Who's listening to whom?

There's an interesting piece in the Christian Post about a group of evangelical leaders and climate-change experts, banding together to convince Christians to join the fight against climate change. While it appears on the surface to be a breakthrough for climate-change activists in coming together with Christians, there's an underlying theme that the body of Christ is divided over the issue.

With that, we should see, once again, that God is nowhere to be found in this discussion -- aside from lip service from the activists' opponents, who say, "well, of course we have to take care of God's creation, but ..."

One of the points in my book, A Very Convenient Truth -- real hope in the face of environmental fears, is that the division and sharp, personal tone of the discussion over climate change is one of the indicators that God has been left out of the discussion. If "the science is settled", why are people who apparently have some expertise on the subject questioning it? If "the science is settled", why are these people subjected to personal attacks?

The apparent division within the church -- divided, I notice, between those who have President Obama's ear and those who don't -- can only spawn confusion, and God is not the author of confusion.

But He is the author of His Word, and in this article -- aside from the general platitude about caring for Creation -- I don't see Word One from Scripture.

Let me offer something.

"If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I look down from Heaven, and will hear their prayers, and will heal their land."
-- 2 Chron. 7:14

Were that the only passage in Scripture that tells us where God stands in this, that should be all we need. But (as you'd read in A Very Convenient Truth) His Word is peppered with these references. The state of the environment is dependent on the state of our relationship with Him. It's not a matter of GHG or CAC -- it's a matter of GOD.

Is there climate change? YES -- but ...
Are humans responsible? YES -- but ...
Can humans fix it? YES -- but ...

The "but ..." is this: climate change (the way I see it) is a combination of God playing out His plan and people falling away from Him, leaving His Creation unprotected. The ball started rolling in the first place when we failed to "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it". The only way we can fix it is by turning back to Him, and praise God, He sent His Son that we can repent for that sin and be redeemed and get on with having life more abundantly.

Don't worry about the environment. Worry is a sin, because it assumes God is not going to fulfill His promise.

God promises to heal the land if we turn back to Him. We may not be able to see what "healing" looks like, but God does. And have you ever noticed that the activists haven't really presented a clear picture of what a "healed" planet looks like? There's a lot of talk about fighting climate change, but how do we know when we've won?

What we need to remember is that environmentalist solutions can be at cross-purposes to the Will of God -- and when that happens, whose word should take precedence?

To a Christian, that one should be a no-brainer.

After all, what we've done thus far, using our own intellect, hasn't worked -- and you'd think that, after about 60 years of concerted effort to turn things around by "leaning on our own understanding", we'd be out of the woods. Instead, we keep hearing things are getting worse.

So it's a challenge to the activists: do you want a healed planet, or don't you?

And it's a challenge to the churches. Deborah Fikes of the World Evangelical Alliance says churches "lack the spiritual will" to take action. Here's my question to the Deborah, the WEA and Christians in general: do you believe the Bible, or don't you?


Now, the devil would make us believe that there's such an urgency to the climate change issue, that it's too important for us to leave to prayer.


I believe it's too important for us not to give to God.