Recently in Environment & Religion Category

Ken Chilton:

On the cost side, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that any cap-and-trade bill that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 15 percent could cost the average household roughly $1,600 (in 2006 dollars). Further, "The rise in prices would impose a larger burden, relative to income, on low-income households ...." (Households in the lowest income quintile spend 21 percent of their income on energy-intensive items compared with 4 percent for the highest one-fifth of American households.)

A Heritage Foundation analysis finds that Waxman-Markey would, by 2035, raise electricity rates 90 percent, gasoline prices 74 percent, residential natural gas prices 55 percent and an average family's monthly energy bill by more than $100.

How about the corresponding value of reducing greenhouse emissions? Congress has made no attempt to answer this obvious question.

One estimate by Paul Knappenberger, an environmental scientist with 20 years experience as a climate researcher, concludes "by the year 2050, the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill would result in a global temperature 'savings' of about 0.05 degrees Centigrade ... about two years' worth of warming." In short, this legislation creates very high costs for American households and produces NO discernable benefit!

As an elder in a 300-member evangelical church, I am aware of efforts to recruit church leaders to push for climate change legislation. The advocates label their efforts "creation care" and claim Biblical support for their position based mainly on helping the "least among us" and stewardship of God's creation.

But efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions necessarily result in higher energy costs that impact "the least among us" most harshly. The Biblical command to care for the poor and deal with them justly should give us pause as we consider policies with almost no benefit and great cost to the least of these.

MetroCatholic:

Recently, religious leaders have spoken about global climate change and its impact on people in poverty. The National Religious Partnership on the Environment has called particular attention to the hardships that will burden the poor if policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not carefully structured. Representing the Partnership as a guest speaker, Walter Grazer said that it is incumbent that policies “create new well-paying, climate-friendly jobs and assist workers who lose their jobs as a result of new climate regulations and other policies.”

Climatists have unwittingly created a new sort of eco-justice program.

UPDATE: More here. What about the "climate refugees" created by the economic impacts of climate change regulations?

Welcome to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement's home page, featuring such FAQs as:

Does VHEMT favor abortion? (Answer: Only when someone is pregnant)

Does VHEMT support China's one-child policy? (Answer: The policy is less than voluntary, and even one child is too many.)

Are religions to blame for human over population? (Answer: Extinction is in accordance with God's plan for us. Jesus Christ lived His life as a lesson to us all, and begat naught.* Let us follow His example and concentrate on the spiritual journey to God, rather than on human endeavors such as producing more humans. We have been fruitful and multiplied, now it is time to mature and nurture.)

At least they took a stab (sorry) at an answer to the why-do-these-people-never-volunteer-to-go-first question. And bits like this that quote Luke 23:29, while completely out of context, are pretty thought-provoking.

*(um, not quite)

Heh - guess the whole "separation of church and state" thing doesn't apply to government energy conservation programs.

Most congregations can cut energy costs by up to 30% by investing strategically in efficient equipment, facility upgrades and maintenance. With free, unbiased information and technical support from ENERGY STAR, your congregation can more easily improve stewardship of your budget’s energy dollars, and of the earth by reducing energy waste and energy costs, while protecting the environment.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Maple Ridge News:

One of the things I love about the Bible is that it’s not a political book that pretends that life is different than it really is. It tells of heroic figures who accomplish great things, but who also suffer from the effects of serious character deficiencies. It tells us that our problems in life are rooted in a lack of respect for the God of Creation. It warns us against our immense pride that leads us to see ourselves as self-sufficient beings with no need to humble ourselves.

I trust this book because what it says about the world around me is true. I also trust this book because what it says about me is true, that I’m a deeply flawed human being in need of forgiveness. It gives me hope, because the solutions it presents to real problems are not based in control, but in love. I may not know who to trust in the forum of public debate, but I know that I can trust a God who has demonstrated love to someone like me.

BeliefNet: Dr. Mary Veeneman reviews Harper and Metzger's Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction. "The question we need to ask, especially of evangelicals, is this: Does the church matter? And if so, how does it matter? Now over to Mary..."

Do you think the gospel has anything to do with creation? Is creation care redemptive in a meaningful sense? I don't remember exactly how I responded, though I somehow pointed out that not all evangelicals are premillennialists, that there are actually a number of evangelicals interested in environmental protection and moreover, that environmental protection was consistent with evangelical values. It is this topic that Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger seek to address in the chapter, "Eschatology, the Church, and Ecology in this book we are discussing here at Jesus Creed blog.

 Professor Gordan Wenham:

It was over 30 years ago that I visited Israel for the first time, and I remember how it transformed my reading of the Bible. Up to then I had never paid much attention to the place names in the text: I just focused on the characters and their actions. But after visiting many of the sites mentioned in the text my reading of the stories changed: I picture them taking place in the specific places mentioned in the Bible.

Something similar happened to me some fifteen months ago, when I was asked to read a paper to a conference of environmentalists on The Old Testament and the Environment. Though I was quite familiar with many of the texts in the Bible relating to environmental issues, I had not asked myself how the biblical writers regarded the environment. But once ask the question and you will soon realise it has a lot to say on this topic. Mind you I could find little help from modern biblical scholarship. They tend to share the blind spots of modern city dwellers and not address these issues either.

He does a great job of un-blinding those spots.

A must read, and prob'ly worth a bookmark.

The Vietnamese central government wants the Church to endorse industrial projects in the name of progress. The Cardinal of Ho Chi Minh City says no.

In his letter, card. Pham Minh Man echoes the concern of scientists and intellectuals that: “Since natural environment is for everyone, no one has permission to damage or control it even in the name of economic development”.

The prelate argues that industrialists only think “to gain profits for a small group of privileged people” without any thought for the “collateral effects caused” by their factories.

“These strategies of economic development can only lead to chaos– concludes the archbishop of former Saigon – They are neither for the common good of society, nor the future of the nation”.

The criticism of bauxite projects has come from various directions of Vietnamese civil society, but the communist party has singled out the Catholic community for punishment: Last month, Fr. Peter Nguyen Van Khai, the spokesman of Hanoi Redemptorist Monastery, and another Redemptorist, Fr. Joseph Le Quang Uy were victimized by the government for their opposition against bauxite projects.

Communists have historically traded off the environment for industry, something Western democracies quit doing a generation ago. Think about that as you watch America slide toward socialism. And think about the risk these Christian leaders are taking for creation.

Pray for them too, while you're at it...

The Edict of Worms was issued on this day in 1521 by Emperor Charles V, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw and a heretic, banning his literature. It also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter.

The Papal nuncio at the Diet, Girolamo Aleandro, drew up and proposed the fierce denunciations of Luther that were embodied in the Edict of Worms, promulgated on May 25. These declared Luther to be an outlaw and banned the reading or possession of his writings. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. Lots more here.

And a bit of Luther on ecology:

If God is to create or to preserve a creature, God must be present and must make and preserve God’s creation both in its innermost and outermost aspects.

Conservatives and progressives see morality differently, says Jonathan Haidt in Miller-McCune. Here's the bit on ecology:

Haidt notes that the environmental movement was started by liberals, who were presumably driven by the harm/care impulse. But conservative Evangelical Christians are increasingly taking up the cause, propelled by the urge to respect authority. "They're driven by the idea that God gave man dominion over the Earth, and keeping the planet healthy is our sacred responsibility," he notes. "If we simply rape, pillage, destroy and consume, we're abusing the power given to us by God.

That's a good insight. More:

"The climate crisis and the economic crisis are interesting, because neither has a human enemy. These are not crises that turn us against an out-group, so they're not really designed to bring us together, but they can be used for that. I hope and think we are ready, demographically and historically, for a less polarized era."

There's a little book, been out for a while, called The Grace and Truth Paradox that explores this from a Christian standpoint. It seems (according to this author) that conservatives tend to be "truth" oriented and progressives "grace" focused. Problem is, as John says and the author notes, Christ is full of grace and full of truth. He doesn't give us the option to be one exclusive of the other.

Perhaps we're most like Him when we're most united as a body. Ultimately it is the reconciling power of Christ that will overcome polarization. Nothing else can do that.

Interesting paper by Leslie E. Sponsel on the intersection of faith, anthropology, and biodiversity:

Sacred places are a new frontier for interdisciplinary research on their own merits and for their relevance for biodiversity conservation. The religious or cultural designation of an area as sacred, especially those which are relatively natural, may either intentionally or coincidentally promote the conservation of its associated biodiversity. Such sacred places can complement national parks and other protected areas established by governments. Collaboration among religious, governmental, scientific, and/or conservation agencies may be desirable for the protection of sacred sites and landscapes.

A rather lengthy article that's worth setting aside some time to absorb.

Cogent analysis on tax-exempt pulpits at Touchstone today - some obvious ramifications toward churches and partisan environmental lobbying...

Speaking strictly for myself, I personally think that the current standard is basically sound (there is definitely room for clarification and other improvements) and one based on common sense.  I likewise think that nothing could be more disastrous to the integrity of the Christian faith and churches than to embroil them into secular politics to the extent of endorsing particular candidates or parties, as so many adherents on both sides evidently desire.  Theological conservatives or traditionalists cannot rightly complain about the NCC being in effect a political action committee for the Left if they seeking to debase their own churches into political handmaidens for the Right.  But the central underlying questions which this IRS ruling brings to the fore -- the relations between church and state; how the Church can and should be in but not of the world; how it can and should present a faithful witness without succumbing to worldly means and blandishments -- have long been debated, and are worthy of thoughtful, intense, but civil discourse here.

Associated Baptist Press:

Hunter said there is both good news and bad news for supporters of creation care.

"The bad news is that this movement honestly is going very slowly in the church," he said. "By now we would have hoped to be meeting with multitudes, and you see what's here. There's a gathering of leaders."

Despite that, Hunter said "the time is growing in its ripeness from several aspects," so environmentally conscious evangelicals should not be discouraged.

Along with new technologies that allow humans to cultivate the earth in new ways, Hunter said "there is a ripeness in the church" in form of an expanding moral agenda.

"There is now an unstoppable expansion of what it means to be an evangelical Christian," he said. "We are no longer going to be stuck on one or two major issues."

Hunter added that evangelicals must not abandon concern for the unborn in order to embrace a broader agenda. "Frankly, if you cannot protect a baby in its mother's womb, that is the paradigm of all vulnerable life," he said. "If we don't continue to lift that up as central, then woe be unto us."

But Hunter said evangelicals need to understand "that 'pro-life' means a whole lot of things."

"It's not just inside the womb, it's outside the womb," he said. "Life outside the womb is just as important as life inside the womb to God."

Take on social issues, yes. But don't supplant the Great Commission. Always concerns me that winning souls for Jesus Christ never seems to get a hearing in these interviews, especially when rescuing babies and the planet are both acts of love which could transform lives if Jesus got the credit.