Thursday, February 09, 2006
This Is Not Going To Come Out Well
Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."Holy Coast says it pretty well:
Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."
As I see it there are only a couple of ways this can go. One way is that churches will become deeply embroiled in endless and heavy debates over "hockey stick curves," "data reliablity," "correlation coeffficients," "sufficient sampling sets," "urban heating effects" and on the list goes. Important issues no doubt, but they aren't the gospel. Along this path the church will lose its way and its mission.
The other way this could go is that people concerned about precisely what I just described will shy from such debate in an effort to keep the church focused on what really matters - the gospel. However, the net result of that will be that the church will end up granting its moral authority to matters of questionable (at least) science captive to political motive. By granting that authority to such a specious issue, that authority will be lessened for matters where it is really needed. Like the boy who cried wolf, the church will sacrifice its credibility and not have it available when it is really needed.
Mostly this move shows a gross misunderstanding of the mission of the church. The church's job is to make disciples. Disciples of evey strip and color, every profession. In so doing those disciples will bring the gospel to bear in any given professional arena. Thus the church will have its participation without losing its mission and without sacrificing its credibility.
But, will come the rejoinder - this is about the poor! Indeed; however, what do we do about the poor? The same things we have always done, of course. If the church hides behind its call to feed the poor to justify its actions in this case what it does is say that the ends justifies the means -- the church says that it is willing to coerce, perhaps even blackmail, a transfer of wealth on bases that are at least overwrought if not genuinely false. Does that sound like following Christ's example?
Secondly, what this argument about the poor does is repeat the mistake of the American welfare state - it is the church trying to force the government, or in this case governments, to do its job, sacrificing in a very real sense its soul.
Today I weep for the church.
Related Tags: global warming, evangelicals, National Association of Evangelicals, the gospel, mission, credibility, church and politics
