Embracing Kingdom Hope for a Broken World
Posts tagged Interview
Dogs, Cows, and Sparrows… Oh My!
May 14th
I like dogs. I like cows – well, I like hamburgers and tacos. I’ve never really been a fan of birds though – I think it’s the germophobe in me.
Over the past months I have really come to see all animals – those I like, those I eat, and those I’ve not really been a fan of – in a new light. This is because I have come to see them from a more biblical perspective than ever before. Some of this Most of this has been prompted by the great work of one organization, Not One Sparrow which seeks to be a Christian voice for animals.
Not One Sparrow has prompted me to revisit how I see that my care for creation is not complete without a full, proper view of God’s creatures as well as His creation. I have had to reevaluate all of my views of animals, even those birds which though good to listen to and look at always creeped me out a little bit (perhaps it is left over from that summer that my sister and I watched the move The Birds). I have even had to reconsider what I eat. Their work has both challenged and encouraged me.
I highlight their work for the following reason: the way we view, treat, and consume animals is a critical component of how we care for God’s creation.
This weekend Not One Sparrow is celebrating their second anniversary. So, I take this opportunity to share a little with you about what they do and about Ben DeVries, the founder of Not One Sparrow.
In their own words,
not one sparrow is dedicated to being a voice for animals in the Christian community. Animals are unique and precious beings, and each one is known and loved by its Creator. As God’s children created in His image, we’re meant to model His care for them, and we’re called to play a crucial role in the redemption of all creatures: great and small, domesticated and wild, cherished and disregarded.
Their work is divided into four different areas:
- Celebration – cultivating an appreciation for all animals
- Consumption – considering how animals are used for human purposes
- Companion – looking at how animals are bred and kept as pets
- Conservation – regarding our effect on wild animals
One of the most unique things that Not One Sparrow does is their Companion Animal Suffering & Grief Support group. Here you can share your own struggles and loss, as well as memories and tributes to your fallen friends, even their caretakers. Not One Sparrow prays you will find empathy and comfort from other Christians who care deeply for animals, and also find the grace to share sensitively in return. Although I myself have not dealt with this yet, I have seen how tragic the loss of a deeply loved pet can be. I think this is such an amazing way that they comfort those in need.
This week I had a chance to interview Ben DeVries. Please read on as he has some really interesting things to say.
Scott: What you are doing is totally unique. How did you get into this? What prompted you to become passionate about this area and also what led you to start Not One Sparrow?
Ben: Thank you for saying so. You know, I used to love animals as a child, but really got away from that during my teens and college years. Over the last several years, God used the cats we adopted and some time out in nature to bring back the love and appreciation for animals I used to have, and a deep-seated concern for their well-being gradually grew out of that. I couldn’t believe how countless animals are being neglected and abused by our society, whether as unwanted pets or jeopardized wildlife, or even billions of farm animals being funneled through our grossly inhumane factory farms each year.
I wanted to respond in some way, and as I was finishing up at seminary (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), I knew that my own heritage and community of faith had next to nothing to do with caring for animals, aside from the pets in our homes in most cases. We don’t even know what to make of animal advocacy most of time, just like I used to disregard and trivialize it only a few years ago. I did my final seminary project on a Christian foundation for animal welfare, which became Not One Sparrow, and I’ve always hoped it might play a part in helping our community and other confessional Christians understand how God has called us to be careful and compassionate stewards of all His creatures. We have a long way to go in fulfilling that calling. (If interested, I posted a more in-depth personal story at Not One Sparrow, and our mission, motivation and FAQ pages might help explain more what we’re about.)
Scott: If you had to condense your message to just a sentence or two, what would you say?
Ben: Sure, I would probably say something like this … God created animals with great care and intricacy, and He continues to care about them intimately and take great pleasure in them. He’s called us as His children and image bearers to steward animals compassionately on His behalf, and to work toward relating to them in a way which more closely resembles the innocence of creation, and the future peaceable kingdom of the new heaven and earth.
Scott: Tell us one random fact about yourself.
Ben: My wife and I are both big fans of British humorist P. G. Wodehouse and BBC mysteries, and I’m also a diehard Chicago sports fan, especially the Cubs, Bulls and Blackhawks.
Scott: Tell us one story (large or small) that shows how God has moved through Not One Sparrow.
Ben: One of the things which has been very meaningful to me of late was hearing from someone in South Africa who had been reading Not One Sparrow for a while, but didn’t quite have the courage to contact us. She’d been caring faithfully for a menagerie of rescued animals for many years, despite tremendous setbacks and even some opposition, as well providing services for many animals owned by the locals, often for next to nothing. She was really discouraged from fighting for so long on her own, and going without the resources she needed due to the tanking of the economy. She wrote to me, and recently to our community, that connecting with Not One Sparrow has been a lifeline for her, when she might have been forced to close up shop and perhaps even have all of her animals euthanized due to not being able to place them elsewhere. She’s not out of the woods yet, but sometimes I feel like I don’t know exactly what good were accomplishing for real, individual animals, and tears came to my eyes when I read what she wrote.
Scott: If someone wanted to learn more about caring for animals from a Christian perspective, what would you recommend?
Ben: Well, I would love to make Not One Sparrow available as a resource, and hope we can be of some help in navigating the sometimes misunderstood world of animal issues. But more than anything, I would encourage anyone to start by simply spending time around animals, whether at home or in the wild, and taking in their amazing personalities and other unique qualities. In the process, I think you can’t help but realize just how much will to live and vibrancy they possess, and how much they mean to their Creator. Knowing this, we can’t help but care more for their well-being and want them to flourish.
By the way, I would like to thank you, Scott, and Creation Hope for being such an encouragement to Not One Sparrow since we first connected a couple of months back. I’ve been blown away by your willingness to engage the issues we care about, and all you’ve done to promote our mission. Thank you, many times over, and we’re honored to partner with Creation Hope and to have you as an inaugural member of our advisory board. We look forward to connecting with more members of the Creation Hope community!
Thank you to Ben for taking the time out of his busy schedule for this interview.
This concept may be new to many of you. I know it was for me not too long ago. But their work has changed me. I now see God’s creatures differently. I eat differently. In fact, I have been so changed that when asked to join their board recently I gladly accepted. I commend their work to you and recommend that you subscribe to their blog feed, follow them on Facebook and Twitter, and bookmark them as an excellent resource to turn to when it comes to caring for God’s animals.
May God bless you as you further engage in this important issue. May God bless Not One Sparrow in their 3rd year as they move forward in their cause.
* Images from Not One Sparrow
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Tending to Eden (Part 2)
Mar 10th
Media + Creation: a series which explores all things green and creation care related as found in the media and pop culture
On Friday we kicked off a mini-series exploring the new creation care book, Tending to Eden. In part 1, I introduced you to the book. We looked at its content, some quotes, the author Scott Sabin, and his work with Plant With Purpose. And we also offered you an opportunity to win a free copy of the book (entry details below). Also, be looking for a review of the book on Friday.
Last week I had the opportunity to interview Scott about Tending to Eden. I had a great time talking with this interesting author and leader. Below I have included some of the highlights of the interview which will give you further insight into the book and who he is.
What prompted you to write this book?
Well, its kind of a funny story. It kinda happened to me I guess. It’s indicative of the growing interest in creation care/ Christian environmental stewardship. We put together a Bible study, actually the Bible study in the index. Several publishers came back to us and said, “the Bible study won’t stand alone. You know, we’d love it as part of a series or as a book.” And so we thought about what kind of book we’d like to see. After a fair amount of negotiation the one you have is what came out. I was shocked having tried to publish material in the past that we had several publishers come to us excited about this idea.
Who is the intended audience for this book?
In my mind it was the many donors that I was talking to over the years who just didn’t quite get it. The people who said we like the economic development, but why trees. The people who said you guys are a little off. I was writing to persuade people who are on the fence about the whole environmental thing. That’s why in a lot of places I use the language they could relate to as much as possible….
A secondary audience was the people who are interested in the environment or are interested in caring for the poor but haven’t quite seen the connection. The people who say, “Yeah this is great but how can we worry about creation when people are starving” – to draw that connection together.
If you could condense the message into one sentence or paragraph, what would it be?
First of all, I want to make the point that creation care is a justice issue, that God loves his creation and that it is part of his plan for redemption. And we have a stewardship responsibility that we should take very seriously.
I especially appreciate how you highlight the hope we have in Jesus. Obviously that is extremely important to us at Creation Hope. Can you elaborate on that hope a bit?
First of all, I think the need for hope is tremendous. The more you immerse yourself in what is going on in creation, the more discouraged you can get. Take Haiti as an example. You look at the rate of deforestation and the demand for charcoal and you look at what we are able to do and the comparison is just… well, someone once said it’s like spitting in the ocean. I’m not sure if that’s a metaphor or not, but you look at the relative scale and it sort of is.
You look at the fact that Jesus promises redemption and we know that he will not be thwarted in his purposes. We know that he cares and loves his creation more than we do and doesn’t tend to throw things away. I don’t know how things are going to play out…. I do know that there’s a plan that will take into account all of this that has been created.
The other thing I have learned as I have immersed myself more in creation is just the intricacy and the diversity and to me that gives me a lot of hope as well. I think some of our traditional ideas about heaven tend to be sort of boring. And you look at creation and realize that this is created by the same person that promises us eternal life. And to me that gives great assurance.
The story of the feeding of the 5,000 is tremendous in that in the position that the disciples and the boy who comes up with the fish and loaves are in if you just look at that tiny, little story, it’s sort of a microcosm. They don’t have any hope of feeding the 5,000 they just step out in obedience. I think that’s where we are. Go back to Haiti. We don’t have any hope of reforesting Haiti, but we step out in obedience following the call, confident that God has a plan of redemption for Haiti.
What is your favorite creation care book?
One of the underappreciated ones… that I thought was wonderful was Steven Bouma Prediger’s book [For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care (Engaging Culture)
What is your favorite way that you personally care for God’s creation?
As far as actually caring for creation – this may be a cop out – but what we do here and are trying to do here … trying to make it possible for people trapped in that cycle to live in a mutually beneficial relationship with their local environment.
Where I get excited is seeing hillsides that were eroded and barren covered with dark rich soil and trees and places where there are small little streams flowing that were dry before. That’s what really gets me excited.
Is there anything else that you wish you could have said that you would like to share with our readers?
There are some things I am thinking about… ideas that have occurred to me since. – The idea of kingdom relationships being life-giving and therefore as citizens of the kingdom, how we can be life-giving in our relationship with creation. These are ideas that I want to explore in the future. We spend a lot of time talking about reducing our footprint but I wonder how we can actually be restorative in our relationships rather than just mitigating our own damage…. It’s probably not possible this side of Christ’s return any more than it’s possible to bring about world peace by turning the other cheek. Nonetheless, we can live as if – because we are citizens of the kingdom – there’s a real sense in which we are living that out.
Freebie Info
Next Friday, March 12th at 5:00pm PST we will hold a random drawing to determine the winner of the free, autographed copy of Tending to Eden. In order to qualify you must do one of the following:
- Comment on any of the 3 Tending to Eden blog posts (part 1, this one, or the upcoming book review)
- Tweet the following “I just entered to win a free copy of the book Tending to Eden from @creationhope. To enter go to http://bit.ly/bJqxkF #CreationHopeGiveaway”
Only one opportunity per person per option above (which means only 1 opportunity regardless of how many times you comment; only 1 opportunity regardless of how many times you tweet; with a maximum of 2 opportunities total to win). Comments and tweets must be made by 4:30pm PST on March 12, 2010. Sorry, only available to those in the Unites States. Please do not enter if you do not intend to read the book.
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