Deciding who to vote for, take two

A lovely comment arrived from Sue in response to my post titled, “Deciding who to vote for” which included a thoughtful piece by James Skillen.

 

Thanks so much for sharing this piece. I found it very helpful and very refreshing in a time when so much political dialogue is embedded in fierce partisan loyalties. I can engage with Skillen's ideas without feeling like I've got to wear armor.

 

But ... I shared the link with a group of acquaintances, thinking that it was a good model of civil discourse and might inspire some useful dialogue. Well, what it inspired was (in their own words) "a hornet's nest." According to them, the entire article is a pro-Obama, pro-Democrat, pro-second-exodus-narrative (and therefore anti-American) diatribe. One person responded, "I didn't know Francis Schaeffer was a socialist or communist." I was flabbergasted.

 

So ... I've long admired your patient responses to similar off-the-charts reactions to articles that you believed were well-measured critiques, but I'm wondering, how do you personally decide when to offer clarifications, further discussion, etc., and when to just say, "Hmmmm, there's not much point in continuing this discussion"? How do you graciously end a fruitless disagreement?

 

That’s a great question, Sue. I can’t tell you how often I’ve faced similar responses to things I’ve shared or said or taught. It can be very discouraging especially when these responses are coming from people who claim to be the people of God. Bertrand Russell used to say, “People would rather die than think; in fact they do.” He was correct, and sadly, it applies even to those who claim that following the Truth is central to their lives.

 

I think there are several reasons why this occurs. (I don’t know if your friends were Christians or not, but since the Francis Schaeffer comment sounds like it came from a Christian, I’ll assume they were believers here.) First, many Christians have come to believe that conformity is a measure of commitment—in other words, that believers should necessarily share not just identical doctriness and ethics, but opinions and activities. However, having a Christian mind does not mean that there is a “Christian line” on every topic. Life and reality are far richer and more nuanced than that. Second, many evangelicals, having decided that a conservative ideology embraces their political leanings, begin to confuse conservatism with Christianity. It’s a subtle process, but also a deadly one, since no ideology should be infused into the gospel. Third, few understand that political ideologies are not neutral, but are, to use a biblical theological category, idolatries. Each one, conservatism included, takes one aspect of created reality and elevates it to a position where it defines the rest of life—making it into a god, a sovereign. (For a thoughtful and fascinating study of this, see Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies by David Koyzis.) And finally, I am convinced that Russell was correct. Thinking is hard, listening is difficult, sorting through competing claims takes time and energy, while skating through life is far easier. So, people tend to read authors they agree with, hang with people like them, and react defensively (angrily, fearfully) when anyone says anything that doesn’t seem to line up with their own prejudices and opinions.

 

So, knowing that, I try not to be discouraged when I find Christians shutting down conversations. I try to keep from reacting myself, which is hard. Sometimes, I will say something like, “Why does it feel like you don’t really want to listen or talk about this winsomely?” Or, “Do you think Christians should be able to talk about this without it being a hornet’s nest?” I try to be a good listener, and calmly ask good questions. (The calmly part is the hard part, of course.) Sometimes, I just remain silent, knowing that their minds are closed to truth and that they need the gospel far more than they need help thinking about politics.

 

The saddest part to me in all this is not that your friends are unable to discuss such topics without defensiveness, nor that they misread Skillen, nor even that they are so closed-minded about seeking after truth with others. What is saddest to me is that they are so unsafe to talk to. Margie and I have long prayed our home would be the safest place in Rochester, where people can explore ideas without fear and where they can be themselves without being treated dismissively.

 

Anyway, be safe, Sue. Not in the sense of keeping out of danger (though I wish that for you, too), but in the sense of being a person who, like Jesus never compromised but with whom people understood they could be with, without having to wear armor. As you do, remember that some walked away from him angrily after stirring up hornet’s nests, too.

 

And thanks for your kind words.

 

Surgery on whaling ships

Visiting the home of my oldest daughter, Marsena Konkle, is a delight for all sorts of reasons. One is that being a novelist, her house is amply stocked with books, many of which I do not own and a few of which are the sort not found in many living rooms. On this visit I happened upon Rough Medicine, the story of how surgeons plied their trade on whaling ships in the 19^th century. It’s a miracle any of the patients survived.

 

One story comes from a seaman, William Davis, who tells of an unlucky sailor who got tangled in the lines that secured the thrashing whale to the ship. The captain, James Huntting of Long Island, a large man (six and a half foot, 250 pounds), was notorious for refusing to use grog to deaden the pain of surgery. When the sailor was finally heaved back on board ship, “it was found that a portion of the hand including four fingers had been torn away, and the foot sawed through at the ankle, leaving only the great tendon and the heel suspended to the lacerated stump… Saved from drowning, the man seemed likely to meet a more cruel death, unless some one had the nerve to perform the necessary amputation… But Captain Jim was not the man to let anyone perish on [such] slight provocation. He had his carving knife, carpenter’s saw and a fish-hook. The injury was so frightful and the poor fellow’s groans and cries so touching, that several of the crew fainted in their endeavors to aid the captain in the operation, and others sickened and turned away from the sight. Unaided, the captain then lashed his screaming patient to the carpenter’s bench, amputated the leg and dressed the hand.”

 

“Another stirring tale is told of a Captain Coffin, who was hurt so badly in a whaling accident that it was obvious that his leg would have to go. Being the master, the medic, and the patient all at once, he knew the situation was complicated, but he was more than equal to the task. He sent for his pistol and a knife, saying to his mate, ‘Now, sir, you gotta lop off this here leg, and if you flinch—well, sir, you get shot in the head.’ Then he sat as steady as a rock while the mate went at it with the knife, holding the pistol unwaveringly until the operation was completed. No sooner was the stump wrapped up and the leg cast overboard than both men fainted.”

 

Source: Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea in the Age of Sail by Joan Druett (New York, NY: Routledge; 2000) p. 130.

On rest, work, time, and life

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” [Mohandas Gandhi]

 

“I don’t know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest awhile.” [Max Forrester Eastman]

 

“There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.” [Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes]

 

“Don’t underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” [“Pooh’s Little Instruction Book”]

 

“To sleep is an act of faith.” [Barbara G. Harrison]

 

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under a tree on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water; or watching the cloud float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” [J. Lubbock]

 

 

While sitting in my daughter’s home, looking out her living room window at the lake surrounded by trees adorned in their autumn colors, I noticed a small book on her coffee table. It confirmed what I have long believed—that naps are a gift of grace, too seldom received with gratitude and embraced without guilt. Demonstrating this truth in our skeptical world is, I believe, a witness to the existence and mercy of God.

 

Source: Cat Naps: The Key to Contentment (Portland, ME; Ronnie Sellers Productions) p. 8, 13, 45, 87, 88, 102.

 

Deciding who to vote for

The Francis Schaeffer Institute Fall 2008 Lectures at Covenant Seminary (October 3-4) featured James Skillen. His theme: “Taking Citizenship Seriously: Christian Responsibility in Today’s Political Context.” The three talks were certainly appropriate for this election year, without veering off into topics that appropriate for only this particular election. Skillen, the president of the Center for Public Justice, has spent a lifetime reflecting biblically on Christian faithfulness in the politics and citizenship. His lectures demonstrated a finely honed wisdom and a principled ability to see beyond the narrow horizons of political ideologies that is sadly all too rare when political issues arise in Christian circles. (Watch for Skillen’s lectures to be made available, free, on Covenant Seminary’s web site.)

 

 

McCain, Obama, and America’s Two Exodus Stories

 

There are deeper currents carrying the presidential campaign toward Election Day. We aren’t necessarily conscious of them when we listen to the debates, the stump speeches, and the results of daily tracking polls, but they are there in a big way.

 

The deepest current, I believe, is the grand narrative about America’s exceptional origin, identity, and destiny. Yet, this story comes in two different versions, which actually conflict with one another, helping to explain some of the cultural as well as political antagonisms that lie beneath the surface of ordinary partisanship. Consider America’s contrasting Exodus stories.

 

The first Exodus story is the one familiar to most Americans—those with ancestral roots in Europe and particularly Great Britain, but including all who now take the story for granted. Courageous Puritans, in covenant with God, took their exodus from oppression in Britain (Egypt), crossed the Red Sea of the Atlantic, and entered a new Promised Land where they built a City on a Hill to serve as a light to the nations. Freedom for this new Israel was at odds with monarchy and eventually insisted on constitutional protections against any future Pharaoh as well as security against all potential foreign adversaries who might try to snuff out the flame of liberty—America’s light to the nations. A strong central government would be anathema just as a king would be unthinkable. The chief executive for the nation’s minimal federal government (only grudgingly established) should be little more than an executive director, responsible to carry out the decisions of Congress, which the Founders tethered carefully to the states. The Constitution granted the federal government responsibility only to regulate interstate commerce and to defend the states from foreign attacks. The states were to be genuine polities—political communities—with a full range of powers, except for defense. The federal government was to be a servant of the states, not the head of a national polity.

 

America’s second Exodus story was authored by its slaves—mostly in song. For them the original promise of America, in the providence of God, was that all humans are created equal. The Pharaoh who thwarted the fulfillment of that promise was the slaveholders and the Constitution that supported them. The exodus of these slaves from oppression had to take place within the Egypt of America itself in order to open the way to the liberation of the nation—the Declaration’s promised land of freedom and equality. And that exodus was made possible with the help of a strong federal government, which overthrew slavery and, eventually, after a hundred more years of oppression, established equal civil rights for everyone in the national polity. This story builds on ancient appeals to the “rights of Englishmen.” And as it gathered momentum it drew together other quests for rights and equality, such as voting rights for non-Christians, for those who owned no property, and for women.

 

Exodus stories today

 

John McCain mostly represents, or is carried along by, the current of the first American Exodus story. He is an icon of the Puritan errand into the wilderness that continued until the western expanse of America’s promised land had been settled. He epitomizes the defense of American freedom by those willing to give up their lives in warfare. He promises to stand tall against real and perceived enemies by maintaining America’s military strength because of his love for the nation. And he will continue the Reagan-Bush quest for a smaller federal government, lower taxes, and, when needed, deficit spending for the sake of national security and market freedom. McCain can more easily be pictured exercising the presidential role of head of state—symbol of the nation—than the role of head of government—the day-to-day manager, executive, and policy negotiator with Congress.

 

Barack Obama mostly represents, or is carried along by, the current of the second American Exodus story. The great American promise, realized through the exodus from slavery and the civil rights movement, is equal civil rights for all. Freedom begins at home and is won and maintained by the federal and state governments, with as strong a federal government as needed. Government should not be seen as suspect but must be directed to its proper end of realizing equal opportunity for all in a strong national community. Justice and prosperity will be achieved for everyone not by means of trickle-down economics and government’s waiting on the market to deliver public goods. Instead of deficit spending with insufficient taxation (which led, during the last eight years, to a doubling of the national debt, greatly burdening our grandchildren), government ought to balance its taxes and spending. Moreover, American freedom among the nations of the world depends on upholding principles of the rule of law and the building of sound international institutions. Obama can more easily be pictured exercising the presidential role of head of government while also symbolizing the Declaration’s promise of equality in the role of head of state.

 

McCain gives voice to the love of freedom—both individual and national—that he holds in tension with a suspicion of government. Obama gives voice to the love of American ideals that are realized in part through government actions. For McCain and many of his followers, the military is attached to the American nation rather than to an overgrown federal government that should be cut down in size. For Obama, the military is one department of a government that should give as much attention to diplomacy as to military preparedness in order to play a constructive role in the world.

 

Some supporters of McCain who are carried along by the first American Exodus story wonder if Obama is truly and fully American. His life story doesn’t seem to fit their preferred mold. Some Obama supporters fear the impact of racism in the election, an attitude that still lingers in those who cannot yet accept that America is now a multiracial, multicultural national polity.

 

Moving beyond the Exodus stories

 

The first American Exodus story runs off the tracks when the exaggerated myth of American exceptionalism leads the president and Congress to take actions that neither enhance U.S. security nor gain respect for it abroad. Moreover, when it pits love of the nation against government, the latter is weakened to the point where it can no longer act deliberately, decisively, and with forethought but is reduced to merely reacting to emergencies, such as the current financial crisis. When free-market advocates like President Bush, Treasury Secretary Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke reach for immense federal power to save the financial system, they contradict their basic philosophy. That, in turn, leads to further suspicion of government by citizens on one side who think government should leave free markets alone and by citizens on the other side who see no comparable action being taken to save the national polity with its crumbling infrastructure, growing trade deficit, expanding distance between rich and poor, and troubling crises in health care, Social Security, and the environment.

 

The second American Exodus story runs off the tracks when popular appeals to the federal government and the courts turn politics and litigation into little more than competition among more and more identity groups for the “right” to receive benefits or privileges that are supposed to overcome their exclusion or oppression. The cry of slaves for freedom and the long struggle for civil rights by African Americans were responses to the wholesale exclusion of an entire group of citizens from almost every aspect of American life simply because they were black and had been purchased for slavery, not for equal participation in the first American exodus story. But the subsequent misuse of civil-rights appeals by every manner of “group” to try to gain benefits and privileges that extend far beyond the scope of civil-rights claims makes governing increasingly difficult, fueling identity politics and interest-group brokering that frustrate the building of a national polity that achieves the common good.

 

In preparing to vote on November 4, we need to think carefully about which presidential candidate appears most able to rise above the conflicts between, and the deficiencies of, the two American Exodus stories. Who is best prepared to seek out the ways of wise statecraft for a national polity that is troubled on many fronts at home while confused, overextended, and unbalanced in its foreign and defense policies? Who is best able to move beyond paeans to America’s greatness and lead Congress in the hard work of building a sustainable and trustworthy republic that can, with modesty and forethought, conduct the hard work of multidimensional diplomacy in a shrinking, warming, warring world?

 

—James W. Skillen, President

    Center for Public Justice

 

Copyright © Center for Public Justice 2008. Reprinted here with the kind permission of James Skillen.

 

To learn more about the Center for Public Justice, visit the Center’s new website. The Center for Public Justice is an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to public policy research, leadership development, and civic education. With a distinctive Christian-democratic perspective, we help citizens, policymakers, and government respond to the call to pursue justice for all.

+ + + + +

James Skillen is a keen observer of the political sphere of life, committed to seeing it through the clarifying lens of the gospel. This brief essay arrived via email as part of The Center for Public Justice’s thoughtful Election Series ’08 (#8; October 15, 2008). I recommend the work of the Center to you, and would encourage you to sign up to receive this series, as well as their Capital Commentary emails.

“Why do you review worldly music?”

Several times over the past year a friend has commented that Christians he knows have asked him why I review “worldly music” in Critique and on Ransom’s web site. I wish they would have asked me directly, but they haven’t. So I thought I’d post an answer here in the hope they find it.

 

I appreciate your question. It represents a desire to be holy, to be set apart from what is sinful. It means you take seriously Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians to stay clear of inappropriate relationships in a fallen world. “‘Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them,’ says the Lord, ‘and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you.’” (6:17). John issues a similar warning. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

 

Paul defines being separate for the Corinthians by identifying relationships with non-Christians that involve compromise. He asks how God and idols, light and darkness can possibly be mixed. And in his first letter to them Paul explicitly instructed them not to withdraw from non-Christians—he even insisted that it is wrong for us to judge them (1 Corinthians 5:9-13). And when John warns us to not love the world, he is careful to define what he means. “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16). Notice he doesn’t list things like art, music and culture, but sinful desires. What is worldly is not that which is produced by non-Christians, but the seductive systems of thought and desire that a fallen world erect in rebellion to God’s proper reign as Sovereign. In other words, building something is not wrong; building the tower of Babel was.

 

In Creation, human beings were made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), given a mandate to care for and cultivate God’s world (1:28), and when our first parents exercised their creativity in poetry (2:23) and naming God’s creatures (2:20), God was pleased, including Adam’s poem in his Word and refraining from naming the animals himself (2:19). All of Scripture reveals the creativity of God’s people (see, for example, Exodus 35:30-35 and Psalms), and he has graciously told us that even after the Fall the creativity of unbelievers can be appreciated and celebrated because the image of God remains in them (Genesis 4:20-22).

 

At the Fall, a violent and fatal break occurred. Death and wickedness poured out of the human heart, perverting every relationship, bringing darkness as the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve preferred idols to the true God. How we understand the Fall and it’s relationship to the world we live in makes a great deal of difference. Misunderstand it, and we begin to believe a false gospel.

 

Think of it this way. Imagine that this list includes all of God’s creation when he called it into existence and declared it good—very good, in fact:

 

worship

spirituality

family

work

rest

gardening

art

animals

plants

matter

energy

 

Now we need to ask how the Fall effected that list. There are, by and large, two possible answers. One answer says that what’s wrong is rooted in the very structure of creation. That there is a break between what is secular or worldly on one side and what is spiritual or heavenly on the other. God is pleased with the first, but not the second. In this view, the list looks like this:

 

worship

spirituality

 

family

work

rest

gardening

art

animals

plants

matter

energy

 

In this view, gardening is on the physical not the spiritual side. It’s not exactly sinful to have a garden, but we can make it more pleasing to God if we share the produce with our non-Christian neighbors and use the chance to let them know how to be saved. The same would be true for all secular pursuits—they may not be sinful, per se, but they aren’t on the spiritual side, either.

 

Now, what I am going to say may surprise or even offend you, but I hope you will consider it carefully. The view I have just explained is not a biblical perspective, but is instead rooted in a neo-pagan Greek view of reality. It is a popular idea among Christians—and has been popular for 2000 years—but that doesn’t make it correct. In a biblical view of things, there is no division between spiritual and physical, between sacred and secular. The biblical perspective is this:

 

wors  hip

spiri  tuality

fam  ily

wo  rk

re  st

garde  ning

ar  t

ani  mals

pla  nts

mat  ter

ene  rgy

 

The Bible teaches us that at the Fall a moral rupture occurred that runs through all of life.  There is no sacred/secular division. What is spiritual is not more pleasing to God than what is physical. Evangelism is not more pleasing to God than farming, and reading my Bible is not more spiritual than reading fiction. In the biblical view, although I may desire to worship God in spirit and truth, my worship is always marred by my sinfulness, even if I can’t identify exactly how. And sometimes I can identify how—whether pride in doing it right, or impatience with those who I think pray poorly. All art is thus affected, both music produced by Christians and that produced by non-Christians. In fact, the music produced by Christians may, sadly, exhibit less truth and beauty that music produced by non-Christians.

 

So, we need to be discerning—about all of life and culture—which is why I review the music I do in Critique and on Ransom’s web site. Just as all truth is God’s truth, all beauty is God’s beauty. The scientist that discovers a cure for rheumatoid arthritis may not be a Christian, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t discovered real truth. Artists like Sigur Ros and Radiohead may not be Christians but that doesn’t mean that they don’t produce hauntingly beautiful music. And since the work of our hands and minds reveal what we really believe about the things that matter most, listening to the music of our culture can help us understand how to engage our neighbors and co-workers with the gospel in a way they might be able to understand.

 

I know that if you think I review worldly music, what I’ve written here may come as a shock. I am saying you have adopted a perspective—unsuspectingly and perhaps unconsciously—that causes you to misread the Scriptures you love. It’s a very serious matter. The notion that what’s wrong from the Fall is rooted in the structure of creation (a spiritual/physical, sacred/secular divide in life) is properly referred to as the Gnostic heresy. The biblical gospel, in sharp contrast, says that all of life across all of culture, lived to God’s glory and under Christ’s Lordship, is equally pleasing to God. This is really very important—a Gnostic faith is not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Much more needs to be said, to make a compelling case for what I am saying, but this is a post on a blog not a book. So let me recommend three books worth reading:

 

Being Human: The Nature of Spiritual Experience by Jerram Barrs and Ranald Macaulay (IVP). These two former L’Abri workers address the question of a sacred/secular dichotomy in detail, carefully moving through the Scriptures and showing how neo-pagan thought has sadly infiltrated Christian circles.

 

Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian (forthcoming from Multnomah). The grandson of Billy and Ruth Graham explores in careful detail what it means to be separate from the world, and the difference it makes.

 

Art and the Bible by Francis Schaeffer (IVP). A short booklet that introduces a distinctly biblical understanding of art and culture.

 

Please read them, and reflect on what I have written. It would be far better if we had a chance to talk, so I can be certain I know what you mean by your question. If I misunderstand what you meant, please let me know. But if behind your notion of “worldly music” is the idea that art is less important than, say, missions, that pursuing spiritual things like evangelism is more pleasing to God that doing something physical, like art, or that the music of non-Christians is intrinsically something of the world we must withdraw from, please hear me. Your entire understanding of Christian spirituality is less than biblical, and the gospel you profess is perverted with Gnostic elements.

 

It’s not, in the end, an issue of what music we like or happen to listen to. It’s a matter of what gospel we profess.

 

Glorious ruins (2)

Not too far outside Rochester, in clear view as we drive past on the highway, is a commercial diary enterprise. It produces a prodigious amount of milk. What is missing is the pastoral scene that usually comes to mind when we think of a dairy farm. There are no dairy cows grazing in a green pasture ranging over slightly rolling hills. The reason is that in this factory the cows never leave their stalls. Day and night, week after week, the cows stand in long lines, each tethered to a stall that they will leave only when they die. Their food is brought to them with an efficiency that could only be developed by engineers that know to fine tune machinery to never miss a beat. The stalls are kept clean by more technology, numerous men in huge tractors and trucks circling the long barns in a steady mechanical ballet. The cows don’t live as long as those that are allowed to live more normally. But the economics of production take that into account—in this sort of dairy factory, the shortened lives of the cows is just part of the cost of doing business. The milk that ends up in grocery stores is saturated with antibiotics, needed to keep the cattle from illness because they are crammed into such close quarters. Similar commercial farm enterprises raise hogs, chickens, sheep, and turkeys in similar conditions.

Huge feedlots fatten beef cattle on corn in crowded pens devoid of plants and thick with excrement. We passed numerous feedlots this autumn as we drove between Minnesota and Colorado this autumn, each time praying the wind would carry the stench away from us. You can’t smell the antibiotics, but it’s easy to understand why more are needed at this stage of production.

I realize there are arguments in favor of this approach to producing food. Cattle fattened on corn yield marbled meat that most people prefer in taste. More important, the systematic application of engineering standards of efficiency allows fewer people to produce much larger quantities of meat and milk. Advances in technology allow new approaches to farming that increase production at lower cost. In a world like ours, still haunted by hunger, such things are not insignificant. And with the recent turmoil in the world of finance, I suspect that arguments involving higher food costs and increased governmental regulation will not be applauded by a lot of good people.

Still, I find these developments in commercial farming to be an occasion for grief. I am not a vegetarian, but as a Christian I am committed to the biblical teaching that cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, and turkeys are my fellow creatures in a world God has made and sustains by his word. The cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28—a mandate we live under as we walk our days before the face of the Creator—is to cultivate God’s good earth. To care for it tenderly as his stewards, for it remains his. To mistreat it is to mistreat him and to be dismissive of our calling to be faithful. To mistreat animals is to demean their Maker.

Deciding to eat locally grown, organically produced meat, egg, and dairy products has increased our food costs a little. I do not regret that decision. I realize that every family may not be able to afford to do the same. So be it. I am not interested in promoting new legalisms. I also realize that trying to change commercial farming will likely involve governmental action, and that is not always a completely happy prospect. Nor do I wish to anthropomorphize the fate of farm animals. As creatures we are fellow creatures; as human beings, unlike them we are made in God’s image. That’s a real difference, and it matters.

I do want to argue, however, that Christians take creation seriously. And that includes treating our fellow creatures with the dignity and care that is intrinsic to their natures as part of the gloriously interconnected world that God called into existence. Though ruined by brokenness it need not include mistreating fellow creatures because of greed.

One place to begin is to read two books, one fairly old, the other new: Pollution and the Death of Man (1970) by Francis Schaeffer, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2007) by Michael Pollan. I recommend them both.