In its recent television advertising campaign the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) contends that failure to set aside upwards of nine million acres of public lands as wilderness will offend God. But what do theological claims have to do with implementation of the 1964 Wilderness Act?
Neo-pagans calling for the establishment of sacred wilderness preserves on public lands maintain that wilderness is a holy place favored by God and that the Bible supports their view. Appearing before Congress in 1995 in opposition to a bill which would have established only 1.9 million acres of Utah wilderness, SUWA leader Terry Tempest Williams stated,
If desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide and so the wilderness courts our souls. When I sat in church throughout my growing years, I listened to teachings about Christ walking in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, reclaiming his strength, where he was able to say to Satan, "Get thee hence." ...
Like other neo-pagans, Ms. Tempest Williams believes that, whereas populated areas are inherently evil, wilderness is inherently spiritually pure. Another neo-pagan, Tom Brown, Jr., in his book, The Quest, states:
The spirit of wilderness, born to those who seek the quiet places in the temples of creation, unencumbered by the shackles and comforts of society, is the only reality. We escape to the wilderness to find truth, enlightenment, and peace--that separate reality of existence, where everything is pure and natural.(1)
Mr. Brown quotes his Native American shaman teacher:
"So, too, have I told you that the wilderness is truth and that the prophets came from the wilderness. John the Baptist came from the wilderness, for it was in the purity of wilderness that the Creator spoke to him. John said, 'I am the voice of one calling in the desert.' Jesus also used the wilderness as a teacher. The Bible says, 'At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals and the angels attended him.' Was this not a Vision Quest? ... So does not the Bible teach the power of the Vision Quest?"(2)
Neo-pagans are free to possess and proclaim their belief that wilderness is sacred to God. However, asserting their theological beliefs as the reason for Congress to set aside federal lands as wilderness invites inquiry into what the Bible actually teaches.
In fact, both New and Old Testament writings associate wilderness with demons and God's curses rather than holiness and God's blessings.
In Old Testament imagery, "the wilderness" was the place of God's curse--a place of desolation, loneliness, and danger where frightening, ravenous animals lived (cf. Isa 13:20-22; 34:8-15; Pss. 22:11-21; 91:11-13) (3)
The sixteenth chapter of Leviticus sets forth the "scapegoat" ritual during the Day of Atonement wherein the High Priest would place all of the sins of the nation of Israel on a goat which was then driven into the wilderness by a "fit man." Rather than being purified by entering into the wilderness, the "fit man" was unclean and required to wash his entire body and all of his clothes before he could return to the company of Israel.
Wilderness was a curse. Job 12:24-25 states that God deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason and sends them wandering through a trackless waste. (Cf. Pss 107:40) In Jeremiah 17:5-6 the writer proclaimed, "Cursed is the one who trusts in man. .. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert."
Following Israel's adoption of pagan gods her sacred cities were cursed by God to become wilderness (Jer. 64:10). On the other hand, God's blessing never involved turning cities or productive lands into wilderness. God's act of redemption lifts a curse, causing the wilderness to break forth in waters and to bloom as a rose (Isa. 35:1-2; 51:3). Isaiah 40:3-4 declared that, with much scraping and filling, a straight superhighway would be constructed for God directly through rugged wilderness which would be left a smooth plain. (cf. Isa. 35:6-10)
In the New Testament, John the Baptist entered the wilderness, citing Isaiah 40 that his mission was to prepare the highway of the Lord straight through the wilderness. A discussion of Jesus' temptation by Satan in Mark 1:12-13, further places wilderness in its New Testament perspective:
After His baptism Jesus went forward in the power of the Spirit and at once (euthys, "immediately") the Spirit sent Him farther out into the desert region. ... The thought is that of a strong moral compulsion by which the Spirit led Jesus to take the offensive against temptation and evil instead of avoiding them. The desert (eremos; cf. Mark 1:4) region, dry uninhabited places, was viewed traditionally as the haunt of evil powers (cf. Matt. 12:43; Luke 8:29; 9:24) ... Jesus encountered the prince of evil personally before confronting his forces.(4)
Thus, the excursions of John the Baptist and Jesus into the wilderness were not vision quests for self-enlightenment within sacred lands. The Bible says that John the Baptist and Jesus knew who they were and what their callings were before entering the desert. Their excursions were frontal attacks on the evils associated with wilderness in the Old and New Testaments.
But why is it necessary to discuss the Bible in the realm of federal wilderness law? The intent of the Wilderness Act of 1964 was not to set aside neo-pagan religious preserves, but to set aside select portions of public lands which have been free from man's impact. The Wilderness Act's criteria for wilderness designation do not rely on the spiritual meaning of wilderness in the Old and New Testaments. Neo-pagan religious arguments for designation of wilderness must be identified by policy makers and promptly discarded, not because they misrepresent the Bible, but because the Establishment Clause and the Wilderness Act require that policy makers apply objective criteria free from religious bias.
1. The Quest One Man's Search for Peace, Insight, and Healing in an Endangered World, Tom Brown, Jr., (Berkley, 1991), p. 3.
3. The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament Edition, Walvoord and Zuck editors, (Victor Books, 1983), p. 106.
7-7-98
The Jefferson 21st Century Institute is a non-partisan organization dedicated to the principle of separation of religion and government.
JR980707