Tuesday, June 10, 2014
"Wierd" Is Putting It Mildly
Mark Tooley tackles a Vanity Fair piece and the rhetoric of Evangelical environmentalists:
It is dangerous on scientific terms. It deals in hyperbole and imagery when the situation calls for facts, data and thought.
It is dangerous on a human level. It conflates deep, purposeful evil with something that is at its worst a bad priority choice.
It is dangerous on a theological level. It assumes a God's eye view, something we are never to have.
We are indeed called to be good stewards of the environment, but when can only do so when we are good stewards of ourselves and our language.
christian environmentalism
But the spirit of Cizik’s Vogue hagiographic Vanity Fair photo shoot was revived when the priest of Cizik’s Anglican church in Virginia recently compared his parishioner to Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch heroine who hid Jews from the Nazis during World War II. He also cites Oskar Schindler of “Schindler’s List.” The priest explains:The piece is titles "The Weird Rhetoric of Environmental 'Holocaust'" I don't think it is weird, I think it is dangerous. Really, seriously dangerous.
Another kind of holocaust is going on today, one that touches not just Jews and other people groups. It is environmental and it is global. If you do not think so just take a deep breath while meandering through a Beijing hutong, or grab an unfiltered drink from our capital’s Potomac River.
It is dangerous on scientific terms. It deals in hyperbole and imagery when the situation calls for facts, data and thought.
It is dangerous on a human level. It conflates deep, purposeful evil with something that is at its worst a bad priority choice.
It is dangerous on a theological level. It assumes a God's eye view, something we are never to have.
We are indeed called to be good stewards of the environment, but when can only do so when we are good stewards of ourselves and our language.
christian environmentalism
