TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Apr. 23 2009

In keeping with the biblical mandate to care for God's creation, thousands of people from ten faith traditions have come together to plant 12,000 trees in northern Michigan.

Thousands of volunteers will be picking up tree seedlings on May 2 and planting the equivalent of a forest across 400 miles the following day.

Being stewards of God's creation has taken on greater significance as more Christians view global warming as a serious problem.

According to a Pew Research Center survey from July 2006, 78 percent of white mainline Protestants, 68 percent of white evangelicals and 86 percent of Catholics believe global warming is a serious problem. Nearly half of all Catholics and 40 percent of white mainline Protestants say it's "very serious."

Earlier findings by the Pew Center showed that for Catholics and mainline Protestants, protecting the environment takes priority over abortion and gay marriage concerns. For white evangelicals, the environment still ranks below the cultural issues.

Nevertheless, the Pew Center found a fairly strong consensus across faith traditions on regulations to protect the environment in contrast to other issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

Labels: Audrey Barrick, Earth Day, global warming, interfaith

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Friday, February 08, 2008

Renewable energy, renewed planet

from the February 7, 2008 edition

Problems, personal or worldwide, present an opportunity to turn to prayer. How to slow down global warming and still supply the world's increasing energy needs is one of those challenges. Not only is the problem baffling, but the solutions offered so far have had only a mixed reception.

It's heartening to realize that existing technologies could provide energy that won't pour so much carbon into the atmosphere. And we can expect further developments in this area as well as some form of international agreement on their use. Finding energy sources beside nonrenewable oil and coal is also a promised solution. Yet none of these technologies is without some kind of drawback. So the question remains: how to make good decisions about such complex issues?

There's value in turning to God, Spirit, for solutions. In fact, the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," speaks of energy in spiritual terms. Its author, Mary Baker Eddy, who was very much abreast of the news during her lifetime, declared, "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy" (p. 249).

To shift our thoughts from limited resources that are either quickly being depleted, or that have ecological drawbacks, to looking deeply into God's infinite care for His creation can be quite transforming. For one thing, divine Spirit doesn't include matter – and neither does its creation. The "divine energy of Spirit" might be defined as Love, which supplies direction and strength to fulfill the obligations of a busy life. This divine energy is eternally renewable and includes no element of destruction. It promises that not only can we personally expect a wonderful feeling of newness but that Spirit can inspire humanity to discover new methods for generating energy and reveal new ways to help save our planet.

Many thinkers today are recognizing that the universe, including man, is more than a material creation and actually has a spiritual origin. In their eyes, the universe is governed by spiritual law and powered by unlimited and renewable divine energy. This energy naturally finds expression in new and better ways of living.

In reality, we are dwellers in a spiritual universe where all energy is divine. The more we recognize and yield to this divine energy, the more we'll feel not only newness of life individually but also find more ways of conserving and renewing all the elements that make up daily living. Each of us has our part in working together to accept the divine energy that God is providing and to let God guide us to steps we can take to renew our planet.

Labels: energy, global warming, God, Mary Baker Eddy, prayer, spirituality

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Bishops Tell Christians to Give Up Some Carbon for Lent

By Alexis Madrigal February 07, 2008

Two Church of England Bishops want their followers to join them in a "Carbon Fast" for Lent, the 40 day period in which many Christians abstain from eating or imbibing some favored item.

But really the plan is closer to a carbon diet than a fast. According to the UK's Independent, those joining the fast will, among other carbon-cutting tips, "be asked to remove one lightbulb from a prominent place in the home and live without it for 40 days."

The bishops green stance is not about protecting the environment, per se, but rather a call to lessen global warming's impact on the residents of third-world nations.

"It is the poor who are already suffering the effects of climate change. To carry on regardless of their plight is to fly in the face of Christian teaching," James Jones and Dr. Richard Chartres, bishops of Liverpool and London, respectively, said in a statement. "There’s a moral imperative on those of us who emit more than our fair share of carbon to rein in our consumption."

Those words would be music to the ears of environmental folks here in the States who have long held skeptical hopes that Christians, particularly evangelicals led by Richard Cizik, would become a potent new constituency in an emerging climate change political coalition.

But pro-environmental evangelical “calls to action” in February 2006 and January 2007 haven't seemed to make much of an impact on the mass of US evangelicals, at least according to a 2007 survey released by the Christian consulting firm, The Barna Group.

One thousand random US adults were asked the question, “Think about how you would like the United States to change within the next 10 years…” and given a wide variety of areas of concern they’d like to improve including the reliability of news coverage, national security in the US, and the health of Christian churches. Among the total survey group, 60% of people felt that “investment in environmental protection” should be a top priority. But those meeting “born-again criteria” felt differently:

Evangelicals stood out regarding their views on the environment. Only 35% said that protecting the environment should be a top priority - the lowest score recorded among any of the 80 subgroups studied.

Even though the Barna survey's phrasing seems destined to draw negative reactions with the inclusion of the they’ll-raise-your-taxes codephrase “investment,” it still doesn't begin to explain evangelical distaste for environmental issues evidenced in the results.

It's clear that here in the States, we have a long way to go before mainstream Evangelicals are willing to do anything green, even if some other polls show less disheartening results (pdf).

Labels: Americans, Barna Group, carbon fast, Christian, evangelicals, global warming, Lent

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Saturday, September 01, 2007

Scientists, Evangelicals Team Up For Alaska Expedition

Date: August 30, 2007

Science Daily — The historic collaboration between leading scientists and Evangelicals to protect the environment, spearheaded by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) continues this week with a trip to Alaska.

A group of five scientists and five evangelical leaders began traveling together on August 25th to observe first- hand the dramatic effects of climate change on local people and on the land, ocean, plants, and wildlife of the nation's northernmost state.

"The goal of our trip is to witness together what human-caused climate change is doing to our world," said co-leader of the trip Eric Chivian, who shared the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize and is Director of the HMS Center. "While this collaboration may come as a surprise to some, it makes perfect sense. Both scientists and Evangelicals see life on earth as sacred and share the same deep sense of responsibility about protecting it."

"The idea is for all of us to experience what human activity is doing to God's Creation so that we can understand the urgent importance of caring for it," added expedition co- leader Rev. Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the NAE. "We dare to imagine a world in which science and religion cooperate, minimizing our differences about how Creation got started, to work together to reverse its degradation."

Led by a naturalist from Homer, Carmen Field, the group began its journey with a two-day stop in Shishmaref, a traditional Inupiaq Eskimo village in the Bering Strait with a population of about 500 people. The Inupiats have inhabited this village, located on Sarichef Island in the Chukchi Sea, for over 400 years. Because of melting sea ice and permafrost, however, the village is at high risk from storm surge erosion, and already 14 houses have fallen into the sea in recent years, raising concern that the village will soon need to be relocated to the mainland.

"People in the Arctic are among the most vulnerable on Earth due to the impacts of climate change," said James McCarthy, Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University, an expert on climate change and the Arctic, and President-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest scientific society. "They depend on intact sea ice and permafrost, both of which are rapidly disappearing, for their hunting and fishing, indeed for their very lives."

The group will also stop at Portage and Exit glaciers to witness the rapid, unprecedented melting of glacial ice, and at the Kenai Peninsula, where more than three million acres of spruce forests have been killed by exploding populations of Spruce Bark Beetles, brought on by warming temperatures.

During the week-long expedition the group will meet with scientists, physicians, local church leaders, and evangelical pastors in Shishmaref, Anchorage, and Homer to learn directly from Alaskans about how they are coping with the effects of climate change. Leith Anderson, Senior Pastor of Wooddale Church and President of the NAE said, "It is very important to involve Alaskan pastors in our work, for they are central in helping to spread the message about the importance of Creation Care."

The Scientists-Evangelical Alaska Expedition grew out of a collaboration that began at a two-day private retreat in December 2006 attended by 30 leaders from the scientific and evangelical communities. The retreat led to close relationships of mutual trust and understanding among the participants and to the release in January 2007 of an "Urgent Call to Action," a pledge that these leaders would speak with one voice in their shared commitment to protect life on Earth.

Trip Participants:

Leith Anderson D.Min, M.Div., President, National Association of Evangelicals; Senior Pastor, Wooddale Church
Eric Chivian M.D., Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School; Shared 1985 Nobel Peace Prize
Richard Cizik M.Div, M.A., Vice President for Governmental Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals
Deborah Fikes M.A., Advisor, Ministerial Alliance of Midland, Texas; Special Advisor to Governor Kim Moon-soo, Republic of Korea; Advisory Committee, Senator Sam Brownback; President; D.H. Fikes International Inc.
Peter Heltzel Ph.D., M.Div., Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology, New York Theological Seminary
Harry Jackson D.Div, M.B.A., Bishop and Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church
James McCarthy Ph.D., Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University
Camille Parmesan Ph.D., Associate Professor, Section of Integrative Biology, University of Texas
Peter Raven Ph.D., President, Missouri Botanical Garden; George Engelmann Professor of Botany, Washington University
Carl Safina Ph.D., President, Blue Ocean Institute; Adjunct Professor, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Harvard Medical School.

Labels: Alaska, evangelicals, global warming, God, Harvard Medical School, National Association of Evangelicals, religion, scientists

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Religious leaders urge action on warming

Mon May 21, 5:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders are urging President George W. Bush and Congress to take action against global warming, declaring that the changing climate is a "moral and spiritual issue."

In an open letter to be published on Tuesday, more than 20 religious groups urged U.S. leaders to limit greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable energy sources.

"Global warming is real, it is human-induced and we have the responsibility to act," says the letter, which will run in Roll Call and the Politico, two Capitol Hill newspapers.

"We are mobilizing a religious force that will persuade our legislators to take immediate action to curb greenhouse gases," it says.

The letter is signed by top officials of the National Council of Churches, the Islamic Society of North America and the political arm of the Reform branch of Judaism.

Top officials from several mainline Christian denominations, including the Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church and Alliance of Baptists also signed the letter, along with leaders of regional organizations and individual churches.

Rev. Joel Hunter, a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals, also signed the letter, though that group has not officially taken a stance on global warming due to opposition from some of its more conservative members.

Labels: Christian, church, global warming, Islamic, Jewish, responsibility