In the latest news, Union “Theological” can no longer tell the difference between a person and a petunia. Observe:

Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.

What do you confess to the plants in your life? pic.twitter.com/tEs3Vm8oU4

— Union Seminary (@UnionSeminary) September 17, 2019

I’m honestly not sure where to begin. The personalizing of the created order? The divinizing of the created order? The thousand inconsistencies created by this tableau? The hypocrisy of men and women who glory in their shameful unbelief, sexual perversity, and role reversal confessing sin, not to God, but to a fern?

Why is twitter so uncomfortable with @UnionSeminary RN? At one point prayer & devotion to one God was wild. I supposed repenting for harming the planet is wild? The service was positioned to cause centering around the damage humans are causing to the plants we need to breath. >1

— Queer in Faith 🌈 (@queerinfaith) September 18, 2019

Perhaps I’ll just say this. When Adam was created (and given dominion over the earth, Union, by the way), one of his jobs was to name the creatures that the Lord God had made. This required him to be able to sort things into categories, to discern properties, to make distinctions. That’s why he didn’t end up buggering some animal before Eve came along—he knew the difference between a walrus and a woman. There was no process in the garden of partnering with plants, either. And later in the Old Testament, when creational stewardship laws were given (e.g. Deuteronomy 22.6), it was love to people that was at stake, not love to animals or plants themselves.

But it's also important to note that this isn't, really, that radical a break from tradition. Many faiths and denoms have liturgy through which we express and atone for the harm we've caused. No one would have blinked if our chapel featured students apologizing to each other. /7

— Union Seminary (@UnionSeminary) September 18, 2019

Of course, I don’t think this is ignorance. What we’re witnessing is straight-up rebellion. “No one would have blinked if our chapel featured students apologizing to each other,” Union says in defense of their Romans 1:23 workshop. Maybe not; but what if you asked your gay students to apologize to their childhood tormentors for the hate they harbor? What if you asked your students to apologize to their conservative parents for their disrespect and mockery? Apologizing to a plant has the advantage of being totally cost-free. No humility required, no heart-change, no restitution, no real vulnerability.

The unwillingness to make these distinctions does not bode well. Distinction is a priestly task, which is to say, a human task. Not knowing the difference between a plant and person, or a man and a woman, is a rejection of human capacities and therefore of human calling, of humanity in its fullest expression. This apologizing to plants only looks human from the waist up. Pan must be so proud.