Love - What kind of Christian should care about global warming? Every kind.
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A
note from Peter Illyn
It
has been an exciting week for Christian environmentalism – first a group of 26
evangelical leaders came out urging the National Association of Evangelicals to
abstain from a position on global warming, citing in part “We respectfully request, however,
that the NAE not adopt any official position on the issue of global climate
change. Global warming is not a
consensus issue, and our love for the Creator and respect for His creation does
not require us to take a position. We are evangelicals and we care about God’s
creation. However, we believe there should be room for Bible-believing
evangelicals to disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global
warming issue.” Get the rest here.
This
letter caused a stir and I received numerous emails of dismay from the
environmentally minded friends and even some requests for comments by the news
media.
But a few days later, I was equally surprised when I a group of 86 evangelical leaders countered back (led by my friend, Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network – yeah Jim!) responded by declaring that they will issue "An Evangelical Call to Action," asking Congress and the Bush administration to combat global warming by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions. "Christians must care about climate change because we love God the Creator."
This
creates a challenge for the Bush administration, which rejects mandatory limits
on greenhouse-gas emissions as economically harmful, and has caused a major
rift within evangelical circles.
Restoring
We
act as if miracles and the supernatural are things that defy the laws of
nature. But the laws of nature are in and of themselves miracles. As such, we
should be in awe of the balance of nature and realize that our human condition
depends upon it.
Noted scientist, author and old-earth creationist, Hugh Ross, writes about the miracle of life, the fruitfulness found in the balance of nature - how the earth is just the right size and density, is located just the right distance from the Sun, how it rotates at just the right speed, with just the right axis tilt. And how this has allowed the ocean and air currents to move and the temperature of the earth to stabilize.
Global
warming threatens all of this – even a few degrees of change can have catastrophic
outcomes. For all its epic scale, the God-drawn
balance of climate is remarkably fragile.
Rewind
to last year: 2005 was the hottest recorded in 10,000 years. In the
I
love God, I love my fellow humans, I love the critters and the flowers and the
fruits – I love the balance of nature – seeing how it all weaves together.
And I love my fellow Christians who have the strength of character to speak out and be counted. Join us today. It is not too late.
Peter