Was there anything I said or didn’t say that conveyed I think they are exclusive? But it seems for Paul in this passage, one without the other, saving the environment or racial harmony, without worshipping God, would be like gaining the world while losing your soul.
I think that for Christians, caring for the fate of the Earth during the near future is a matter of love and compassion, in addition to honoring humbly the fact that the Earth belongs to God and we were given responsibility for taking care of it as stewards of His world.
It is a fact that millions of people suffer because of negative environmental changes caused by humans, including the climate change. We should show love and compassion towards these people by helping where we can. Even small changes in our lifestyle may help these people, if a large enough group acts. I do not believe that God is pleased to see how uncaring our attitude is towards the suffering people - I say ‘our’ because I am as guilty as anybody.
If someone suffers and another person helps the suffering one, does it really matter if the person helping is a believer or not (yet)? Are we so hard and holy that we cannot appreciate the help given by those who do not (yet) believe?
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Like helping the poor, what we do is highly contextual. Do I take a vow of poverty? Man made religion has an appearance of godliness like this. Biblical religion threads a tighter needle. I would be interested in a real summary of what can be done practically in the context of faith. Like what Grudem did with The Poverty of the Nations. A summary that can distinguish between ideological (Marxist) environmentalism and faithful stewardship of the planet.
Totally agree. I think there is a difference between what is essentially naval gazing and handwringing and serious lament and confession. The first might make us feel better in the short-term but effects little long-term change, it is the second, I think, that drives sustainable action. I’m reminded of Paul’s description of Godly sorrow:
See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. ~2 Corinthians 7:11 (NIV2011)
Such a response is by and large a response driven by the Holy Spirit, and yet I’m all too quick to open my mouth and all to slow to get on my knees. Not that the two are mutually exclusive of course.
Indeed, and pushing the thought further. What of the contents of his world? Christians are quick to, and rightly so, point out God’s creativity in the natural world; the way it reveals and glorifies him. And yet, our actions and inactions are perpetuating what some are calling the Sixth Great Extinction event. It is one thing for an asteroid or ice age to clean house (something that could be providentially seen as an act of God). It is another thing for humanity to be driving such a collapse. Is it too far to say we are acting like vandals in God’s art gallery?
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I think here an analogy though imperfect might be helpful. What if we looked at these issues (poverty, the climate crisis, etc.) as a chronic condition? If we did we might distinguish between actions that are treatments and those that are cures. You’ll get no disagreement from me that the gospel is the cure for the world’s ills. However, in the meantime, I believe that mercy and compassion should lead us to provide treatments that can help alleviate the symptoms too. We would not deny someone a good treatment to alleviate their short-term pain because they’ve not yet discovered where to get a cure.
Consider the Widow at Nain in Luke 7. Jesus seeing her grief could have offered her the cure for her sorrows. “Do not be afraid, I am the resurrection and the life, I have come to shut the doors on death and hades forever! In me, they’ll be no more crying, or mourning, or sadness, or pain.” But instead, “moved with compassion for her” (v13) Jesus brings the son back to life. From one perspective, a short-term solution to the problem of death for both the mother and her son.
Millions of people are suffering, the planet is suffering, do we deny any treatment whilst we wait for the cure? So sure let’s talk about what can be done and how effectively we might do it, but let’s have that conversation whilst we’re doing something.
[Edit:] I appreciate I answered neither of your questions @heymike3. 
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Sounds good. I’m just confused why anyone would still look sideways when there is an easy way to disprove atheism.
Being ignored as long as I have, I have learned to swim well in these waters 
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Hey, Benjamin87.
I’ve been swamped lately and haven’t had a chance to get back to this thread to reply to your comment.
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Yeah. I get it. I’ll trust your number. It’s probably optimistic. I was almost done with college, when my friends went and drank champagne sitting on the Berlin Wall, watching the fire works. The concept of “Mutually Assured Destruction” is part of the background of my formation. “Someone else’s leaders needs kill Pacific Atoll.” One of my favorite movies is The Atomic Cafe. I am not naive. Irreparable damage has been done. And that’s only one form.
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Stereotypes are a stupid game that lead to stupid conclusions. Don’t play.
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You sure? Well, on this you’re right. I don’t have clearance for that. Have I voted for some who did? Probably.
When I talk about lament and confession, I’m not imagining myself guilty for things I haven’t done. Issues like slavery, the Holocaust, the abominible varieties of treatments of all sorts of minorities before I was an adult or somewhere else in the world are not on my conscience. But they should be on my mind. I AM responsible for what I do directly and for what I participate in. Being part of a system that perpetuates injustices of all kinds DOES make me complicit, if I choose to deny the facts, or choose ignore them. As a Christian, I have no excuse for taking no action, even if alone my efforts are negligible. Intelligent action done stragetically over time HAS made a difference in many ways. Jesus didn’t even guarantee that our actions would make a difference. He told us to love our neighbors. If we aren’t doing that, then we are disobeying.
Of course, this brings up every possible question of legalistic definitions, and how much is enough, and how much is too much, and what action is the right action, etc. I don’t have those answers for you. Pick something that’s important to you that’s in your wheelhouse. Do that.
There’s more than enough work for everyone.
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This thread was getting a bit messy with two conversations happening at the same time. So…
If you’d like to continue discussing the OP (below), please stay in this thread
If you’d like to argue the facts and reality of the climate crisis, please go here:
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Interesting reflection and great questions. Let me try to tackle this one:
How much ought the climate crisis change how we read joyful nature passages in scripture?
Let me put it this way, our climate crisis changes EVERYTHING about how I read the Bible. The current climate crisis and Xianity’s complicity in bringing it about is one big reason I am deconstructing my traditional evangelical faith into something else.
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Welcome @Elias_Kruger. It is great to have your voice in the conversation
Would you feel comfortable providing an example or two? Is it that you are reading the bible with a more ecologically aware approach or is it that you are questioning what it says and/or what you’ve been taught it says about the climate? Or something else? Would love to hear your thoughts.
There are certainly important questions to be asked and traditional teachings to be held to account and revised. Praying that you know the Holy Spirit’s leading and presence as you work through this process.
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Hi @LM77 and thanks for your generous engagement in this forum. in regards to your first question, I would limit myself to Genesis. You may or may not be familiar with the critique of Lyn White’s essay “the root of our ecological crisis” regarding Gen 1:26-28. In short, he links the ecological crisis to that verse and more specifically (the idea that earth is a resource to be “managed” and exploited rather than an ecosystem), to the anthropocentrism embedded in the Bible and in most of Christian theology. One could suggest that we can address climate while still holding an anthropocentric view of stewardship. I don’t think it goes far enough. We need to redefine our relationships with nature and re-think our relationship with an all-powerful royal ruler god. To be fair, I am not suggesting that the Bible created the crisis but it was complicit in building and sustaining an anthropocentric view of the world. There lies the problem. Hence, if we change to a bio-centric view, our reading of the Bible changes in profound ways.
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Thanks for your reply Elias and for your further thoughts. I’ve not read Lyn’s article but will certainly look it up.
I think it is an important point you/he raises about Gen 1:26-28, misinterpretations and misappropriations of this verse have caused a lot of problems over the years. Though, and not wanting to pre-judge Lyn’s arguments, I am not sure that all the blame can be levelled here. However, we understand the first few chapters of Genesis from a historical perspective, I think the picture from Chapters 1 & 2 is that humanity was intended to live in dependence and interdependence with the natural world (fruit trees to eat, Adam pictured as the gardener made for the garden, etc.
The picture that quickly unfolds from Gen 3 onwards though is one of accumulation and consumption. I was reflecting on Genesis 13 this week that when Abram and Lot’s herds and households become too big for both to be sustained in the same place their decision is to separate and go their separate ways and each to find a new patch of land to settle on. However, seeking God’s wisdom is conspicuous by its absence in the passage and so neither stop to consider that if the land is not able to sustain them perhaps the problem is with them and their stuff and not the land. Dependence and interdependence are no longer on anyone’s radar.
I do agree also that our view of the bible is going to need to change as we seek to explore what a faithful, Christian, eco-theological reading might look like. I wonder though, as I alluded to above, the Bible might have been an unwilling accomplice in the justification for vandalising God’s world. And that as we seek a better more creation honouring approach we might recover more and more of a Hebrew worldview that was lost as the Church moved to the West.
Just thinking out loud here, but would love to hear your thoughts. Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood you at any point too.
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I come at this from my background of lifelong bird watching and involvement in bird conservation. Also as an Anglican Franciscan, living the ethos of St Francis of Assisi who saw all the natural world as his brothers and sisters who show forth God’s glory. If we do not respond in love back to creation we are destroying something God loves.
Even if climate change is not all our fault, if there is the slightest chance we can change things for the better , we should do it.
Even if the is completion of God’s kingdom to come, we should anticipate it in our own actions.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, @cosmicscotus. I totally agree. The evidence strongly suggests that our actions are driving the decline and extinction of swathes of the biosphere. I find the cold indifference of so many Christian’s to this reality deeply troubling.
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Also, I recently came across the Earth Bible Commentary series which looks like a fascinating addition to the conversation. Six titles so far on a range of Biblical books.
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This looks super interesting. I do so appreciate contemporary commentaries from life-long scholars who are theologically sound… I did do a quick read of the series editor Norm Habel and I wasn’t encouraged by what I read about his rewriting of Genesis 1:26-28.
Please do share anything you find illuminating. I think Longman would be a good source for commentary when he writes about ecotheology as I assume he has. His book on politics was so clear sighted, that I should look into what he has to write about the environment.
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Lynn White’s essay can be found various places, including here:
The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis
(https://www.cmu.ca/faculty/gmatties/lynnwhiterootsofcrisis.pdf)
However, note that there are no cited sources whatsoever; it is not nuanced historical scholarship, although it does identify a real problem.
I do not know why, but both young-earth and ID movements have often allied themselves with the anti-environmental movement and climate change denial. Not only does that clash with claims to care about creation, but also the rate of climate changes implied by YEC should be extremely alarming.
Two major challenges relate to determining how to properly respond to the environmental crises around us. One is determining where our individual energies can best be directed. There are many other major problems, as well as the daily tasks to attend to - what should I focus on and what should I leave to others? Second is not demanding that everyone else focus on my issue. We each have our own callings, and I need to recognize that, if you are focused on something worthwhile, you do not need to leave it and work on something else (assuming that you are not neglecting essentials).
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I’m not aware of anything specific by my boy TL3, but I am sure he must have discussed environmental topics in passing at least. I’d also be interested in a book by him on the subject, if you find one, do let me know.
Sadly, there are so few evangelical and reformed voices offering anything constructive in this conversation that beggars don’t have the luxury of being choosers. I’m also a big fan of reading as widely as possible, so don’t mind digging into books by authors I know I don’t share some core foundations. Steven Chase, for example, the author of the book mentioned in the OP is a Catholic.
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