The Pope and Mr Limbaugh

Hi everyone,

I was rolling this post around in my head yesterday but didn't feel the urge to write it last night.

Something that was perturbing me yesterday was commentary from the redoubtable Rush Limbaugh on the leaked draft of Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change.  I've consciously decided not to do more than skim the media coverage of the draft: for one thing, secular coverage of theological teaching is often simply awful.  A complex, sophisticated set of ideas is reduced to a 15 word quotation.  Imagine your favourite book being reduced to a bumper sticker and you'll understand why I don't want to bother.

What troubled me was Mr Limbaugh's almost-visceral rejection of the idea that climate change (caused by people or not) and the existence of poverty present a moral issue, and can only be seen in political terms.  It seems to me that if we cause, or wilfully fail to prevent, the earth to become less able to sustain life, then we're at the least complicit in marring the work of God sung about in Psalm 104 -

He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
    it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field;
    the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
    they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
    the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
He makes grass grow for the cattle,
    and plants for people to cultivate—
    bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens human hearts,
    oil to make their faces shine,
    and bread that sustains their hearts.
The trees of the Lord are well watered,
    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests;
    the stork has its home in the junipers.
The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
    the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.

Equally, if we draw the line at alleviating poverty when it causes pain to ourselves , then it seems to me we're guilty of the self absorption that Rick Warren warns about: "Never forget that life is not about you! You exist for God's purposes and not vice versa" (1).  When that failure to act means people live in misery and poverty unwillingly (2), aren't we wilfully allowing the image of God stamped on other people to become corroded?  This is surely not a proper thing to do.

I can't help but be a little disappointed, because I would usually be classed as a fan of Limbaugh.  His compulsively listenable broadcasts are a model of fluency and panache.  He is one of the few conservative commentators active at present with the intellectual muscles to contribute to the marketplace of ideas (notwithstanding his exasperating habit of using the terms "communist", "socialist" and "Marxist" as interchangeable, which they are not); certainly he is one of the few active today who could legitimately claim to be an intellectual heir of Edmund Burke.  What saddens me is that the message of the Galilean carpenter to deny yourself and the things that bring you pleasure, and to take up your cross and follow him (3) should be so ferociously rejected.  I know full well that religious imperatives translate badly into practical politics.  Try and legislate morality and you'll tend to create the Taliban.  Try and legislate charity and you'll tend to create Greece.  All of this tells us something about human nature and everything about the limits of what governments can do effectively.  But surely it is lazy and wrong not to at least attempt to create an economic and industrial order that honours the image of God in the world.

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(1) Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life (2002), p.173.
(2) I'm very aware that there's a strain of humanity that more-or-less consciously chooses squalor as a lifestyle.
(3) Matt. 16:24-25; Luke 18:22.