For instance, my son wants to be a garbage man when he grows up.  Some people think this is funny, others are concerned and think I should point him in another direction.  If collecting trash is what he wants to do, I’m not going to stand in the way of that.  He is also very concerned about recycling and the environment.  I think this is great — maybe he will go to college and have a career in environmental sciences.  But this is where the Independent Baptist culture may possibly conflict.

Most Independent Baptists I know are staunch Republicans, who complain about political liberals and “Big Government”.   Because of their beliefs on politics, they tend to think anything related to the environment or global warming is pure nonsense, and politically driven.  My opinion is there are some politics going on in the global warming debate.  Unfortunately in order to get money today, our system has become one of politically lobbying and being the loudest voice.  On top of Independent Baptist thinking on global warming and environmentalism, theology about the end times is brought up about God creating a New Earth, so the implication is that these subjects don’t matter, since according to this theology we cannot harm the earth enough to eradicate ourselves, since it will be destroyed and re-created by God in the end.

I’m not taking sides on the global warming debate.  I’m only trying to point out that the Independent Baptist culture is at some point going to discourage my son.  I don’t know if he goes off to a college away from here what kind of church I’d recommend to him.  Possibly a Mennonite church, but there aren’t many around most areas.  At some point, he is going to either have to live with the cognitive dissonance of the church on one hand, and science on the other.  Or, he will have to leave the Baptist denomination in search of a church something more closely aligned to his work.  Or thirdly, he may give up on Christianity altogether.

My hope is that I can train my children so that when they get older, they don’t abandon their faith altogether like the latter scenario.  I would rather educate my children in things such as Luther’s doctrine of vocation, and help them see the good in a profession like science.  I’ve had to deal with these issues of religion and science in my own career, and I find it hard because there aren’t many people talking about how Baptists can relate to the world’s problems as Christians and those that work in scientific disciplines.

In going back through church history, I’ve found the Mennonites, who are an Anabaptist group.  One thing I like about Mennonites is their commitment to live out the Sermon on the Mount and the teachings of Jesus here and now.  While I realize many of the newer schools of dispensational thought do not have problems with its application to today, there are still plenty of ways in which the teachings of Jesus are not applied to contemporary situations and problems, in my opinion because of dispensational theology.

In this mode of thinking, I can see linking the command of Jesus to love our neighbor as ourselves in the fields of science.  We should be concerned about the environment as Christians, since taking care of it is being a good neighbor.  For instance, my next door neighbor would not appreciate me dumping my used car oil over the fence onto her properly.  That would be selfish of me.   So my responsibility is to do what I can to make sure I’m not stealing from my immediate neighbor, or future generations as well.  One of the commitments in the IEEE code of ethics is “to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment”.  As one who works in engineering, I am responsible to be a good neighbor to the public, and take these factors seriously.

One final note:  I realize that not all Baptists have problems with environmental concerns and are strongly “escapist” in their views of the end times.  That being said, my experience of being in many churches is these views are more common than not.  I understand there is a strong tendency to say that “it’s not a monolithic movement”, but that doesn’t help further the discussion about what should be done.  Will we ever see a movement to reconcile science and Christianity?   There are some in the scientific and academic community that are trying to do so, but none from the groups I’m part of…