Pastoral Postings

Christians Going Green?

Beryl Clemens Smith
 

“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”
(Psalm 24:1-2)

First it was the contemporary evangelical church incorporating into their worship services the sounds, styles, and methods of our pop culture in order to draw people to church. Now the evangelical church appears to be joining forces with the popular environmental movement in an effort to stop global warming and the destruction of flora, fauna, woods and wetlands. One wonders just how far our evangelical leaders will go to accommodate the cloudy politically correct climate hanging over our society.

 I was innocently sitting in the barbershop the other day and picked up a recent copy of Audubon magazine.[1] My attention was drawn to an article entitled “Preaching for Change.”  It pointed out that some evangelical leaders are joining a push among conservative Christians to “highlight the emergence of a surprising environmental constituency.” It went on to declare, “Unlike the fiery old guard, a new generation of leaders is intent on championing broader political causes, some with green hues.”  Religious professor Randall Balmer, of Barnard College is quoted as saying, “There is a whole other agenda that’s begun to emerge, and I think that global warming was the wedge.”

Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs with the National Association of Evangelicals, “has helped to launch the Evangelical Climate Initiative.” Joining with him is a coalition of over 100 evangelical leaders who “endorse the initiative’s assertion that ‘Christian moral convictions demand our response to the climate change problem [because] any damage that we do to God’s world is an offense against God Himself.’” The article went on to claim that some ten to fifteen percent of churches now have environmental ministries, “many concentrating on promoting eco-friendly consumption.”

 It never ceases to amaze me how those claiming to be leaders in the evangelical movement seem to adopt any politically correct means to help propagate what they feel is the Church’s contemporary mission in this world. One wonders whether they have received their commission from God or from the leaders of our anti-God culture.

 A good example of misguided evangelical concern can be seen at the website www.restoringeden.org. Their stated policy is, “Working together, we can make your voice stronger by helping you speak out for those who can not speak for themselves. The forests, animals, birds, fish, entire ecosystems, and other wild species have no voice in our modern political arena. We must be that voice.”

 I would pose three questions to those considering joining the current drive for evangelical church involvement in the environmental movement:

 First, I would ask, “Where are these evangelical leaders taking their orders, from Jesus Christ or Al Gore or the Obama Administration in Washington?” If I remember correctly, Jesus Christ didn’t say, “Go Green!”  He said, “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”[2]  I always read in my Bible that the orders Jesus gave to the Church stated, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.[3] I seem to remember Jesus Christ saying “that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”[4]

 Nowhere do I find any reference in the Church’s commission to include in their mission an effort to save the evironment. The witness of the Church to the world regards the incarnation, sinless life, substitutionary death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of Jesus Christ. The Church’s witness is to the Person and Work of Christ as historical fact, not an “emergence” in the questionably, politically correct rabbit trail of chasing the causes of environmental deterioration.

 Secondly, I would ask, “What was the evangelical “carbon footprint” when the Ice Age started melting?” Is there in fact a detrimental “warming” of the global environment, or is any current change in global temperature a result of similar natural forces in our solar system that brought about the thawing of the Ice Age? Evangelical leaders seem to be somewhat behind the thinking of literally hundreds of reputable scientists who have determined the rage over global warming to be a crock of something other than old wine.

 Thirdly, I would ask, “Shouldn’t professing evangelicals be about the Master’s business of “soul saving,” as opposed to “saving the environment” in which the immortal souls of men and women are dying at the rate of hundreds of thousands every day?” It is sin that is “the wages of death,” not unconscious wasting or polluting of natural resources.  The redemptive purpose of Jesus Christ for this earth is the hope of mankind, not a clean source of food and water.

 In the American Bible Society’s publication “Record,” it was clearly pointed out that there are 6,900 recognized languages in our world; peoples on the African continent speak 2,000 of these languages. There are 2,479 languages worldwide that have at least a portion of Scripture; and there are 2,000 language translation projects in progress today. But there are still 4,421 spoken languages that have absolutely no translations of the Good News of Christ’s Person and Work.[5]

 I would not deny that we are to be good stewards of all that God has provided for us in the world He created. We shouldn’t be pouring used motor oil into our trout streams or throwing beer cans along the side of the road. But it would seem to me that we should be more interested in hugging lost and dying sinners more than hugging trees in the forest.

 I think Margaret Clarkson puts us to shame, when we read the passion of her heart, as opposed to the voices of emergent leaders urging us to join the cultural environmental bandwagon. Feeling the beat of her Savior’s heart she wrote:

So send I you to labor un-rewarded,

to serve un-paid, un-loved, un-sought, un-known,

to bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing,

so send I you to toil for Me alone.

So send I you to bind the bruised and broken,

O’er wand’ring souls to work, to weep, to wake,

to bear the burdens of a world a-weary.

So send I you to suffer for My sake.

So send I you to loneliness and longing,

with heart a-hung’ring for the loved and known,

forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one.

So send I you to know My love alone.

So send I you to leave your life’s ambition,

to die to dear desire, self-will resign,

to labor long and love where men revile you.

So send I you to lose your life in Mine.

So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred,

to eyes made blind because they will not see,

to spend, though it be blood, to spend and spare not.

So send I you to taste of Calvary.

 I think the leaders of the evangelical movement in our nation would do well to take another look at the commission Jesus Christ left His church.  We would do well, I think, to ask ourselves whether we’re interested in “going green” or going into our troubled, dying world with the Message our Savior left for us to tell.

 Beryl Clemens Smith

Previous Postings by date (most recent first):

01/22/07      Fruit in a Bag - Dave Kramer
01/06/07      Sin or Sickness?
08/23/06      Sports Cars and Justice - Dave Kramer
08/23/05      What Did You Just Say?
04/01/05      Do You Take God at His Word?
11/12/04      Therefore!
09/06/04      The Person-driven Life!
05/01/04      Wisdom
02/24/04      Review of The Passion of the Christ
10/10/04      Does the Truth Matter Anymore? Part 5
05/08/03      Does the Truth Matter Anymore? Part 4
03/24/03      Does the Truth Matter Anymore? Part 3
02/25/03      Does the Truth Matter Anymore? Part 2
01/31/03      Does the Truth Matter Anymore? Part 1
01/12/03      Image is Everything!
12/27/02      What is Expository Preaching?
12/12/02      Holiday Questions

 

How can you obtain the video series  "Does the Truth Matter Anymore?"  by John MacArthur? The videos are available from Cross TV ($35+ $7.50 shipping). (I have not been able to find them on the Grace-to-You or Grace Community Church Websites).  So, here's how to get them: 1. Goto http://crosstv.com/ website. 2. On the right side list, choose "Guest Teachers" 3. On the Guest Teachers page go all the way down to #27 to order the videos (it's a two tape set holding 5 parts). Or Call 1-877-CROSSTV If you are local to Auburn, Ca., contact us and we'll loan you a copy!  Free!