Landscapes of the Wilderness and Church

Just finished reading a book, Where land & water meet : a Western landscape transformed by Nancy Langston. It is the story of the riparian lands of the Malheur basin in southeast Oregon.

Gigantic conflict between ranchers, homesteaders, Indians, environmentalists, beavers, bucks, carp over the use of water of the Donner und Blitzen and Silvies rivers and the adjacent land.

One lesson: efficiency is not always an admirable goal. When every drop of water is corraled for the use of ranchers, homesteaders starve, native ducks and fish go extinct. If homesteaders get absolute control of the water, the land will be made barren because of the baleful effects of irrigation in the marginal soils of the basin using water with a high mineral content (and the ducks and fish will disappear). If radical environmentalists had their way, there would be no human presence in the basin. Maybe wisdom means compromises that makes room for farmers, ranchers and wildlife--a messy situation that means no single ideological perspective or management approach is allowed unchallenged dominance.

Maybe healthy church life means the messy inclusion of multiple voices, perspectives and temperaments rather than the creation of a "pure church" controlled by a single theological perspective.

Another lesson: best decisions arise when the input of conflicting interest groups is given included in the decision-making process.

Another lesson: What seems so obviously the best and wisest policy today is just as obviously not the wisest policy tomorrow. Time has invalidated "convictions" of both ranchers and environmentalists in the Malheur basin. I think the same is true for the church. It is foolish to insist that "new truth" will never contradict our historic truth. Sometimes, historic truth turns out to be just wrong. This is true in land and wildlife management (i.e. science) and in church management (i.e. theology and spirituality).

Ultimate lesson: wildlife and wild lands managers must remember they do not own and ultimately cannot really control the living world they manage. They affect it, but ultimately control is beyond them. So leaders in the church cannot ultimately control the spiritual life that flows through the church. They certainly affect it, but they cannot be sure what the consequences of their actions will be. Unintended consequences happen not only in the wilderness. They happen in the church as well.

So manage lightly.