Recently in Evangelism and Faith Category

Daily Kos: Christianity is all in our heads, say cognitive scientists. Well, there's something going on up there for sure.

Coincidentally, my son and I were talking about this just last night.

CNS News:

The pope said the image of wind "makes us think of the air, which distinguishes our planet from the other heavenly bodies and allows us to live on it. What air is for biological life, the spirit is for spiritual life."

"And just as there exists atmospheric pollution, which poisons the environment and living beings, so there exists a pollution of the heart and of the spirit, which mortifies and poisons spiritual existence," he said.

Pope Benedict said it is right that protecting the environment has become a priority today, but it is equally important that people begin combating "the many products polluting the mind and heart" today, including "images that make a spectacle of pleasure, violence and contempt for men and women."

Amen, brother. Read the whole thing, and pass it along.

UPDATE: It's also true that you can't solve the terrestrial pollution problem without first addressing the heavenly one.

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.

Sweden's Carl Gustav Boberg penned the timeless hymn we translate today as "How Great Thou Art." Based on Psalms 8, it's a wonderful testimony of how creation reveals not only God's majesty but His matchless grace and love as well.

According to the wiki Boberg wrote the poem "O Store Gud" in 1885 with nine verses, including these:

När tryckt av synd och skuld jag faller neder,
Vid Herrens fot och ber om nåd och frid.
Och han min själ på rätta vägen leder,
Och frälsar mig från all min synd och strid.

(When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to Him I lift my face;
And then in love He brings me sweet assurance:
'My child! for thee sufficient is my grace'.)

När jag hör dårar i sin dårskaps dimma
Förneka Gud och håna hvad han sagt,
Men ser likväl, att de hans hjälp förnimma
Och uppehållas af hans nåd och makt.

(O when I see ungrateful man defiling
This bounteous earth, God's gifts so good and great;
In foolish pride, God's holy Name reviling,
And yet, in grace, His wrath and judgment wait.)

The inspiration for the poem came when Boberg was walking home from church near Kronobäck, Sweden, and listening to church bells. A sudden awe-inspiring storm gripped Boberg’s attention, and then just as suddenly as it had made its violent entrance, it subsided to a peaceful calm which Boberg observed over Mönsterås Bay. "From the woods on the other side of the bay, he heard the song of a thrush…the church bells were tolling in the quiet evening. It was this series of sights, sounds, and experiences that inspired the writing of the song..."

He wrote this in 1885 by the way, in those dark ages before the creation care movement or the NCC's eco-justice program. How did he ever manage it?

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.

Virtue Online interviews Baylor's Susan Bratton (who, by the way, has a new book coming out):

If evangelicals are skeptical of global warming, Bratton says, environmental groups bear some blame. Many of them have written off evangelicals. "I think environmental groups should get off their high horse and talk to people," she said.

Good advice for the lot of us.

Leo Hickman in the Guardian: A poll this week showed that only 34% of America's white evangelical Protestants accepted there is solid evidence that global warming is real and that it is attributable to humans.

Here's his bottom line: 

It's a popular rebuke made by climate change sceptics that environmentalism displays all the traits of a religion (the words "pot", "kettle" and "black", spring to mind for some reason), but I have to say I'm left perplexed when I even attempt to understand the logic of creation care through the prism of evangelicalism.

Many millions of people hold these views so it would be foolish to ignore this huge constituency, but how do you even go about responding to such beliefs?

Scratch, meet itch.  Most frustrating to me are Christians labeling other Christians who haven't completely bought into global warmism as against creation care.  As if.  

Anyway, scan the post's comments for some interesting answers. 

UPDATE: Maybe "unaffiliated" Christians are just more prone to being swayed by global warmist emotionalism; Catholics, the Gospel community and Evangelicals, not so much.  And what are those Hispanic Catholics thinking, I wonder...

UPDATE: Here's another take on "perplexed."

UPDATE: Pete Illyn in Newsweek:

The good and bad with the environmental movement was that Christians were first introduced to environmentalism through climate change. That may have been a bad place to start because there was a lot of skepticism. It may have been too atmospheric, too faith-based, too "Do I believe, or do I not believe?" For the average pastor, that's a problem.

Right on, Pete.  It's also a problem for many in the pews.

UPDATE: Here's a Lifeway poll on pastors. They're split 50/50 on the question. 

By the way, nobody asked me (heh) but I'm with the my Gospel brothers and sisters on this one.  Climate change is largely natural, has been influenced by human CO2 and other pollutants, and there's a big we really don't know what we don't know factor thrown in for good measure. 

Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you."

-- Joshua 3:5

Gotta tell ya, I read tons of stuff about Christians looking for transformational change in our attitudes toward Creation. Most seem to be attacking these problems in their own, albeit collective, strength.

The simple truth in this passage from Joshua is this: The walls don't come down in the world - political and regulatory issues, public attitudes, pollution problems, ending deforestation - until the walls between each of us and our Savior come down. Once that happens God will do amazing things among us almost immediately.

Really want to change the world, brother? Start by hitting your knees.

Michael Spencer in the Christian Science Monitor is pessimistic about the future of evangelicalism. "We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith."

Yep.

Related thoughts here.

Towers Online:

In this era, Southern Seminary must again have a prophetic voice among the populists (as moderates did on the issue of civil rights in the 1970s). A temptation to Southern Baptists in the next generation will be to speak to issues because of how well received they are in the culture around them.

The issue of the care of the environment is one such issue. Should the church speak to environmental stewardship: yes. Can such a discussion lead to discussion about evangelism and the Gospel: no.

WHY NOT?!?! If our life isn't our evangelism, then WHAT'S THE POINT???

*banging head against monitor...*

*throwing Southern Baptist club card in the trash...*

*calming down now, sending them an email....*

UPDATE: Answer Disavowal back:

Don,

I am not the best man to answer this question. I didn't create the presentation, I was just reporting on the event. Sorry I can't be of more help!

Thanks, Garrett

Garrett Wishall
Towers Editor
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
towers@sbts.edu
follow Southern Seminary at https://twitter.com/SBTS

* Shrug *