God has become a dirty word among many scientists and leftists, I'm sorry to say, because so many Christians use their interpretation of an old book to control their fears and blame others — immigrants, scientists, gay people — for the woes of the world.
Meanwhile the real possibility of a societal disaster this century caused by global warming seems impossible to face, perhaps because it's not human and can't be vilified.
But on national television, bless his heart, Ken Burns — touting his new documentary on the national parks on the David Letterman show — reminds us of one of this nation's most original and most successful ideas, which was rooted in God and the Bible. He said, speaking of how John Muir and other conservationists set out to save wild lands for development with Biblical rhetoric:
The first impulses [to save the national parks] were spiritual. This is the American impulse: That I can find God in these places in nature, better than in a dogmatic devotion in a cathedral.
Burns, unsurprisingly, is super-articulate. (And Letterman, to his credit, gave him and the documentary countless props, unlike an earlier guest, movie star Mike Myers, whom Dave barely introduced, and whose new Tarantino film he all but ignored.)
Burns also said that the national parks are "the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape."
Fascinating idea. Check out the whole interview below, if you like your Ken Burns straight up.
Kit Stolz 