Allen Johnson
Rt. 1, Box 119-B
Dunmore, West Virginia 24934
(304)799-4137
Mr. Dean Ohlman
Director of Creative Services
Cornerstone College
1001 E. Beltline Avenue
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505
Dear Dean,
I just want to drop you a line to express my appreciation for you piece, "Would Jesus Shoot a Ten-point Buck?" You had given several of us at the Christian Environmental Council at Au Sable in October a preview of the article. To remind you of who I am out of the many you met there, I was the one who slept on the top bunk above you (when I wasn't camped outside on the deck).
Dean, I read your article with great interest, for I have increasingly felt over the last few years some of the very concerns you have raised. I should tell you I did deer hunt some this Fall, although with some mixed feelings and with your article often in my thoughts. I might add that typically for me deer hunting is to walk behind my house into the woods, for I border the Monongahela National Forest and live in the midst of prime deer country. But I did not get a buck, and did not have a fever to get one. My older boys have tried hunting but are not interested and did not go out.
I agree with you that killing animals is part of the order of the Fall, and that even if we must live within that order (that will pass away at the consummation of Christ's Kingdom) that we ought to be signs pointing to the coming Kingdom. What is the primary or necessitating reason why one pursues the hunt? Is it for food? Is it some nostalgic primeval instinct to get back to ones roots playing out the role of struggle and survival? (But with high-powered scoped rifles and thermo-underwear?) Or, as I suspect for most modern men, is it tied-up in a will to conquer? Humankind was created to serve the garden, hence a perversion of the Fall would be to conquer. A ten-point buck is a greater conquest than a spike, which is to say more than an empty game bag.
To conquer nature, to conquer a woman, to conquer another nation, to conquer possessions and resources—is not all this but a manifestation of pride?
I watch the feeding frenzy of hunters pouring into our woods each Fall. I sense the bloodlust of young people thirsting for their first kill, and their anxiety over failure. I hear about the violations of the scofflaws. Then there is the state and its economic interest in "managing" an optimum herd. There is something about the commercialization of hunting that seems perverse. Many times, many times I have been around students as well as adults when a deer has been seen. Invariably the talk will center on how great it would be to be able to kill it. In other words, the animal is not appreciated for just being a living creation of God, but rather how it could serve ones bloodlust.
Our county population likely quadruples during deer hunting season. For some of our locals it means some economic boost. But many locals resent the intruders, perhaps intuitively recognizing the falsity and exploitation of those who come only to take and not to give. Nature is not something we should periodically invade, plunder, and quickly depart, but rather something to know intimately with a giving, nurturing heart.
I'll stop for now. You have written a courageous, thought-and-heart provoking piece that certainly has given me much pause to reflect and continue to reflect. I have shared this piece with others. If you have a spare magazine issue to send, could you? Also, has your response been favorable?
Dean, it was a pleasure to get to know you at Au Sable and on our trip down to Grand Rapids following. Hope to meet up with you again. Keep faithful to the calling God has placed on your heart. For the glory of Jesus Christ!
In Jesus
Allen Johnson