Saving Our Ship

It has occurred to me from time to time that there may be significant similarities between the views of secularist advocates of “lifeboat ethics” and the outlook of those fundamentalists who view themselves as inhabitants of “the late great planet Earth.” This suspicion has been reinforced by two items I have recently come across. The first is an excellent essay by James Sellers, “Famine and Interdependence: Toward a New Identity for America and the West” (in Lifeboat Ethics: The Moral Dilemmas of World Hunger).

Sellers suggests that lifeboat ethics, as advocated by Garrett Hardin and others, is “a form of ecological chiliasm” (“chiliasm” is synonymous with “millennialism”)--although those of us who are familiar with the complexities of evangelical eschatologies might want to be more specific, viewing it as a secularized version of pre-tribulation rapturism. In any event, Seller’s suggestion seems to me to be a helpful one. Secularist lifeboaters and fundamentalists both have a rather easy time dividing the world up into “saved” and “lost.” And they both seem to be preoccupied with the survival of an elite group who will have the good fortune of escaping the general wrath that is yet to come.

The second item is a piece of concrete evidence that fundamentalists were using the lifeboat metaphor long before it was adopted by the recent secularist lifeboaters. In Modern Revivalism: From Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham, William McLoughlin reports this quote by Dwight L. Moody: “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a lifeboat and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.’”

Of course, what this remark of Moody’s also shows is that there are some significant differences between secularist and Christian lifeboat-isms. Indeed, if I had to choose between the two I would have little difficulty embracing Moody’s formulation as over against Garrett Hardin’s. Moody at least views himself as dealing with a lifeboat that is not of his own making. His lifeboat has been given to him by God, and it carries with it God’s standards of occupancy.

Furthermore, there is an expansiveness in Moody’s view of his mission as a keeper of the lifeboat: “Moody, save all you can.” One gets the impression that Moody is not operating with some rigid notion of maximum capacity; if his lifeboat is sparsely populated, this will not be because some were turned away, but rather because some invitees refused to come aboard. It is precisely this willingness to make a “free offer” which is missing in the attitudes of the secularist lifeboaters.

Moody’s lifeboat, then, is a more humane vessel than that of the secularists. But, even so, we must be wary of adopting his emphasis. Any view of the world that is dominated by a lifeboat metaphor must ultimately be judged as deficient on some crucial points. For one thing, a lifeboat perspective assumes that the larger world is in fact a “wrecked vessel.” I am not prepared to make this assumption.

It still seems to me quite proper to proclaim that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,” (Psalm 24:1). There is no doubt that our physical and cultural environment is broken and torn by sin. But it is still the Father’s world--a world to which he sent his Son, not for purposes of condemnation but for salvation. Whenever I begin, then, to think in terms of a lifeboat, the boat seems to get bigger and bigger until it finally becomes indistinguishable from the original vessel which I had thought was wrecked.

But even if it is proper to think about surviving the wrath which may yet come, survival cannot be the only valued commodity. As Sellers rightly states, “What we must ask is whether survival--naked survival--is a sufficient moral end, or whether meaningful
human existence must not demand more than that.” For the Christian, the question of survival cannot be considered apart from a concern for justice.

Indeed, the Scriptures seem to put the issue of survival into a very different context. In Matthew 25, Jesus makes it clear that the question of who will ultimately “survive” is one that God will decide. And he will decide the case on the basis of who it was that fed the hungry, clothed the naked and visited the prisoners. In the light of such considerations, then, we ought not to be thinking of survival at all. For, if the need for a lifeboat ever comes about, God will reserve room for those who have not worried themselves much about lifeboats, but who have sought instead to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk in humility before his face.

When this article appeared, Richard Mouw was professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the author of Political Evangelism. Readers of the Post-American will remember his contributions to its pages.