There’s a reason Al Gore is getting frustrated with the fact that his global warming message is not being well-received by the populace: despite all the fancy presentations, people aren’t willing to believe in something that feels more like a 1970s Pre-Trib Rapture scare film than it does a compelling encouragement to be better stewards our environment.
The facts speak for themselves. In reality, the earth has warmed one degree in the past 100 years, and the warmest on record was 1997, over a decade ago (so “warming” is not occurring presently). The so-called “scientific consensus,” that is, the U.N.’s own IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, has scientific articles that are noncommittal at best, but are largely not the consensus as Gore would have us believe. We also know (after Gore released his presentation) that CO2 emissions are always preceded by temperature increases, not the other way around (which would be like saying lung cancer causes smoking). Left out in most explanations of the problem is the fact that solar energy increases align more accurately with the Earth’s global temperature increases, as well as the fact that Mars and some moons on Jupiter are also experiencing global warming. More grossly exaggerated are the computer model scenarios, which have recently been debunked by the same scientists who created them. Even the IPCC data only estimates sea level rises to be a few inches, not twenty feet, as Gore predicts.
Gore hasn’t fooled the British. Not only have the court systems in England mandated that any presentation in public schools of An Inconvenient Truth be counterpointed with an opposing viewpoint, recent polling says that 70% of British believe that the warnings about climate change are simply propaganda for higher taxes.
So what does this mean for Christians? Tony Campolo, in Adventures in Missing the Point, says that Christians should be leading the way in “creation care.” I think he is absolutely correct because the narrative of Christianity has (in my estimation) the best basis for creation care compared to every other narrative, especially Darwinian evolution. Unfortunately, however, many of our Christian leaders are selling out to the socialist agenda. While declaring it our responsibility and mandate to take care of the environment, credence is given to the far left global warming propaganda. As I was reading Jim Wallis’ The Great Awakening, I was eager to read about his creation care theology and why we as Christians should be taking better care of the environment. Because Wallis has typically been pretty fair to two sides that disagree, and tends to come to a “middle ground,” I was greatly disappointed that he succumbed to the same tactics used by Al Gore et al: claim it as undeniable truth, call any dissenters “out of touch,” and insist that the issue is “settled.” Brian McLaren does a much better job at encouraging creation care: he merely cites the passion with which Al Gore preaches his message, and hopes that we as Christians would have the same fervor.
To be rather honest, I’m sick and tired of Christians standing alongside far left political leaders who have nothing to offer except socialist agendas dubbed as “solutions.” Why aren’t they standing up as Christian leaders proposing Christian solutions to a problem that Christians should be tackling? Why aren’t they standing up against non-Christian tactics and proclaiming the real reason to be engaged in creation care? Instead, they have partnered with those who have used fear tactics and name-calling to silence opposing visions, and smear them as “anti-environment.”
If there’s any question about my role as a citizen of the world, a child of God, and a thinking (not brainwashed) human being, let me spell it out: God created the world for us to “tend and keep,” not rape (sorry, Ann Coulter!). God has endowed us with the skills and talent to take better care of the environment, and it’s about time we do a much better job. As human beings (and especially as Christians), we should be championing the way to better and more eco-friendly ways of living. We should be “evangelizing” by our witness and our conversations that this is part of our lives as followers of Jesus. Because we believe the world was created by God, we believe we are to take better care of it than we have.
It’s pretty simple, really.
Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.
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