornstein’s New World New Mind: Moving Towards Conscious Evolution. My weekends were spent cleaning beaches, protecting wetlands, recycling, and writing the representatives of my small California town. In college I read Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance and naively hoped an environmental politician could make the difference. Soon, however, I lost my passion. Living in New York City, the pollution seemed endless and unstoppable. Treading lightly seemed irrelevant in the concrete jungle I called home.
But there is something unique about Serve God Save The Planet. The premise inspires unity among people whose beliefs wouldn’t ordinarily mix. While science and religion are often at odds, the environment is an issue that can be addressed cooperatively. Sleeth has framed a conversation in which both people of faith and scientists can participate. He has done something that neither politicians nor religious figures have been able to do—unify leaders from many faiths in a common dialog that supersedes other political or religious concerns. Dr. Sleeth’s faith is contagious. “We all drink the same water. We all breathe the same air.” Sleeth encourages us to come together in dialog and find “the common ground,” not forgetting, of course, that this begins with each of us individually cleaning up our own act. Without clean air, safe drinking water, food on our tables, the rest becomes meaningless.
For the Sleeth family it meant downsizing from their big house and luxury cars, their loads of money and loads of stuff, and even leaving his prestigious job. I asked Matthew Sleeth what it will take to get the general public to join in this crusade.
He answered, “We’ve really got to pick up speed…time is running out. I think that what will speed things up is that we will have another kind of Katrina, but a lot worse.”
Dr. Sleeth’s work is a rare combination of science and religion. Serve God Save The Planet is a compelling reason to look inside ourselves and ask why we devote so much of our lives to consumerism when we can live with so much less. Even if your concept of God is wildly different from that of an evangelical Christian, I think we can all stand to wake up each day and ask the question, “How can I serve God and save the planet?”
Who knows what may happen…
Dr. Matthew Sleeth discussed his book, Serve God Save the Planet, on April 23rd at the First Presbyterian Church in Monterey, California.
Visit Serve God Save The Planet on the web.
Serve God Save The Planet
By Dr. Matthew Sleeth
Zondervan Publishing, an imprint of HarperCollins
$14.99 – Available now in softcover
Chelsea Green Publishing
$20.00 – On sale now in hardcover
Fascinating article. Thank you for beginning this dialogue, as indeed we all are on common ground. Hello, Vatican, are you listening or too busy grousing about gay marriage?
Paul Tillich once said that the role of theology is to connect critical questions arising in the human condition with a biblical message. The ciritcal question on Tillich’s mind was existential meaning. Sounds like Dr. Sleeth has linked scripture with the even more basic question of whether we will continue to exist.
Fascinating article. Am involved here in Sonoma in a new development, Sonoma Mountain Village. Look it up, it’s wonderful.
Like you, I was delighted and greatly encouraged to discover Matthew Sleeth’s book, Serve God, Save the Planet, and to have the opportunity to dialogue with him in Monterey. Indeed, his work gives more credible evidence that to reverse global warming is not just a pipe dream. As with the WIP’s endorsement, musician Mike Beck’s performance to open Sleeth’s Monterey event demonstrates the successful coalition building that Sleeth’s work has inspired. Thank you to Matthew Sleeth–and the WIP–for stimulating renewed commitment to individual and collective action.
Part of caring for the environment is caring for one another enough to hear common concerns and find common ground. If we forget that and end up shouting at and discounting one another then we and the planet so affected by our actions suffer. Hosting J. Matthew Sleeth at my home and watching him share his passion with humor, humility, and compassion encouraged me to do the same in my work as a pastor and my walk as human being whose life is sustained by this good earth.
Jay Bartow, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Monterey
When you look at a picture of earth from space you don’t see the borders that define us. It doesn’t matter what religion, culture or country we come from, protecting the environment is a responsibility we all must share but we don’t. Unfortunately, I don’t think another Katrina, even of larger proportions would be enough to wake people up. As soon as a disaster leaves the headlines, people forget, they don’t care any more. Through education in schools, in churches and elsewhere in our communities, environmental responsibility needs to become common dialogue. We are not going to get that from the government regardless of who is in charge therefore it must come from the people.
Preserving this planet is a message worth preaching about.
i don’t see my (east coast) family very often — just a few times a year. inevitably some sort of debate (sometimes heated, sometimes playful) arises regarding the palpable dissonance between a belief in God (they’re all christian in one fashion or another, i’m … not) and support of the current administration’s policies, environmental and otherwise. i think i smell a christmas gift for the nephews…
love you, kate…
x
It seems to me that Dr. Sleeth is following a path of returning to simplicity. We are all one people and we all need a clean sustainable environment. Its a monumental task for society but completely doable for us as individuals regardless of religious conviction or affiliation.
Great article Kate. I really enjoyed reading it and believe totally in what you are saying. I can’t wait to read the book by Matthew Sleeth. He sounds like an incredible human being with the spirit and soul that we are all searching for. We all need to make that effort to save our environment before it is too late.
Laurena