The Lion, the Curse, & the Evangelical: Part 1
June 16, 2008
Dean Ohlman is a writer, producer, photojournalist and frequent contributor to Creation Care.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
We find in the term “evangelical” the implied priority of everyone who claims the name. It defines one who believes, shares, and lives by the evangel, a Greek word meaning “good news.” This good news, of course, is that the chosen one of God—the Messiah— came to restore the Kingdom of God and through the Holy Spirit is preparing us to be Kingdom people.
C. S. Lewis wrote of this allegorically in his Narnia chronicles: “Aslan is on the move!” The loving intent of the not-tame lion, Aslan, (“the good lion by whose blood all Narnia was saved,” The Last Battle ch.3), was to defeat the dormancy and death of perpetual winter and bring back the verdancy and life of perpetual spring. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the noble lion willingly gave up his life, like a sacrificial lamb, in order to do two things: remove the curse on the natural order and reestablish people as rulers and stewards of the kingdom of Narnia (“Narnia was never right except when a Son of Adam was King,” Prince Caspian, ch.5). Aslan then arose from the dead in order to accomplish this—using all of creation to assist him in defeating the evil witch who had held the land in her icy grip. This same picture is used in a more sophisticated manner by Lewis in his novel That Hideous Strength.
One could imagine the Narnian creatures singing the lines from Isaac Watt’s beloved Christmas hymn, “Joy to the World”:
“No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest (‘nor ice afflict’) the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow [as] far as the curse is found.”
Mr. and Mrs. Beaver might have read from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians:
“The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. . . . The whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God!” (Romans 8:19-21, PHILLIPS).
Tumnus, the faun, might then have led the creatures in the song the apostle John witnessed in a revelation from Jesus Christ: all of God’s creatures singing in praise at the consummation of history. They were celebrating the return of the Lamb (as Aslan was characterized in the end of the Dawn Treader) who was slain, Jesus, now risen again as the Lion of Judah:
“Blessing and honor and glory and power be given to him who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for timeless ages!” (Revelation 5:13, PHILLIPS).
Lewis’ allegory of animals in praise of their savior is not only affirmed by the Scriptures, but also asserted by a number of the great saints of the Christian faith. Let your imagination roam again. Think of John Wesley preaching his sermon “The General Deliverance” while standing on a hillside and proclaiming to the creatures what he told the people of his congregation about nature’s rebirth at the consummation of the ages:
“In that day, all the vanity to which [you] are now helplessly subject will be abolished; [you] will suffer no more, either from within or without; the days of [your] groaning are ended. At the same time, there can be no reasonable doubt, but all the horridness of [your] appearance, and all the deformity of [your] aspect, will vanish away, and be exchanged for [your] primeval beauty. And with [your] beauty [your] happiness will return; to which there can then be no obstruction. As there will be nothing within, so there will be nothing without, to give [you] any uneasiness: No heat or cold, no storm or tempest, but one perennial spring. In the new earth, as well as in the new heavens, there will be nothing to give pain, but everything that the wisdom and goodness of God can create to give happiness. As a recompence for what [you] once suffered, while under the “bondage of corruption,” when God has “renewed the face of the earth,” and [your] corruptible body has put on incorruption, [you] shall enjoy happiness suited to [your] state, without alloy, without interruption, and without end.”
How great is the grace of God that promises everlasting blessing not only for His people but also for His other living creatures. I wonder, though, how often we think of that grace in reference to the non-human world—a world that biblical writers seemed to honor far more than we. The sweet sound of salvation’s grace that amazes us will one day draw from “all creatures here below” the same doxology we have sung for centuries: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” Do we truly understand, as the Bible and our Christian hymns imply, that all things in their own nature respond to God?
Other time-distant voices proclaimed what seems strange to our ears today. American Quaker minister John Woolman remarked.
He whose tender mercies are over all his works hath placed a principle in the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness towards every living creature; and this being singly attended to, people become tender-hearted and sympathizing; but when frequently and totally rejected, the mind becomes shut up in a contrary disposition.
Part Two will appear tomorrow . . .
Understanding The Ins & Outs of Carbon Offsetting: Part 2
June 13, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 appeared yesterday.
Creation Care sat down with Eric Carlson, Executive Director of Carbonfund.org, to better understand the process of carbon offsetting.
CC: What is your response to folks who say they’d rather reduce their own emissions than pay for an offset?
EC: Absolutely. Reduce your emissions first, then offset the rest. We support personal reductions as the first step. But even a hybrid car or compact fluorescent light bulbs use energy and cause pollution, and you can reduce those remaining emissions to zero with offsets. Reducing your emissions is a process: you can probably do a few things today but if you’re not planning to replace your windows or buy a new car for a few years you can still offset these emissions and get to zero carbon emissions today. The ability to ‘get to zero today’ through reductions and offsets is a very powerful message: I can eliminate my impact on climate change today.
CC: Who else have you worked with on carbon offsetting?
EC: Carbonfund.org works with more than 125 corporate and organizational partners, including Dell, Lancôme, the National Wildlife Federation and others. Dell, for instance, is making it possible for every customer to offset the electricity their new computer will use over its lifetime. Lancôme is planting 10,000 trees to offset the production of its new Cell Defense product and to offset the travel of its spokesmodels. We work with each company to tailor a program to meet their goals.
CC: You would think companies wouldn’t do this unless they were required to, but they are. Why are companies so interested in voluntary offsets?
EC: Companies have a lot at stake with climate change. They have factories all over the world that could be affected by either rising sea levels or significant displacement of people. Customers have more choice and access to information than ever before and it is easy for a consumer to choose a company that sells both a quality product and supports sustainability and a clean planet. Companies are responding to their customers.
CC: Do you think there should be federal regulations on carbon dioxide emissions? What will that do to organizations like Carbonfund.org?
EC: We absolutely need federal government leadership to combat climate change. The United States has just 5% of the world’s population but emits nearly 25% of its emissions. Federal mandates will put our country on the slow, steady path toward emissions reductions, while Carbonfund.org will always empower people to reduce their emissions to zero. Just as millions of Americans support cancer research even though the government funds it as well, the more people, companies and governments involved in providing solutions to climate change the better.
CC: What do you think are the chances that we’ll be able to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by mid-century, as some experts have suggested is necessary?
EC: We can definitely do it (and I don’t think we have a choice). An 80% reduction in emissions over 40 years is only 2% per year. Most of the technology we need is already here. Cost-effective energy efficiency could make up half the figure, while existing hybrid cars with a plug-in capability can get over 100 MPG, lightbulbs can save 60-70% and solar hot water heating are cost effective in most parts of the country today. The solutions are available today and they cost a lot less than most people think. The average person can reduce their entire climate impact for just $99 a year, $8.25 a month.
CC: What have you learned by partnering with ECI on this project?
EC: Evangelicals care deeply about God’s Creation and have the ability to play a major role in solving our climate problem. ECI and its leaders have the vision, commitment and strategy to make it simple and affordable for millions of evangelicals to embrace the solutions we need. It’s been a great partnership.
Understanding The Ins & Outs of Carbon Offsetting: Part 1
June 12, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Creation Care sat down with Eric Carlson, Executive Director of Carbonfund.org, to better understand the process of carbon offsetting.
Creation Care: How did you first get involved with helping the Evangelical Climate Initiative launch their Cooling Creation campaign?
Eric Carlson: The ECI has a great reputation and is becoming a leader in providing common sense solutions to climate change. This is Carbonfund.org’s goal as well. About a year ago we sat down with Rev. Ball, and it was immediately clear that together we could provide literally millions of evangelicals a simple, affordable and direct action to combat climate change. We both wanted to inspire people to reduce what you can, and offset what you can’t, so we laid the groundwork for this exciting program.
CC: What kind of potential did you see in evangelical Christians doing offsets?
EC: A few million evangelicals could change the world and stop climate change. I am not kidding. Just two to three million people, out of over a hundred million evangelicals, would be enough to help drive the price of renewable energy, such as wind energy or geothermal, below that of dirtier fuels such as coal. Since energy investment is so price sensitive, when this occurs, we’d expect to see energy investment change to renewables based just on economics. A few million people could spur a clean technology transformation that would increase US jobs and investment while reducing our reliance on foreign energy and making our country safer as well.
CC: And you work with both companies and with individuals?
EC: About half of Carbonfund.org’s offsets are from individuals and their families and the other half is from our corporate partners such as Dell and Lancome and organizational partners such as the National Wildlife Federation. To date, we’ve offset over 400 million pounds of CO2.
CC: Can you tell us a little about the kinds ofprojects you fund with offset money?
EC: Carbonfund.org lets you decide where your money is spent—on renewable energy, energy efficiency, or reforestation projects. We know some people prefer one type of project over another so we figure it’s your money, your choice. We then ensure each project meets strict national and international standards, certification and verification requirements. We’ve supported wind energy in Kansas and South Dakota, a low income solar housing project in Chicago, reforestation projects throughout the US and in India and Nepal. And we are very excited to be adding more projects all the time.
CC: So pollution generated in Atlanta might be offset by a project in Nepal? Doesn’t it matter where an offset project is sited?
EC: Not really. Some pollutants, like sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, are localized pollutants, meaning the damage occurs near to where the emission occurs. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, is a global problem; it traps heat in the atmosphere globally. So, in essence, it does not matter if you reduce a ton of CO2 in Brazil, Bermuda or Baton Rouge. We seek carbon offset projects globally that are cost effective, certified and have a positive social impact.
Jesus and the Earth
June 11, 2008
The excerpts above are used with permission from the author and are taken from pages 7-18 of Jesus and the Earth by James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool. The book was published in 2003 by SPCK Press in London and available at amazon.com.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Until I began to seriously study the issue, if you had asked me what Jesus had to say about the earth and whether the Gospels had anything to say in formulating an environmental ethic, I would have thought, “precious little.” However, all that has changed. I have read the Gospels again and again [in light of this question], and am still reading. I am determined to read out of the text and not into it. I find myself unearthing things in the Gospels which persuade me that Jesus not only was earthed but also saw his mission as none other than the earthing of heaven.“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” was the logical sequitur of his prayer for the coming of the Kingdom. This book (Jesus and the Earth) is a reflection on my search for evidence of the connectedness of Jesus to the earth and begins in the stormiest of waters and with the furious debates over what Jesus meant when he called himself “The Son of Man.” It is the only title that he takes to himself … in Hebrew the phrase “Son of Man” is Ben Adam, Son of Adam, and Adam is the one hewn from the earth, Adamah in Hebrew. I returned to the Gospel text with a new eagerness. Searching for evidence of a connectedness between Jesus and the earth I took special notice of those episodes in which he called himself the “Son of Man” and wondered whether I would find there any echoes of Adam or Adamah, the earth …
Of the passages in the Gospels where the Son of Man and the earth are explicitly mentioned together, let us look at three, one each from Luke, Matthew, and John.
The Lukan passage occurs in all three synoptic Gospels. It is the story of the forgiving and healing of a person paralyzed and incapable of walking. Having absolved him, Jesus says to him and his critics, “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Luke 5:24).
Each synoptic Gospel account includes the reference to the earth. Why “on earth”? What is added to the meaning of his authority to forgive by stating explicitly that it was “on earth”? … Is there any mention of the earth in the story of Adam’s falling into sin? There is, of course. The result of their sin is that the earth is cursed. Adam who was hewn from the earth and called to serve the earth (Genesis 2:7, 15) finds that his sin wreaks havoc on the earth: “cursed is the ground because of you” (3:17).
The only way that the earth can be relieved of its curse is through the forgiveness, healing and restoration of Adam’s successors … The earth bears the wounds of human sinfulness. “The whole creation has been groaning,” says Paul, clinging to the “hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21, 22).
The future wholeness of the earth and the whole of creation according to Paul is bound up with the destiny of the children of God. A redeemed humanity is central to that vision. Key to that redemption is God’s forgiveness. In short, how can the earth be freed from the curse of human sinfulness? Only through God appointing and anointing a successor to Adam to have “authority on earth to forgive sins.” This is clearly how Luke saw Jesus. This Jesus who is “the Son of Man [who] has authority on earth to forgive sins” undoes the earth-damaging work of Adam.
Let us turn to Matthew … Forgiveness presupposes judgment … Crisis is the Greek word for judgment. When the media broadcast the headline “Environmental Crisis” they are declaring to the world a truth greater than we realize. We are reaping what we sow. This is the crisis, the judgment: “Do not be deceived,” wrote Paul, “God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow” (Galatians 6:7).
It is in this context of judgment that we come to our next passage in which we find Jesus speaking of himself as “Son of Man” and in the same breath talking about the earth (Matthew 12:40f). “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth” … What happened to the earth when he died?
The earth quaked (Mt 27:51). What happened when God raised him from the earth? The earth quaked again (Mt. 28:2). … As the son of the one hewn from the earth is laid in the heart of the earth there is a seismic response from the earth’s heart to his death and resurrection. Is this a voice in the chorus of the collective groaning of the whole of creation which Paul writes about in Romans 8:22? The earth, God’s creation, is longing for liberation from the curse in Genesis and somehow knows that its own freedom “from the bondage of decay” is inextricably bound up with “the children of God” and “their redemption” and “their freedom,” and that comes about through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus “who has set us free” and in whom there is “now no condemnation” (Rom. 8).
Turning to the Gospel of John we are arrested by the declaration: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” This is a confessional statement about the Word who is Jesus. This is echoed through the primary chapters of Colossians, Ephesians, and Hebrews. Colossians 1:16: “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible … all things have been created through him and for him.” Never has so much theology hung on two such small prepositions, “through” and “for”!
It is these creedal statements that lead to a high view of creation. It is the gift of Christ. … Creation does not exist for the human family but for Christ. … It is a blasphemy to usurp Christ’s place . . .
In John 12 we find a third Son of Man/earth saying: “‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people [all things] to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered, ‘How can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up?’” Here again the Son of Man is found in the same context as the earth and is cast in the role of the one who will draw all to himself. Echoes again of Colossians: “And through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of his cross.” The Son of Man’s ministry is one of connectedness with the earth. Jesus self-consciously sees himself on a mission through which he should lose nothing of what has been given to him. “‘I have come down from heaven [to earth] not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me’” (John 6:39). Jesus has the whole cosmos in his sights, not just individual souls who want to escape earth and bag a place elsewhere. The earth is within God’s cosmic purposes.
Saving God’s Green Earth – Part 2
June 10, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 appeared yesterday.
This book excerpt is used with permission from the author and is taken from the book Saving God’s Green Earth by Tri Robinson, the founding pastor of the Vineyard BoiseChurch. The book was published in 2006 by Ampelon Publishing (Atlanta, GA).
As our actions begin to back up our talk, the world will begin to see a clearer picture emerge about what it means to follow God. Our deeds will speak so much more than our words. We’ve all heard the saying, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” The church can quickly become the leader in this area because many environmental groups merely express a love for God’s creation without doing much about it.
Let’s face it: most Christians are scared to share their faith because of what might happen. “Will they ask a question I can’t answer? What if I don’t know how to respond? What if they laugh at me?” We can think of lists a mile long of reasons not to talk about our faith with other people. But when we feel most comfortable—and excited about what God is doing within us—is when someone asks us about our faith. Instead of trying to find some clever way to start the conversation (which Jesus didn’t do either, by the way—He was merely being who He was), the other person starts the conversation, and we get to simply tell about our faith.
While Christian t-shirts rarely spark a favorable response or line of questioning from other people, our reusable “green bags” (canvas bags used for shopping which eliminates the need for plastic bags) create a curiosity that people just can’t handle. They have to ask about the bags. “Where did you get those bags?” the stranger asks. “From my church,” is the surprising response. “Really? Your church sells those? Why?” fires off the inquiring mind. “Well, because we believe in being good stewards of the environment— and cutting down on the number of plastic or paper bags is one way to do that,” is the stunning rejoinder. (However, recycling plastic bags you get at the grocery store is also a good way to be friendly to the environment. Many stores will take your old plastic bags—and some will even pay a small amount for each bag.)
Before you can say “paper or plastic,” the questions start coming. Suddenly, an unsuspecting grocery shopper is arrested by the thought that a church in their city just might actually care about God’s creation as much as the shopper does. In Boise, a city that is known for its endless outdoor activities, people hold the environment as an important value, even though they may not be doing much about it themselves. So especially in our town, when people start seeing the church take the lead in caring for the environment, they are intrigued. And for some, the church’s lack of respect for the environment might be the reason why they always dismissed the idea of becoming part of a church community.
Caring for the environment opens so many doors on so many levels to take the love of Christ to others around the world. And caring for the earth is a crucial building block for us to show how much we, as Christians, love people. I have heard plenty of arguments that claim we should care for people above all else—and I agree. However, caring for people is not at odds with being good stewards of the earth. In fact, they go hand in hand.
Consider this staggering observation: Contaminated land is a problem in industrialized countries, but it is also a problem in developing countries where pesticides and nitrate-rich fertilizers damage the environment. When the land becomes infertile in a developing country, starvation is sure to follow. With such rampant poverty in some of these countries, a problem of this magnitude can seem insurmountable and lead to much hopelessness.
Sir John Houghton, one of the world’s leading environmental scientists, recently explained how caring for the environment in developing countries equates to truly caring for people: “Aid and debt relief are not the end of the story for Africa. Climate change will increase the continent’s problems very seriously, and already has. What is the point of taking steps to reduce poverty with one hand while, by ignoring climate change, increasing it with the other? The two problems are inseparable.”
That is why caring for the environment can become one of the most powerful tools for evangelism in the 21st Century. We can—and should— care for the sick as much as possible. But there will be far fewer sick people to help when the environment becomes more livable, through means such as clean water and nutrient-rich soil. Through caring for the environment, the church will be afforded access to areas that at one time were closed to Christians, much like medical missions opened many doors during the 20th Century.
However, we must take it one step farther and educate people on the dangers to their natural resources, equipping them with the knowledge to renew them and protect them from contaminants.
Saving God’s Green Earth – Part 1
June 9, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
This book excerpt is used with permission from the author and is taken from the book Saving God’s Green Earth by Tri Robinson, the founding pastor of the Vineyard BoiseChurch. The book was published in 2006 by Ampelon Publishing (Atlanta, GA).
As our church began to wade into uncharted waters with our new environmental ministry, I was excited to see what would happen for a couple of reasons. For one, I wanted to see how the community would react to what we were doing. Would they ignore us? Question us? Make fun of us? Embrace us? The potential reactions were almost endless. The other reason I was excited about launching our new ministry was because I was curious to see how this new value in our church might open the door for members to share their faith with others. Would people question our motives? Inquire about our faith? Dismiss us as a gimmick church? Only time would tell if this was going to be an effective way to share the Gospel while we fulfilled the biblical mandate to care for God’s creation.
It wasn’t long before I received my answer. Stories began pouring into our staff about how leading our community in this value opened doors to conversations about Christ that never would have happened otherwise. One of my favorite stories happened when my administrative assistant, Lori, fielded a call from an environmental activist named Sam.
Sam had heard about our ministry to care for the environment and visited our website. Not knowing that we were a church, he called in to report his good environmental deed of the day—he was on his way to protest what some corporation was doing to the environment. After sharing this information with Lori, Sam awaited for some type of approval for what he was doing. But Lori didn’t give it to him. Instead, she challenged him to move from protest to action.
“Sam, that’s not the kind of thing we do here,” Lori told him. “Instead of telling people what they’re doing wrong all the time, we want to demonstrate how to do things right more than anything. We think we should care for the environment by being good stewards of it. If we do our part and help others understand how to care for the environment, then we can actually begin to change things.” After a moment of contemplation, Sam replied, “That’s what I believe, too.” And the unsuspecting Sam was issued an invitation to church, which he warmly accepted.
People in the mainstream media often misinterpret many Christians’ actions. And if truth be told, they paint an accurate picture sometimes, too—and the truth is hard to swallow. However, no matter how Christians are depicted in the media, the one thing that will change people’s perceptions about Christians is knowing one personally who is living out a faith that saturates every part of that person’s life. There are always areas that we can improve upon, but when God begins prompting wholesale change, we cannot ignore Him. The environment is one such issue that for too long has gone largely ignored by many Christians—and this hasn’t been misinterpreted by anyone.
Reversing those perceptions is as simple—and yet, as complicated—as applying true repentance to our lives: we stop moving in one direction and begin moving in the opposite direction. Instead of ignoring the environment, we become the leaders in caring for God’s creation. It will earn you a puzzled look highlighted by a furrowed brow. “But you’re a Christian,” they might protest. “You don’t care about the environment.” However, they’re only half right, and you must readjust their perception—”No, I am a Christian; therefore, I do care about the environment.”
Carbon offsets much more than just 21st century indulgences
June 7, 2008
Rusty Pritchard is a resource economist and the National Director of Outreach for the Evangelical Environmental Network.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
There is a fair amount of press these days about carbon offsets. Seems like a typically North American strategy: When faced with a crisis, buy something. For a set price, you can pay for a certificate that shows that somewhere in the world, somehow, someone is reducing greenhouse gas pollution on your behalf, to make up for what you produce directly and indirectly by using electricity, driving your car, and purchasing consumer products. You can invest in the right-sized carbon offset and—abracadabra—claim to be carbon-neutral.
Sounds a lot like an old-fashioned indulgence, doesn’t it? What would Martin Luther do with the notion of a carbon offset? Can you pay your way out of punishment for sins by purchasing the stored-up merits of others?
Lots of folks probably think of carbon offsets like indulgences. Once convinced of the reality of human impact on global warming, many people want to know what they can do—how can they gain clean hands, given the terrible impacts of global warming on the global poor—without the sacrifice of altering their consumerist lifestyles. Carbon offsets look like a way to ease the guilt of driving or flying. In reality, carbon offsets are part of a series of strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Everyone has a responsibility for reducing their emissions on their own. Energy economist Charles Komanoff reckons that without a lot of effort any North American household above the poverty line could cut its energy consumption by 25 percent in six months and save money in the process.
After reducing what we can as promptly as we can, carbon offsets are a way of generating investment dollars for renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects that reduce—or soak up—greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere. We are part of a matrix, and not everyone can immediately give up their car, cancel their electrical service and live in a yurt. Voluntary carbon offsets are not that cheap, and they are a part of accepting personal responsibility for the pollution we generate.
A better solution, in the long run, though, is to make the pollution costs of what we buy a part of the purchase price. No one could dodge responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions if we had a rational federal policy that guarantees the polluter pays.
Until the time that North Americans, through their elected representatives, decide to take collective responsibility for the global warming side-effects of our lifestyle choices, the only options available are voluntary ones, including reducing our consumption and investing in carbon offsets. Not everyone will purchase offsets, but if even a substantial minority does, we can generate a powerful signal to the markets that there is money to be made in producing the economic good of pollution reduction.
In the Evangelical Climate Initiative Campaign, we decided to offer a carbon offset in partnership with the highly regarded carbonfund.org—but only after asking participants to reduce what they can. At coolingcreation.org, interested folks learn about what they can do personally to reduce their carbon impact while waiting for federal action. Some may feel they have been granted an indulgence, but most recognize they are merely making a contribution to finding solutions.
There’s a famous—perhaps apocryphal—story about a woman who complained to preacher Dwight L. Moody that she didn’t care for his style of evangelism. He replied, “I agree with you. I don’t like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?” To which she admitted, “I don’t do it.” Moody then replied, “Then I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”
I think it’s the same with carbon offsets. A vocal set of nay-sayers doesn’t like an imperfect, partial solution. Their objections are valid if the purchase of offsets creates a smug, self-satisfied citizenry that fails to advocate climate protection legislation. But I don’t think it does. I think those who invest in offsets are more vocal and better informed about global warming and, in general, they are acting responsibly in reducing their own carbon emissions. They have just chosen to put their money where their mouth is.
EYCI Beyond the Classroom
June 5, 2008
The following post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Creation Care Study Program provides students new perspective
Boarding the plane for a semester in Belize with the Creation Care Study Program (CCSP), leaders from the Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative (EYCI) Caroline Brown, Joshua Van Staalduinen, and Bethany Ricks had one goal in mind: To learn as much as they could about God’s creation and how to care for it. They wanted to see, touch, and hear tropical forests, streams and coral reefs and learn how they are impacted by climate change. They wanted to experience first hand how global warming and ecological destruction affects the lives of subsistence farmers and their families in the developing world.
Textbook knowledge wasn’t going to cut it for one more semester. So they packed up their sense of adventure, curiosity, and desire to love and faithfully follow Christ, embarking on a life-changing semester.
Dr. Chris Elisara, CCSP’s executive director, first met these students at the EYCI launch in Washington D.C., but he was very interested to find out what they were learning and how their CCSP Belize experience was further preparing them for leadership. On a recent trip to CCSP Belize, Dr. Elisara had the opportunity to discuss this with them. While it was a little early to definitively answer the question, “What have you learned about how climate change impacts the developing world?”, the subsequent conversation was lively with perceptive insights and ideas. Bethany Ricks, who attends Bethel University, led off with this observation: “Given that Belize’s economy is reliant on tourism—much of it based on the coast and tropical reef—if climate change increases the frequency and intensity of severe weather events like hurricanes, Belize won’t be able to cope with recurrent hurricanes hitting it’s shores. The ecological damage will keep the tourists away, let alone the damage to infrastructure. It will ruin Belize’s tourism industry and economy.” Joshua Van Staalduinen who attends Trinity Christian College, quickly added the comparison: “Unlike wealthy countries such as the U.S., small developing countries like Belize do not have deep pockets and cannot respond to repeated shocks to the economy caused by big, and possibly more frequent hurricanes.”
Caroline Brown from Asbury College provided another angle, noting “it will be the poor subsistence farmers and their families who will suffer the most from severe weather events in Belize, be it hurricanes, or raining when it should be dry, or dry when it should be raining … they survive by living off the land and if they cannot produce a crop they cannot survive.” The students found agreement in these initial thoughts and continued to discuss more wide-ranging observations and analysis.
Then the conversation took a turn. “On the positive side,” pointed out Ricks, “we visited a community that came together and set aside communal land to save habitat for Howler Monkeys, and now the Howlers are thriving.”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Van Staalduinen “to learn how to respond to our ecological challenges, to be a leader and make a difference.” Brown added, “I’m trying to take as much in as I can. I’ve got a lot to learn, especially how environmental degradation impacts people in poor countries, but as our program director encourages us, ‘I’m squeezing the sponge.’ I’m grasping this opportunity with two hands and squeezing every ounce of learning I can out of it.”
The Zero Carbon Christian
June 4, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!” That may have been said in years past, but with the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we can see it hasn’t been true. The scientists who put out the peer-reviewed report say it’s a virtual certainty that our actions have altered the climate now and into the future. It’s clear to many people, including the Christian leaders who last February announced the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI), that government action is necessary, and that Christians should lead efforts to change policy.
In the meantime, what’s an ordinary person to do? The science implies that the response at every level has to start now and to involve everyone. To that end, the folks at the ECI have set up a campaign to walk Christians through the process of reducing their carbon footprint to zero (full disclosure: EEN’s Jim Ball conceived the idea and helped set it up). They began by recruiting ECI leaders to sign on. “We expect evangelicals to lead in this campaign because of the emphasis in our community on personal responsibility and the desire to be obedient to God and to serve Him with our lives,” said Dr. Matthew Sleeth, an ECI signatory and author of the book Serve God, Save the Planet. “First, we’re asking our leaders to make their own personal commitment to reduce their global warming pollution to zero.”
The Cooling Creation campaign has now gone public, with its own website at www.coolingcreation.org. How does it work? In two steps: visitors to the web site first fill out a commitment to personally reduce what they can, and to encourage others to become informed about the campaign. Then they’re asked for money–$99 per year, which the ECI reckons is the amount necessary to pay for 23 metric tons of carbon dioxide reductions. That’s the amount of global warming pollution the average American emits per year, both directly (with your car, home and air travel) and indirectly (from the energy used to make your food, clothes and everything else we consume). The emissions reductions, which are certified, come from projects, including renewable energy (wind, solar), energy efficiency and reforestation.
Several leaders have made their commitments public, including Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Lakewood, Florida, Jo Anne Lyon, Executive Director of World Hope International, and Bob Andringa, President Emeritus of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. “”I believe there is a biblical mandate to be good stewards of the earth, plus I want to be a good citizen. I can afford to give, I need the accountability of making a commitment, and I should easily recoup my donation by following these good practices,” says Andringa.
The idea behind the campaign is simple. Right now you can make some direct reductions cheaply and easily, while others just don’t make sense. Everyone should be replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs); they use one-third the energy and last a lot longer. Many of us should drive less, and walk and bike more. But some actions (for instance putting a wind turbine on your house, or planting your own forest), are just not feasible for most people. The same amount of money spent elsewhere in the economy could give much higher carbon reductions. At some point, it’s more cost-effective to contribute to reducing carbon pollution elsewhere.
That process of reducing carbon pollution elsewhere is called carbon offsetting, and there are a growing number of for-profit and not-for profit enterprises that can help make you carbon neutral by supporting projects that reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Some companies offer carbon offsetting as an add-on service. Computer manufacturer Dell offers PC buyers a chance to contribute to tree-planting projects, to balance out the climate impact of powering their computer.
For its offset program, the ECI chose to partner with Carbonfund.org, one of the handful of reputable, experienced, nonprofit carbon offsetters. Carbonfund.org is ranked as the best value in carbon offsets (they offset the most pollution for the least cost), and their work is audited and verified by third parties using national and international standards.
The Creation: Reinstating Its Awesome Meaning in Science, Society – Part 2
June 3, 2008
Cal DeWitt is a scientist, writer and conservationist. He is the President Emeritus of the Ausable Institute of Environmental Studies.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 appeared yesterday.
The invention of the words “the environment” changed all that. Equipped with new language that allowed us to imagine ourselves separated from “the rest,” we gained the dubious freedom to ask new questions — questions that directly challenged and threatened the wider Creation, questions that even challenged and threatened ourselves. We became able, using our newfound words, to ask the question, What is more important, people or the environment? In time we would not even think this to be an odd question, even though it is much like the question, What is more important my heart or my body?
It takes but little thought to discover that provision of this new linguistic capacity contributes to human degradation of Creation. Envisioning ourselves as apart from, rather than part of, everything else, we could “look out for number one,” meaning ourselves, rather than the Creator (or His creatures, like Behemoth; see Job 40:19).
The difficulty of this linguistic separation was compounded, as we all so well know, by the capturing and embedding the word Creation in the word Creationist. While a person so labeled conceivably could be a person who works to serve and keep Creation, it in fact came to refer to someone who had a specific understanding of origins and the age of planet Earth.
And so it becomes clear why my hosts at that Christian college thought I would be addressing evolution and “origins”. We simply had forgotten what we once meant by it. Somewhere following the time of Chaucer, we came to think less about the Creation and more about how God made it. And this, despite God’s admonition in his speech to Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth…” (Job 38:4). Somehow we became far more engaged with deciding how God made all things than taking care of Creation. More than that, we became linguistically able to praise our Creator God in a truncated way that largely ignores the awesome status of the Creator of all things. Praising God in a lesser way became possible because we became enabled to assign the rest of the Creation—”the environment”—to a lower priority. Unwittingly, by removing ourselves from “the environment” and in reality also from the rest of Creation, we did something akin to putting our own bodies at a lower priority than our beating hearts! Impossible as this really is, it appears to be what we have (ignorantly) done.
This helps explain why the title of Wilson’s upcoming book, The Creation, is so exciting. It is not because Prof. Wilson has returned to his Southern Baptist roots. Instead, it is because his Southern Baptist religious roots instilled in him an understanding of the richness of the concept of “the Creation.” So we are not celebrating his return to his southern Baptist roots; we are celebrating his desire “to save the Creation.”
There will of course be the ever-present naysayers and detractors among us who respond to Wilson by telling the world that here is a secular humanist—a pre-eminent evolutionist— using a phrase that is inconsistent with his beliefs. If they do this however, they will have “blown” a wonderful opportunity—the opportunity to utilize this important scientist’s insight to help themselves, scientists, and others discover the deep significance of need to reinstate “the Creation” into our vocabulary. Wilson, in writing his book, does so to an imaginary pastor who grew up in the same Southern Baptist faith. In doing this, he writes, “You have found your final truth; I am still searching,” and this means that the significance of the title is the help it gives toward reinstating the concept of “the Creation” into our vocabulary. Its significance also is expressed in his homily to this imaginary pastor, “Save the Creation, save all of it! No lesser goal is defensible.” It is a goal with which all of us should agree no matter what our religious beliefs and non-beliefs.
What if we would go beyond Wilson’s scientific and secular reasons for reinstating “the Creation,” and do so on biblical and theological grounds? We would acknowledge our Creator God’s care for the world. In honor and obedience to God, we would commit ourselves to imaging God’s care for Creation in our life, work, and worship. We might go so far as to model ourselves after Jesus—the one through whom God created all things, holds all things together, and reconciles all things to God (Colossians 1:15-20). We might be inspired passionately to image God’s care with our own. And in striving to care as God does we would seek to do the inexpressible:
Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air; it shines in the light.
It streams from the hills and descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain!
God’s love: expressed as animal-to plant and plant-to-animal gas exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide; expressed as light shining out from thermonuclear fusion processes on our star the sun; expressed in the remarkable intricacies of the streamings and distillations of earth’s hydrologic cycle. How can we possibly express the reality of God’s care for the world within the limitations of language? And how also can we care for Creation, with deep passion and love? We can seek to image God’s love for the Creation.
Reinstating the phrase “The Creation” is necessary for rebuilding the bridge that once connected religion and science—the bridge that inspired pastors to be among the best students of the Creation, the bridge that inspired scientists to “think God’s thoughts” as they wondered about and described the Creation.
By what means can we re-instate “the Creation” in our life and work? Among the many ways are to have “the Creation” burst out from those 60 and more Christian colleges, from radio and Christian organizations, development and relief agencies, congregations, and denominations. It can break forth from synagogues, meeting rooms, and mosques. It can be expressed with awe and wonder even by all the rest of humanity, who are left without excuse (Romans 1:20). And much more…
As for the naysayers among us, we can pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth…” while pondering Revelation 11:18 and the tough language of its conclusion about destroying those who destroy the earth. For naysayers within the secular world we can help reinstate the concept, “the Creation,” even if they resist reinstating the phrase.
And all of us, whatever our metaphysics, philosophy, and profession, can translate into corrective action the biblical and scientific truth: If we destroy the Creation we also destroy ourselves.
