It takes a forest…..
A small sign at the San Diego Zoo informs visitors of a horrifying statistic: each week, it takes an entire forest of trees to supply the paper just for the Sunday newspapers in America. I used to buy the paper each Sunday for a quick scan of the front page, the TV guide, the Target ad, and the comics. I rarely recycled it. I need to change both habits.
I’ve been puzzled for years how Christians can justify intense, vocal involvement in some issues (abortion, gay rights) and not others like the environment. Although God created the earth, called it very good, and charged humans with its care, the protection and conservation of natural resources is seen as a “liberal” issue. (And of course no good Christian is a liberal.)
So I read with interest an article in the latest issue of Fast Company magazine about two pastors— Richard Cizik and Jim Ball—who also co-lead the Evangelical Climate Initiative. In February, the two leaders began the ECI by holding a press conference to share the biblical foundation for the program and to ask for tougher environmental laws. (Cizik is also a lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, or NAE.) Fast Company reports that 86 evangelical leaders, including Rick Warren and several college presidents, pledged their support.
However, others did not—most notably Stuart Shepard, an editor and spokesman at Focus on the Family. “There are certain issues that define what it means to be an evangelical,” he says. “Global warming doesn’t fit into that.” Focus and 20 other groups pressured the NAE to remove Cizik after the announcement of the initiative.
I find this staggering, and disturbing. Apparently, some in the religious right feel the inclusion of these concerns weakens the political impact of their position on abortion, homosexuality, and other “moral” issues. Yet the April 3 Time reported the huge potential consequences of disregarding the damage we’re causing. Cizik points out that 20 to 30 million people could be victims of these catastrophes–flooding, hurricanes, drought, and more. Many of those affected will be the poorest of the poor, and many of them will not yet be Christians—how does concern about these people not qualify as a moral issue? Every church I know donated money and organized volunteer teams to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina—is it somehow less “Christian” to work toward preventing the next round?
Natural disasters happened before global warming, of course. But even if no human being ever suffered from our treatment of the planet, Genesis 1 still reminds us we are called to be careful stewards of the world God created.
Cizik says, “Reducing pollution is loving your neighbor.” If evangelicals feel compelled to participate in politics, I wish our worldview could be truly global—broader than just a few hot-button issues, and concerned with the globe itself.
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Jennifer Taylor
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Jen,
Your comments are disheartening. Precisely because they are paradigmatic of the sad fact that the Christian Standard is ever slowly inching towards modern liberalism as a prism for understanding both Christianity and the world. Christianity, no matter how hard some may try, is not a worldview which is compatible with the tenets of liberal (modern, not classical) philosophy. Perhaps, however, I can reason with you, and any other blog readers, through on this particular variety of eco-liberalism and its fundamentally flawed worldview.
Firstly Jen, the reason conservative organizations, such as Focus on the Family, cannot endorse environmentalism is simple: environmentalism (as an ideology) is opposed to Christianity. Environmentalists, such as The Great Warming who does an interview with Cizik, believe that humans are not part of God’s creation. Rather that there is natural, which is good, and unnatural, which is bad. Humans and our adjustments to the natural are, therefore, inherently evil. Yet, God himself called upon humans to subdue the earth, to spread and multiple upon it.
It seems rational to reject the idea that we as humans, by our vary nature, our a bane to the earth. That our cities (and newspapers) are something to be controlled in order to keep the earth “natural.” We are important to the creation of the earth and our improvements cannot be seen, if we are to approach the question Biblically, as inherently evil. Such an approach is a key point in environmental ideology.
Secondly, environmentalism embraces the anti-Biblical concept of big government. The Bible teaches Christians about the spheres of authority. And the government is designed to allow Christian to live peaceful lives in reverence to God — not to be a agent of social agenda setters. Christians lobbying the government to force others to accept tenuous ideological positions, such as environmentalism, is completely anti-Biblical. We have no examples, by Jesus or the apostles or otherwise, that we as Christians have a right, or a duty, to force others by means of the state to follow any social agenda.
Now these two points have not covered the fact that environmentalism, as an ideology, is just plain wrong. The Zoo sign you saw is coming from people who have a specific agenda. If you were to research the matter you would see that we are not depleting the world of trees by getting newspapers (Now perhaps trying to get Congress to pass more paper law might do it). Here in North America, there are more trees now than there were when Europeans first arrived. People who harvest trees also plant trees. Why? Because it is in there self-interest to do so. Notice the claim itself, it takes a whole forest? What is a forest? Liars and manipulators, like the environmentalists at the zoo, often use vague terms like, the forest. Call them on it. Ask how many trees it takes, numbers, what is a forest. Then ask, how many get planted? How many are there total? Such statements may pull at hearts, but it is not grounded in fact.
The other assumptions you sight are the climate changes. If you are interest, last months National Review had a cover story on climate change (Nationalreview.com for those without a subscription). One example for our purposes, icecaps are not melting down. Yes, the outsides are melting, but the ice in the middle is getting thicker, the same process which has been continuing as long as humans have existed. Hurricanes like Katrina are natural parts of life. Much larger hurricanes have hit what is now the United States before and they will hit again. This can have an impact on people who decide to live below sea-level, and we can show goodwill by (voluntarily) helping such people. However, even if everyone, like Cizik (see his interview above) had been driving hybrids, Hurricanes such as Katrina would still hit.
The science you are using is not by any means undisputed, or correct, or even the majority view. Be careful when you see organizations distorting truth for ideological motivations. This is why we as Christians should not be jumping on any bandwagons with environmentalists. This is why Focus on the Family has concerns. Environmentalism is both incompatible with Christianity and fundamentally wrong.
Jen, I hope I was able to at least shed some light for you why you don’t see Christians jumping on board. Why I would hope we as a movement continue to oppose such efforts, and maybe given you the opportunity to see some research into why and changed your mind.
Jen,
I actually thought you made a good point in your article. I do not believe it anti-christian to be enviornmentally responsible. REgarding the response by Trey…
“We are important to the creation of the earth and our improvements cannot be seen, if we are to approach the question Biblically, as inherently evil.”
I fail to see how a wal-mart on every corner and a mcmansion every 32 feet as an “improvement.”
“environmentalism embraces the anti-Biblical concept of big government.”
Funny, I have yet to see supply side economics listed as a biblical concept. The Acts church I read of cosisted of socialists, who sold all they had for the common good.
“Christians lobbying the government to force others to accept tenuous ideological positions, such as environmentalism, is completely anti-Biblical.”
Do you carry that over to the abortion/anti-gay marriage debate?
“This is why we as Christians should not be jumping on any bandwagons with environmentalists. This is why Focus on the Family has concerns.”
Who cares what a psychologist has to say? I’m not interested in the FotF bandwagon, either.
Global Warming is just a hoax foisted on us by the liberals, who worship nature.
The ACTS church did not practice socialism, they practiced charity; one specific for that time and place (Jerusalem under persecution).
Actually, the vast majority of scientists believe that the world is indeed warming. It is the CAUSE that is questionable.
“The ACTS church did not practice socialism, they practiced charity; one specific for that time and place (Jerusalem under persecution).”
Curious…do you believe the same about their weekly meeting together?
Just for the record:
More than 17,000 scientists, to date, have signed a petition sponsored by Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences, refuting Gore’s claims that global warming is human-induced. The petition states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Renowned meteorologist Dr. William Gray, in a recent interview with Discover Magazine (which has advocated the theory of human-induced global warming), says: “This human-induced global-warming thing… is grossly exaggerated… I’m not disputing there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and ’40s, and then there was global cooling in the middle ’40s to the early ’70s. Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical… about this global-warming thing. But no one asks us.” (Gray was described by Discover Magazine’s editors as one of “the world’s most famous hurricane experts.”)
Commenting on the misuse of science to support political agendas, Harvard’s Dr. Malcolm Ross concludes of such folly, “Freeze or fry, the problem is always industrial capitalism, and the solution is always international socialism.”
Dr. Roy Spencer, former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has issued “Questions for Al Gore (http://patriotpost.us/news/questions.asp)” based on what he calls “Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.”
NASA scientist James Hansen, director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, argues, “The natural fluctuations of climate are still large—at least, the natural fluctuations of weather compared to long-term climate change.” (Hansen, it should be noted, is a liberal who publicly endorsed the 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry.)
Neil Frank, former director of the National Hurricane Center, is a bit less nuanced about Gore’s claims: “[Global warming] is a hoax.”
[...] you can’t love trees and love God—or so say some [...]
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