Now, Get up!

Faithful Syence #30

In 2007 I published a book about the environment entitled Where We Stand: The Surprising Real State of our Planet (I was a professor of Environmental Health at the time). Like most book titles, this was chosen by the publisher. My original title was “The Good News” since the book was about the fact that the state of our planet, including pollution levels, literacy, disease, infant mortality, and even political freedom had been getting better since the second world war. I myself was surprised by this, as was everyone else I discussed it with, because there was no sign of it in any kind of media.

The book was filled with charts and figures, data, and other demonstrations of the truth of my point. I also had a chapter mildly castigating my fellow environmentalists for their overwhelmingly gloomy outlook on everything, even in the face of facts like the recovery of some endangered species and the continuous drop in levels of hazardous chemicals like lead in the environment, and I pleaded with those responsible for helping the relevant legislation (the Clean Air Act, The Endangered Species Act, etc.) to get enacted and enforced to at least acknowledge their own success. I also has sections on the bad news, (some of which, like climate change, later indicated that some of my optimism might have been unwarranted).

The book was not a huge success. As for any book, there were many reasons for this. It wasn’t terribly well written, there were too many charts, figures, and data, and the publisher took almost no interest in promoting it. But the main reason was the unfortunate fact that the last thing the public wants to hear about is good news.

Does that sound counterintuitive? It shouldn’t. The publisher said they rejected my working title because it sounded like a religious book—the “good news” referring to the Gospels. It wasn’t—there were no references to religion at all. I was not yet even a Christian, strictly speaking (although I was already thinking about Christianity from time to time). But I think the real reason they didn’t go with it was that they (and everyone in the media business) knew full well that good news just doesn’t sell.

I don’t know why bad news is so popular and good news isn’t. But I don’t like it. I didn’t like it before I became a Christian, but now that I am one, I see it as a religious issue as well. Christians have something that they can always look at with joy, hope and optimism—the resurrection of Jesus Christ and its significance for all of humanity. They can see the good that is being done by other humans all around them as expressions of Christ’s command to love one’s neighbor, feed the widows and orphans, and care for the stranger.

Of course, we know that there are terrible things in this world, and most of us have no good explanation for how a loving God can allow this. But when we think of the suffering and final victory of our Savior and the hope of that message, we also recognize the reality of a happy ending, or at least the possibility of a happier future. Christians mourn the death of friends and family members and weep at their loss. But we do not descend into the hell of unrelieved terror, misery, and gloom, but dwell in hope and the promise of eternal joy, even if we cannot fathom what that means.

A few short years ago, we were in midst of a devastating pandemic that killed over a million people in the USA alone. The impact on all our lives, with businesses and churches closing, and so much confusion about vaccinations and protective measures, has mostly (though, sadly, not completely) passed. And after a while, our churches re-opened, and worshippers and greeted each other with careful elbow bumps and waves. Now, a few years later, we hug each other again, our choirs sing, our organs resound, and the body of Christ raise their voices to give thanks to the Lord. We have emerged from fear and sorrow, as we have so often in the past, and given glory to our Creator.

As Jesus said to Paul when His newest disciple had fallen to his knees, “Now, get up!”. We did just that, and we will do it again, as often as we need to.

To order Beyond Evolution

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