Friday, August 18, 2006
Looking In The Wrong Place
One of the questions that has always fascinated me when it comes to global warming is why are people so willing to buy into it. Given that there is far, far more hype than reality, why do people, including many otherwise highly rational people, suspend their natural skepticism and embrace unquestionably the unsupportable doctrine of anthropogenic climate change? And particularly why is this true in Christian circles?
I was reflecting on this question the other day and I think I have come up with a hypothesis. Let's start with fact one. The church today does not talk about sin much. We talk about unhappiness, we talk about wholeness, we talk about health, but we don't talk about good, old sin. You don't hear the word much, you never hear the word depravity, and increasingly, we are not sinful, we just have "unhealthy addicitions" or "succumb to the pull of our hedonistic culture."
And yet, people know the world is not quite right, they know something is very wrong. The apostle Paul put it this way
Catastrophic predictions like global warming prey upon that sense that God has granted us, that sense that things are not as they should be, but they do so in a way that misses the mark. You see the problem is that when we say "global warming" is where things are so wrong, we are taking the focus off of ourselves and placing it on the other. Instead of receiving God's message "I am not as I should be" we go about proclaiming "The world is not what it should be, and it's your fault." Evidence?
Thus we can acknowledge sin without confessing it. Let me repeat that - Catastrophic scenarios like global warming permit us to acknowledge sin, giving due to the that sense that things are not right, without confessing sin.
But the Apostle Paul, in his Spirit inspired wisdom, foresaw this kind of thing for he said above "Professing to be wise, they became fools,". You see it, professing the wisdom of science, we have become fools by drawing conclusions that the data simply do not support, all because we have turned our back on the actual Glory of God.
Again, this does not mean that Christians are not supposed to be environmentally aware, or that we are not to be good stewards of creation. What these means is that we need to keep our priorities straight.
You want to be an environmentally aware Christian? Don't start by buying a hydrid vehicle, start on your kness. Don't just acknowledge sin, confess it. Don't make it one of the Pharisee confessions either - about how glad you are you are more environmentally sensitive and conscious than that poor deluded Schroeder - no, make a genuine confession, allow the Holy Spirit to examine you and to guide you to the depths of your depravity, then ask that same Spirit to remove that depravity from you.
When you are done with that, if you think buying a hybrid is the single most important thing you as a Christian can do, then be my guest, but I suggest you spend more time on your knees before you do.
Related Tags: Christian environmentalism, confession, sin, depravity, global warming
I was reflecting on this question the other day and I think I have come up with a hypothesis. Let's start with fact one. The church today does not talk about sin much. We talk about unhappiness, we talk about wholeness, we talk about health, but we don't talk about good, old sin. You don't hear the word much, you never hear the word depravity, and increasingly, we are not sinful, we just have "unhealthy addicitions" or "succumb to the pull of our hedonistic culture."
And yet, people know the world is not quite right, they know something is very wrong. The apostle Paul put it this way
Rom 1:20-23 - For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.We know that things should be different than they are, and so we go looking for where and why.
Catastrophic predictions like global warming prey upon that sense that God has granted us, that sense that things are not as they should be, but they do so in a way that misses the mark. You see the problem is that when we say "global warming" is where things are so wrong, we are taking the focus off of ourselves and placing it on the other. Instead of receiving God's message "I am not as I should be" we go about proclaiming "The world is not what it should be, and it's your fault." Evidence?
Thus we can acknowledge sin without confessing it. Let me repeat that - Catastrophic scenarios like global warming permit us to acknowledge sin, giving due to the that sense that things are not right, without confessing sin.
But the Apostle Paul, in his Spirit inspired wisdom, foresaw this kind of thing for he said above "Professing to be wise, they became fools,". You see it, professing the wisdom of science, we have become fools by drawing conclusions that the data simply do not support, all because we have turned our back on the actual Glory of God.
Again, this does not mean that Christians are not supposed to be environmentally aware, or that we are not to be good stewards of creation. What these means is that we need to keep our priorities straight.
You want to be an environmentally aware Christian? Don't start by buying a hydrid vehicle, start on your kness. Don't just acknowledge sin, confess it. Don't make it one of the Pharisee confessions either - about how glad you are you are more environmentally sensitive and conscious than that poor deluded Schroeder - no, make a genuine confession, allow the Holy Spirit to examine you and to guide you to the depths of your depravity, then ask that same Spirit to remove that depravity from you.
When you are done with that, if you think buying a hybrid is the single most important thing you as a Christian can do, then be my guest, but I suggest you spend more time on your knees before you do.
Related Tags: Christian environmentalism, confession, sin, depravity, global warming
