God, Our Planet, and Polar Bears

   In God Gave Us the World, Lisa Tawn Bergren (author) and Laura J. Bryant (artist) offer families a children's book that, as I see it, aims to promote three main values: diversity, environmental concern, and an awe for God the Creator. These values are wrapped in a cute, well-illustrated story about a polar bear family who visit  a museum. I'll briefly outline how Bergren presents these values, though I'll try to avoid retelling the story here (such as it is, being a short children's book).

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Diversity
    The main part of the story is the polar bears' visit to the museum, which is showcasing a "Bears Around The World" exhibit. Much attention is given to the diversity of bears in the world, and that though they are all bears, they like different foods, look different, and live in different places. When Little Cub asks, "Do all bears have pink tongues," Mama responds, "...God is creative...he made all kinds of different bears...and all kinds of different bear tongues." Little Cub is relieved that American grizzly bears eat fish, or "normal food", (emphasis in original), like she does. Mama explains that "even though other bears eat what you might not like, we're all bears." When Little Cub asks if other bears miss the snow, Mama responds, "Do you miss the sand of the desert?...We love what we know, because it's home to us" (emphasis in original).
    I do appreciate diversity, if by diversity we mean recognizing and valuing our differences in non-moral ethnic and cultural things, like skin color, food, housing, etc. But if Bergren intends the vagueness of Mama's reply that "we love what we know" to apply also to things like, for example, moral values, Biblical values, etc, then the author is inserting in her story a relativism that's not going to sit well with a lot of people. But I couldn't tell for sure, so I don't claim the author does this. Still, the vagueness, considering the sway moral relativism holds in our culture, annoyed me slightly.

Environmental Concern
    Clearly, Bergren is trying to teach children (and their parents) to be concerned about the environment. I'm cool with that (forgive the pun). As a Christian, I hold that God created the world and placed humans in stewardship over it. So we ought to take care of it. (And just in general, messing up your own home--our planet--is not wise, though I'm not here taking a position on whether humans are responsible for climate change.) But I have a few gripes, though I'll only mention two. First, Bergren tells children that God might get "mad or sad" if we "hurt our world." And again that "He'd be sad if we hurt it." Ok, God doesn't want us to mess up our planet. Got that. But "hurt" it? Maybe the intent is just to use language a small child will understand, but it's neither accurate nor Biblical nor healthy, frankly, to teach kids that the world "hurts" or feels. That sounds like Gaia, or animism, or at any rate, something not belonging in the Christian worldview. We can damage our planet, but not hurt it.
    The other thing is the polar bear thing. Obviously, the main characters are chosen to be polar bears for a reason; which, obviously, is that polar bears are the poster animals for the global warming movement. But that's using emotionally loaded images about disputed claims (i.e. that polar bears on crumbling icebergs are human-caused, as opposed to solar cycle-caused or something of that sort). Maybe that's true, but maybe not. Either way, tons of conservatives will probably be annoyed about it.

God the Creator
    I like that Bergren infuses into her story a sense of awe about God being Creator or all things. But, again, I shall gripe. I think the author has inserted some bad theology, and some controversial theology. Mama Bear explains that God created our world because "it's in his nature to create." But that's actually quite a substantial claim, and one I don't think Christians should make. Why? Well, to say that x is in Y's nature, is to say that x is essential to Y--that Y wouldn't be Y unless it had x. But that means that God has to create--He doesn't have an option. But that's not the (classical) Christian view. God is not constrained to do anything. He created us, and all things, freely; but He could've opted not to, if He so desired. To say God had to create has important (in a bad sense) implications (which this review isn't the place to outline). Now, maybe Bergren was just being loose with her wording. Fair enough. But that's how ideas take root, and young children aren't going to be able to discern the difference.
    The other thing is that, and quite unnecessarily, Bergren seems to go out of her way to suggest that the Earth is extremely old. Little Cub asks Mama if she remembers when God created the world. Mama responds that it's "older than anyone can remember...older than my great-grandmother's great-grandmother," and that it's older than "that huge ol' tree in the forest." Now, that doesn't rule out young-earth creationism, but I've never known a young earth creationist to repeatedly emphasize the world's being old, and neglecting to emphasize that the world is young (relative to the accepted scientific view). Now, I don't have a gripe with Christians who hold to old-Earth views (I'm one), but it's utterly unnecessary to insert that in a children's picture/story book like this; and it's sure to cause the large number of young-Earth creationists to be upset with the book.
    To conclude, I want to soften this review a bit. God Gave Us the World really is a cute, well-illustrated little story. The characters--Little Cub is the main one--are lovable. God is honored. These are good things. The story doesn't have much plot (even for a children's book), since it's mainly a value-instilling device, but it's still fun. (Who doesn't like polar bears that catch snowflakes on their tongues?) I would just recommend that when reading it to your kids, you stop here and there to explain a few things, that's all.
  
“I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review”.