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EVANGELICALS AND A GREEN REVOLUTION Global warming christians: A new ally on the front lines?

Evangelical leaders have begun to emphasize the importance of Earth stewardship--including combating global warming

Date published: 2/18/2007

SHOULD CARING for the environment be a major priority for people of faith? Only a few years ago, I would have blithely answered this question "No." Care for the natural world was not a priority of our governmental affairs work. Nor was it a priority in my personal and family life.

What changed? I changed.

I realized I was violating the biblical commands "to serve and to protect" creation (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew words to serve, avad, and to protect, shamar, mean we must be care-takers, not just takers.

I had to turn about and go in another direction. That's what the biblical word for repentance means.

What got my attention, and keeps it, is the impact of climate change, habitat destruction, and species extinction on Earth. Sir John Houghton, the first chair of the Scientific Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--and an evangelical Christian--made a presentation on the impacts of global warming to the Oxford Conference of 2002.

Among those sitting in the audience was a skeptic; that person was me. It took the unequivocal evidence of climate change--significantly caused by humans and irreversible in its nature--to shake me out of my own lethargy.

It's been said that if you don't now-and-then change your opinion about something, check your pulse--you may be dead. Millions of my fellow believers need to examine themselves.

We do not own this Earth. Indeed, the phrase "the earth is the Lord's" (Psalm 24:1) was first used by Moses as part of a dire warning to the arrogant, oppressive, and possessive Pharaoh of Egypt (Exodus 9:29).

The Pharaoh learned the hard way that the Lord did not turn the ownership of Earth over to people. It is a sin to ignore this eternal principle--with consequences to people of faith who deny it.

For whatever reason, the Lord seems more patient with us in the 21st century, but how long will that last?

Time is running out. The natural world is imperiled by human activity, especially by our unsustainable burning of fossil fuels and our degradation of living systems.

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Date published: 2/18/2007