Progress...????

[Image: Progress, 2013, JA Van Devender]

Location: Reversing Falls, St. Johns, NB, CA

Genesis 2:15 (NKJV)

¹⁵Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

I have previously posted photos of the famous "reversing falls" near St. Johns, New Brunswick. It's a pretty incredible sight and well worth visiting if you are in the area. However, in a near criminal act, Mr. Irving, who owns most of Canada it appears, maintains a pulp processing plant making cardboard boxes right on the point of the falls. Early on, in the 19th century, the rapid flow probably provided power to whatever commercial enterprises were built here. Now such is not the case and the big, ugly plant sits there, belching steam, and forcing poor, abused amateur photographers to go to extraordinary lengths to frame an image that captures something of the falls' power and beauty but excludes this monstrosity.

It makes a guy mad enough to just spit... as people once remarked.

OK, so that last bit was over-the-top. I wasn't as offended as several other "tourists" standing round and about were. I remember one guy ranting about it while the rest of us listened in amused silence. But he did have a point.

There is a time and place for making money and I like the idea of employment and the convenience of cardboard boxes. I am not, by any means, a radical tree-hugging, Green Peace zealot. But really... Mr. Irving is more wealthy than most third world nations. When I said he owns most of Canada that is not too great an exaggeration. His political power is immense. This plant could be moved, lock stock and barrel, to another location and Mr. Irving's fortunes would probably only show a slight dip in the rate of annual increase.

But here it sits... and so, I suppose, here it shall remain.

When God told Adam to "keep and tend" the garden where He, God, placed him, it was clearly intended that it be with an eye toward "improving" not desecrating the beauty of God's world. It is God's world... it is not ours. We lease it from Him and only for so long as He keeps extending the terms of that lease. If we are to build, and we must, it is a facet of our human nature to do so, then we are to build beautifully. We are to seek harmony in our endeavors, improving our world as we do so. Technology is a tool and is to be used, as is the case with all tools, to bear witness to the God Whose image we bear.

It is a dramatic indictment of our fallen condition that this "goal" is not placed alongside any other goal that prompts us to a particular endeavor. We must furnish our daily bread... we must earn a living... we must do things to help our fellow man, such as provide medical services, educational establishments, art venues, etc. etc. etc. But whatever motive prompts us to some action, why is that motive not clearly paralleled by a corresponding zeal to make whatever we do God-glorifying as we do it? The answer is obvious. Man, by his fall, has so warped the image of God he bears to the point that such aspirations are deemed clownish. What's important to us is whatever we want to do, for our glory, for our fame, for our selfish desires. Whatever aesthetic goals, or environmental goals, or God-glorifying goals may cross our mind, or cross our desk, or be a topic of conversation, are quickly pushed so far down the list in priority that it is only as an after-thought that we take them up and only subject them to actual pursuit if "surplus" funds and energy happen to be available. This last, strangely enough, if and when present, is subject to the same competition for use.

So what we Christians need to start adding to the cultural mix, is a firm, consistent, pressure to change the idea of "progress." "Progress" is now understood, when thought about at all, solely in terms of "improving" the human condition... whatever that may mean. It is "man" focused and "man" measured. But "progress" ought to be measured in such a way that an improved human condition is the by-product not the main goal. "Progress" ought to be undertaken with an eye toward transforming ugliness where present (and here, most often, it is man caused) into beauty. It is understanding the building of factories in terms of advancing the benefits of the Kingdom of God through Christ and, in doing so, paying due attention to the manifold purposes of that Kingdom. This can be done... it has been done with some faltering steps ( I think of the Guiness history in Dublin) and can be done more consistently. All it takes is for the immense resources possessed by Christians to be reoriented in execution.

All we really have to do is remember who we are and Whom we are serving. That, in and of itself, would be progress.