What is your alternative opinion. Thats all im asking.
My take away was not to discuss them personally beyond the overlap with the conversation that the only time I see a sort of “pagan” nature worship combined with Christianity is with the Unity Churches who seem to mostly be using biblical language in a loose way.
Outside of that I have never seen hardly any Christians also worship nature.
Sorry. Paul’s. That all are saved by, in, thanks be to, Christ. That Jesus saves as He says on the tin. Everyone.
Debatable but respected
Debatable? What, Jesus’ faithfulness is insufficient to save all?
Pretty much. If you reject him with all your heart
Why would anyone and why is that a problem for Him if they do, whatever it could possibly mean?
If you want to think God is a junta dictator forcing you do to whatever he wants well feel free to think that . I dont. I wont continue since i feel we hijacked this thread.
Why would I want to think that? How would I ever think that? What’s it got to do with Love winning?
Oh and yeah, Christians are appalling on the environment in America.
I from Poland, so I have contact with polish movements and international movements that also are active in Poland. It is probably fair to say, that most of this international movements originated in USA, to lesser degree in UK, but I can’t be sure without checking it out.
Maybe this is boring to you, but for the reason of clarity I should stay it. From the coming of CCCP Red Army in the 1944 to 1989 Poland was a part of Easter Block, which in many cases was based more on the military force, than on consent of the people. Polish United Workers Party allows only handful of organization working in independent or semiindependent way. I believe, but I’m not sure, that prewar conservationist movements in Poland was squased by PUWP after 1944 as too independent and to weak to resist. This may looks strange, why polish communists want to crush environmentalists movements? People should know that during his history Polish United Workers Party few times send army with tanks to stop workers protests (as in the December of 1970), so they weren’t people that like any dissent. Also they were for heavy industrialization, without carrying to much about pollution. You may know, that pollution in Poland is quite big to this day.
This can be important, because it seems to me, that environmentalists movement here start from scratch in big vacuum after 1989. I suppose if you take as your reference frame USA, UK, France of even old West Germany, you can have incomplete picture how things works here.
How I write before, I don’t have any hard research at my hand. This is just estimation based on my personal experience, which is varying from having colleagues involved in environmentalism to just founding some information about them in some lectures about Christianity in USA after 1945. One case of worshiping trees as supposedly pious act, I heard in one such historical lecture, when speaker was describing his encounter with such group. I believe that happens in the state of New York, but I can’t be sure.
Fair enough. My skepticism of its applicability here in the U.S. also is not based on any research either, but just my own experience here. So I have no reason to doubt your estimate with regard to Poland. You would have quite a different history behind all this than what I’m familiar with.
And again … we do have all sorts here in the U.S. - some of whom will make news with their views. I think there have been considerable changes in these attitudes since 1945.
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One person that thoughts are worrying me and which I can mention by name is Fergus Kerr. I don’t want to mention people with I have personal conversation, but Kerr publish his views, so he made them open for public discussion. He is Scottish by birth and judging by his works, liberal catholic in faith.
In once of his books he discuss begging of Genesis and he come to creation of man. By philological analysis of some Hebrew words he shows what features God give man and says that we should rejected this statement. His argument is that God give man to much and these make man dangerous to natural world, so for the sake of environment, this part of the Bible should be overlooked. I write this from memory, so I can make some errors, but the core of reasoning should be right.
There are many approach to Bible among Christians and on this forum. For me, such thing is not acceptable.
First, Kamil - I’ve been meaning to compliment you on how well you engage here in a language that I imagine may not be your favored or native tongue, and yet you do so very well in it. I only know one language well enough to speak in, and the other language that I have only dabbled in (Spanish) I wouldn’t be able to use to say even a tenth of what you manage to discuss here. So I admire the lingual flexibility that is so commonplace in so much of the rest of the world, and so unfortunately rare here in the U.S.
Thanks for your reference to Fergus Kerr. I’ve not heard of him or read his works, but at least he’s famous enough to have a brief Wikipedia entry for him. Just based off what you say about him, he does sound like he takes the Genesis text in directions that many among the believers here probably would not follow. But it does seem indisputable to me that, whatever one’s position on God’s commission to humans, we are in a position to do incredible harm to the environment and to those around us, not to mention future citizens of our planet.
English may be my only effective language, … so using it, I do seek as much clarity (understanding) as I can find. With that in mind, forgive me for asking about your statement above: What is it you find unacceptable? That there is a diversity of approaches to the Bible? Or is it just Fergus’ Kerr’s particular approach you object to?
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There is some tendency among various conservative religious groups in the US and elsewhere to be anti-environmental. This reflects assorted factors, including the general political entanglement of environmentalism (in the US, it has gotten associated with the political left, and allowing corporations to pollute with the political right, while ethical stances on certain issues have led to conservative religious groups aligning with the political right), the perception that this world doesn’t matter at all because God will end it soon, romanticizing the history of settlement with its clearing and modification of the environment, etc. I think that the claim that faith in God will mean that you don’t do anything about global warming or the like is a later excusing of such stances rather than a starting theological assumption. (It’s a very bad argument, logically equivalent to “Jump off the temple!
God promises to protect you!”)
Lynn White famously published in Science an article claiming that Christianity was a major cause of environmental harm. He cited the dominion over the earth mentioned in Genesis 1:26 and the “it’s just going to burn at the second coming anyway” attitude. The article has been widely cited. However, the article contains no citations of its own; the supporting evidence is rather weak. Nevertheless, there are certainly factors out there that might prompt an environmentalist to think that their concern for the well-being of creation clashes with Christianity. Often, that is associated with romanticizing native cultures.
But if one pays any attention to the biblical evidence as to what constitutes a good ruler, it will quickly become clear that ruling the earth well calls for us to be servants, promoting the good of what is entrusted to us.
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There has always been a strain of anti-intellectualism within some American churches and in America in general. In fact, a book on the subject won the Pulitzer in 1964.
Recent times have only shed more light on this problem.
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