The Dreaded Mixed-Use Space

On Sunday, May 16, Whitney Brown, GIPL's Communications Director, offered the last sermon in a new series and collaboration between Park Avenue Baptist Church and GIPL. Listen, read, or view the message below.   Today we are ending the Noinimod: Reverse Dominion series. As I was preparing for today’s worship, I thought it important to understand the meaning of Dominion as it is used today. Though I use the word “dominion” fairly often in my work with GIPL, discussing what our human role in the grand scheme of Creation is, it still felt necessary to explore this potentially complex word a bit further.  Merriam-Webster offers five definitions of Dominion[1]:

• Domain
• Law: Supreme authority
• “dominions” Christianity: an order of angels
• If Dominion is Capitalized, a self-governing nation of the Commonwealth of the Nations other than the United Kingdom that acknowledges the British monarch as chief of state
• Law: absolute ownership

All of the definitions make sense to me – dominion having to do with authority, governance, and ownership – but I was struck by two things.  First, though it is clear that dominion offers clarity around authority, there is no indication that this authority should be forceful or destructive. Yet, in so many ways, we, people, humanity, have learned to take the idea of dominion to be something more like authority and leadership with disregard for the impact our actions have on others. It is the dominion of “mine mine mine” instead of the care and compassion for animals, people, and plants.Of course I wasn’t alive when the scriptures were written so perhaps the use of dominion in the Bible was indeed to tell people we have full control of Creation and can happily ravage the land and not have a care in the world about our neighbors. Somehow, I don’t think this is the picture God had in mind!The second thing that struck me in looking at definitions of dominion is the concept of “dominions” in Christianity – an order of angels – I had to dig a bit to wrap my head around this since there’s not really a reference passage for this idea. I was reminded of the concept of the Nine Orders of Angels – and honestly, you’ve likely heard of some of these orders like cherubim and seraphim. Though there is no specific reference to the Nine in the Bible, once described, it is easy to see how this concept could work. Dominions are, according to this philosophy, the fourth-ranking group or level of angels.The best of explanation of Dominions that I’ve read is, “This group of angels are said to keep the world in proper order. They are known for delivering God’s justice in unjust situations, showing mercy toward human beings and helping angels in lower ranks stay organized and perform their work efficiently.  They also are recognized for expressing unconditional love at the same time they express God’s justice.”[2]How interesting. These are the Angels that keep order – keep the other angels in order and keep all Creation in order.Well now I’m confused – does this mean that Angels, Dominions (capital D) actually have dominion (lowercase D) over Creation and not us humans after all? Perhaps. But it also made me ponder if maybe no one and no being, other than God, truly has authority over this Earth.In this moment, I very much feel like our prophet Daniel, as he wrestled with understanding the vision of the four beasts he describes in the passage we read today. This confusion and concern are what motivate me, and probably many of you, to learn more about the climate crisis and how we can take better care of our planet.Daniel has a vision he doesn’t understand. Instead of fear, Daniel leans into curiosity. He asks for more information. He asks for an interpretation of his vision. He pauses instead of being reactionary. This is where humanity has strayed – we live in the land of fear, panic, and reactivity as our only responses to change, to a climate crisis that in many ways is very predictable.Imagine a way of living in which our own visions, perhaps scientific predictions for the future of our precious Mother Earth gave us pause. Imagine seeing news about wildfire season on the west coast growing longer and much harder to contain or hearing about ice caps melting or finding out that yet another open space in Georgia is going to be turned into the dreaded mixed-use development and instead of being like “okay, next” we actually felt concern – concern for who might be displaced, concern for what effect the events have on our air, concern for whatever run-off from any of these disasters ends up in our water sources.And what if that concern led us to seek understanding? Do we really need more apartment buildings? Will the streets hold that many more cars? Will kids that live in this complex have access to a safe, clean, pollutant-free park to play in or will there be detrimental effects to their health due to our fear of green space?It's as if this idea of dominion also allowed us to believe we have endless access to natural resources. But one day, if we continue on this path, we are going to deplete all of our resources – fresh water, energy sources, and all of our green spaces. And unfortunately, that day keeps getting nearer and nearer. It’s time for us to reevaluate needs versus wants. Do we need gas-run vehicles, or is gas simply easier or cheaper than electric vehicles? Think on that for a moment. What other damage do we do to the earth when we choose the thing that is convenient instead of choosing the thing that is sustainable? This week we experienced a gas shortage – caused by a cyberattack, but also caused by humans, an example of where dominion over the Earth goes wrong. Our unhealthy reliance on fossil fuels causes a full stop to our everyday activities like driving to work, turning on hot water, using a gas stove, and so much more.I was struck by a passage in the Washington Post this week about the Colonial Pipeline that says the following:“This crisis was man-made – first by the ransomware attack on the systems of Colonial Pipeline that led the company to shut down its pipeline connecting Texas to New Jersey, then by a panic that led drivers to fill up out of fear the country could run out of gas.”[3] This shortage offered an image of the incredible power struggle – or should I say desire to be the most powerful – we show our neighbors. Why must one of us have MORE power than another? Didn’t God give all humankind dominion over the Earth?It takes a pandemic, a gas shortage, a hurricane, a wildfire, a shortage on avocados, you name it, to show humanity’s weaknesses, to show what happens when we take and take from the Earth all the while believing we’re exercising God’s call of dominion, to tend to the land. Creation wasn’t created for our control. Creation was created for the sake of order and to give and sustain life. Order is a method of organization, and therefore I have to believe that God’s concept of dominion is a method of controlling chaos but not of controlling each other or the land we live on.We are lucky that we are not seeing major climate-related disasters daily, though that statement actually feels filled with privilege. Yes, in metro-Atlanta, we are not seeing a flood one day and a tornado the next and a raging wildfire after that. A gas shortage that is resolved within days or weeks makes it so much easier for people to ignore air pollution, toxic waste in our water systems, lack of access to clean energy – to energy period, and so many more environmental injustices. “Well, it’s not affecting me” we say, or “But Atlanta is considered an urban forest because we have so many trees,” and then we think “so maybe the climate crisis isn’t so bad?”I can only imagine what God thinks every time a new apartment building goes up or a new Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Kroger, the list goes on, is built instead of keeping a green space. It’s as though we, humans, Americans, people of faith even, are afraid of green space. Green space on our planet is like white space on a sheet of paper – full of infinite possibility. And that scares us. Without a plan, with no one in charge, it’s easiest to just cover it up and not have to think about it being an empty space anymore. Here’s the irony though – God gave us dominion over the earth, a method of having a plan for all the beauty of Creation.Our NEED for power and desire for control has created an excuse for blinders to our sick planet, to our neighbors in need, to our neighbors of color, to our neighbors who can’t breathe, can’t afford electricity, can’t consume clean drinking water, can’t access healthy, fresh food. This can’t be the world God envisioned in Genesis.I live in the Candler Park/Edgewood area, right along both the MARTA tracks and CSX train tracks.  Marta is loud and can be annoying but generally is a good thing. I’m a major supporter of public transportation. What I’m NOT a supporter of is the many many cargo trains that go by throughout the day, blowing their horns and blasting out plumes of filthy exhaust. Actually the worst is when a cargo train – usually one that’s a refrigerator – decides to idle on the tracks for several days at a time.  The train engines have to stay on to keep the products cool, I understand, but that means now we’re inhaling toxic fumes. And not only are we inhaling the fumes since we’re so close to the tracks, those fumes are going into the atmosphere, they’re floating around Edgewood and Candler Park, full of potential to make us sick and to make our planet sick.As people of faith, we have a unique opportunity to raise our voices and organize around issues of environmental racism, to advocate for justice and equity, to call on our legislators to create clean energy and clean air regulations to help sustain Creation for many many years into the future.The environmental movement is intersectional, meaning as we ponder how to sustain our planet, we should also be pondering how to sustain our neighbors. And as we ponder how to care for our neighbors, we should remember that our call is not to pick the wealthiest neighbor to care for but instead is to care for all of God’s Creation – all people, all animals, all plants, everything.Perhaps advocacy, compassion, and radical love are where we should turn our focus instead of battling out who has dominion, who has the most power. Is the opposite of dominion, the reverse meaning of dominion, love?We live in a city, in a state, in a country where the only real way to protect the land is through legislation. National parks and state parks are a thing of beauty AND are a necessity. Humanity can no longer be trusted to take care of the Earth. National parks are a method of legally preserving undeveloped land, the beauty of Creation on grand display, from the destructive ways of living we have embraced as a society.[4] We were given a gift we at times do not deserve, but thankfully there is still time to make changes for the better.Instead of imagining dominion as us trying to “control” the Earth or trying to control other people, what if we imagined a world where we took dominion as a form of empowerment? Dominion could be our way of taking action, advocating for those who are so often overlooked due to the color of their skin or lack of resources. We could, switch from a society of the haves and have nots to a society has-a-piece, a society of equity.What does it look like for you AND your neighbor to have access to clean energy? How would the COVID-19 pandemic have played out differently had energy access been affordable for all instead of rounds-and-rounds of no-shut offs protest? What if we as a society felt empowered to reduce fear and panic as much as possible for everyone and everything in Creation?  Without the fear of having your power shut off or the fear of consuming cancer-causing toxins in your drinking water, your focus in Creation care can shift to planting trees, growing your own fruits and vegetables without the use of harmful chemicals, turning off the lights when you leave a room, and fighting for an end to environmental racism.What if another way of looking at reverse dominion is through the method by which we received dominion? If our goal was to love our planet and love our neighbors, perhaps we could ACHIEVE dominion – the order that could sustain our planet and all that are in and on it, long-term.The section of James 3, which we read earlier, is sometimes called “The Taming of the Tongue.” It bears re-reading as we enter the season of Pentecost: “Think about this: A small flame can set a whole forest on fire. The tongue is a small flame of fire, a world of evil at work in us. It contaminates our entire lives. Because of it, the circle of life is set on fire.” The passage goes on to talk about how people have dominion over so many living things but the one thing that cannot be tamed is the tongue. To me, that offers opportunity.That small flame could certainly set the whole forest on fire; or that small flame could be the spark that empowers and energizes each of us to end a society of “me” and turn to a society of “us.” Our untamed tongues could be used for good.Now is our chance to lift up our voices and start to restore our Mother Earth.So, be curious like Daniel. Ask questions. And ask more questions, and then ask even more questions for the sake of clarity. And when you feel like you understand enough, turn your understanding into a spark, a small flame and light the world up with a heart for compassion, care, and climate action. Let that small flame spread throughout your community, empowering everyone it touches, and know that by reversing dominion and making environmental stewardship and Creation care a priority again, you might just save our precious planet.Amen._____________________________________________________________________About the Author:Whitney Brown is GIPL's Communications Director, coordinating GIPL’s extensive communications and annual fundraising. She has worked in the non-profit sector for 15 years, with a background in marketing and fundraising.  Whitney calls Neighborhood Church in Candler Park her current church home.  She has a passion for working with youth and young adults, and enjoys finding the intersections of faith in our everyday activities. When not at work, she enjoys hiking around Georgia, and she has a passion for the arts.  Whitney holds a Master of Divinity degree from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology (2019) and a B.A. in Music History & Psychology from Agnes Scott College (2007).[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dominion[2] https://www.beliefnet.com/inspiration/angels/what-are-the-9-orders-of-angels.aspx[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/12/gas-shortage-colonial-pipeline-live-updates/[4] https://www.nps.gov/articles/quick-nps-history.htm