Essay by Eric Worrall
The National Association of Evangelicals has admitted it is difficult to convince their members to take climate change seriously.
US evangelical group releases climate change report, urges a Biblical mandate for action
30 August 2022 JACK JENKINS
Washington DC, US
RNSThe National Association of Evangelicals unveiled a sweeping report on Monday on global climate change, laying out what its authors call the “Biblical basis” for environmental activism to help spur fellow evangelicals to address the planetary environmental crisis.
“Creation, although groaning under the fall, is still intended to bless us. However, for too many in this world, the beach isn’t about sunscreen and bodysurfing but is a daily reminder of rising tides and failed fishing,” reads the introduction of the report, penned by NAE President Walter Kim.
“Instead of a gulp of fresh air from a lush forest, too many children take a deep breath only to gasp with the toxic air that has irritated their lungs.”
But the authors admit persuading evangelicals is no small task, considering the religious group has historically been one of the demographics most resistant to action on the issue.
…
Read more: https://www.sightmagazine.com.au/news/26513-us-evangelical-group-releases-climate-change-report-urges-a-biblical-mandate-for-action
The most striking aspect of most of these efforts to persuade Evangelical Christians, even this national association push, is how patronising they are. The Evangelical Christians I know are reluctant to accept the climate alarmist message, because they are still waiting for alarmists to present evidence there is a problem.
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In God we trust, everyone else needs to bring evidence.
If only, but diverse precedents indicate that mortal gods and goddesses and experts of all manner in secular societies are more likely to capture people’s… persons’ trust and dictate their religion (i.e. behavioral protocol). That said, separation of logical domains is a notable feature of modern religion.
Exodus 20.3.You shall have no other gods before me
So there ARE other gods? I can take God’s word for it?
People bow down to them and sacrifice to them and pray to them. Thus, “gods” exist: in their own minds (and, if actually demons, they exist).
Pretty amazing, huh? What goes on inside our tiny little minds matters, and matters very much, to God.
Indeed. God is an extrauniversal entity who set the universe in motion, then delegated management to Nature and individual consciousness.
“God is an extrauniversal entity who set the universe in motion, then delegated management to Nature and individual consciousness.”
Naturally, that’s what a rational Deity would do in such circumstances. A brilliance of bounded thinking indeed!
Brilliant
Yes, finite domain gods, mortal gods and goddesses, and experts of all manner who dictate behavior (i.e. religion) in what are ostensibly secular societies. Let us perform human rites to curry their favor in social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather (e.g. climate stasis) causes.
Most of the milenarian preachers have the same sort of record as climate change or other environmentalists. The major difference is that failed preachers of doom lose their credibility with failed predictions, while greens seemingly do not.
I do question the intelligence of vast numbers of people who still believe the warmunist dogma, after all the predictions of calamity have failed. Seems to prove that it’s a cult, not a science.
Doubling down on delusion and hallucination wont fix anything!
Even more so when there is nothing to fix in the first place.
Perhaps they don’t know there is a skeptic side, but if they don’t, it still presents a big problem: when a religious person or group asserts that the ‘science’ of man-caused global warming is settled and all of us are under a moral imperative to do all we can to stop global warming, the religious person or group inadvertently places themselves into a serious religious moral dilemma, because it leads to an elemental question: “which is the bigger sin — failing to stop a so-called global warming crisis which has increasing credibility problems with its underlying science assessments? Or breaking the Commandment on Bearing False Witness against skeptic climate scientists by calling them ‘industry-corrupted’ as a tactic to ensure that the public dismisses skeptic scientists’ massively detailed science-based criticisms aren’t taken seriously?”
Mr. Kim needs to read his Bible….
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
I. John 4:1
“… such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.”
II. Corinthians 11:13-15
All informed and discerning believers in Jeshua as Savior, a.k.a., “evangelicals,” reject AGW as based on errors at best, lies at worst.
Finally,
Always remember, dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, that
… our struggle is not against flesh and blood… . Ephesians 6:12,
so,
love.
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you… . Luke 6:27, 28.
(And I am not doing all that great at this, myself, I admit!)
I vaguely recall a promise to never again use a flood to destroy the earth as well.
..very NICE, Janice..!
and a ‘reminder’ of our own faults now and then is a good thing . . . 🙂
Thank you, Martin C! 🙂
Janice, you could have included this.
Galatians 1:6-7 (Amplified Bible)
6 I am surprised and astonished that you are so quickly turning renegade and deserting Him Who invited and called you by the grace (unmerited favor) of Christ (the Messiah) [and that you are transferring your allegiance] to a different [even an opposition] gospel.
7 Not that there is [or could be] any other [genuine Gospel], but there are [obviously] some who are troubling and disturbing and bewildering you [with a different kind of teaching which they offer as a gospel] and want to pervert and distort the Gospel of Christ (the Messiah) [into something which it absolutely is not].
A note on the Amplified Bible. It often includes almost a definition of the Greek and/or Hebrew words. Also if the word in the text could be translated by more than one English word, it will include them.
Galatians 1:6-7 (King James Version)
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
We all need help all the time.
“They are still waiting for alarmists to present evidence there is a problem.”
I’m a UK Evangelical and that is my position.
I’m also an engineer and am convinced that wind and solar will not on their own power an industrial society. They are an evolutionary gum tree
Mr. Kim is also conflating bona fide, worthwhile, “environmentalism,” such as making our air clean enough to breath (gasp with the toxic air)
with
unsupported-by-data conjecture about rising tides.
Yeah, though this is all too common. It’s common when one disputes that greenhouse gasses are a major issue to be asked “don’t you believe in controlling pollution?”.
Mm, hm. And often it’s “carbon pollution.”🙄
*****************
And using this opportunity to say: “Oops! Breathe“🙃
I am a Christian and a total luke warmer as far as CC GW is concerned and I base my view on my Biblical presuppositions as to God’s purposes for his creation. I consider the idea that mankind can save the planet is akin to idolatry. If he truly understood God as creator and sustainer he would not be in the fearful fix his is presenting today and would seek to mitigate the changes that occur due to natural cycles and the role of the entire solar system in it effect on these cycles.
So they finally noticed that Katherine Hayhoe was failing in her decades long evangelical warmunist preaching mission. So doubled down on the evangelical emotional appeal. A problem for them is that Dr. Roy Spencer of UAH fame is also an evangelical Christian, and a far better ‘climate scientist’ than Dr. Hayhoe.
This stuff also sort of messes up what Jesus reportedly said (paraphrased)…
Render unto Caesar what is Caesars, render unto God what is Gods.
Anthropogenic global warming is definitely a Caesar thing. Renewable subsidies, UNFCCC and IPCC, COPxx, government climate research grants…
Maybe they need to invoke The Blues Brothers –
“We’re on a mission from God.”
Better yet- that someone was sent by God!
Superb!! Made my day!
Also, John Christy.
John Christy: I do not think such interpretations are useful. I would only say that, in general, the Christian faith upholds the value of human life so that actions that enhance the length and quality of human life is the moral imperative.
At this point in time, the use of carbon-based energy provides exactly what is needed here—the energy needed to lengthen and enhance the quality of human life. Without energy, life is brutal and short as I learned while serving as a teacher/missionary in Africa.
***
… a scientist using the scientific method should generate a reproduceable result whether he/she is a Baptist (like me), a Buddhist or a Baha’i.
The scientific issues about climate are based on measurements we make to test claims, not on an opinion one might have. When it comes to policy that directly affects people, especially the poor, we now must consider non-scientific issues such as: is it proper to inflict hardship on those who can least afford it by following policies that demonstrably will not impact the climate?
It is not in our best interest to appeal to religious feelings when dealing with issues that are available for scientific testing. As the average person knows, there are a multitude of religious opinions today, but a scientific test should have results to which all rational people, religious or not, should be able to acknowledge.
Source (emphases mine): https://blog.friendsofscience.org/2019/06/28/a-conversation-with-john-christy-for-association-des-climato-realistes/
Janice
Nice to see you posting.
Thank you, Simon. Nice to see you — are.
(still praying 😊)
It’s on the list….
🙂
I do have to warn you those Janice… it’s a long list.
Well, then. I’ll just, perhaps, have to pray for a long time.🙂
“Instead of a gulp of fresh air from a lush forest, too many children take a deep breath only to gasp with the toxic air that has irritated their lungs.”
In the 1970s this would have been more common. We used to have the infamous “brown cloud” here trapped against the mountains. I haven’t seen it since the 1990s. Even with our population growth, overall the air is much cleaner today. True, in other parts of the world bad air is still a problem. Capitalism without cronyism should help with that…
Subsidy farming is not just for leftist anymore.😃
Since when did scientific evidence convince a religious fundamentalist?
Since when did scientific evidence convince you?
BTW, nice to know your ignorant bigotry remains intact.
Scientific beliefs can be changed by new evidence. Religious beliefs immunise themeselves against new evidence.
Only in the area of religion.
Your belief that fundamentalists are closed on all issues just is further proof of your ignorance and bigotry.
PS: I notice that you still refuse to acknowledge any evidence that refutes your religious convictions regarding global warming.
Actually, not even in the area of “religion”.
I’ve studied the Scriptures for decades.
Many, many times I thought I understood what it said and believed it.
Then further evidence from the Scriptures showed I was was wrong.
I changed what I had believed it said rather than the Scriptures themselves.
Too many in CliSci (and “religion”) will change data to agree with what they believe.
What scientific evidence? And please don’t tire us with statements of faith, like the output of dodgy computer models, show us something we should actually care about.
Statements of faith seem to be sufficient for the religious. Do you have any criticism for them?
Nice dodge. I guess this proves that even you are aware of the religious nature of your AGW convictions.
I have always thought that most of the statements of climate skeptics are based on ‘faith’ – or at least political belief – rather than science
Wow, it’s hard to believe anyone could have it so opposite of reality. You would certainly call me a “climate skeptic”. Yet, I base my climate views on nothing but experimental processes and data. It is my view that it is the CAGW crowd, like you, that base their own beliefs on nothing but political dogma. And, by the way, I’m a firm believer in computer models. I have spent a 57-year engineering career writing and using computer models – the first ones on vacuum tube analog computers. I am firmly aware of the strengths AND LIMITATIONS of computer models. It’s easy to believe the output. The hard part is understanding when and why it’s not right.
Once the Guardian has declared that rainfall in Britain has increased. That increase becomes a fact, and anyone who disagrees just doesn’t care about facts.
Whether the actual data supports these “facts” isn’t relevant. The appropriate authorities have spoken, and all must align themselves to the new reality.
I can find no evidence that you have ever “thought” in the first place.
Arguments against you have always been based in fact and science.
Griff – “I have always thought that most of the statements of climate skeptics are based on ‘faith’ – or at least political belief – rather than science”
Really? Ever hear of The Green New Deal? Or how about Brandon and the Dems’ Inflating Inflation Act?
AOC’s GND would have the Government pay people who weren’t even willing to work.
Pelosi said the Inflation thing would appease Ma’ Gaia so she doesn’t throw another temper tantrum.
“Since when did scientific evidence convince a religious fundamentalist”
The Church of the Climate Change Cult™ continuously claims that
the 97% Consensus is meaningful & their ignoring of Climategate™
antics only reinforces my opinion that evidence isn’t that important to
them either which means they really aren’t that science-based at all
& are quite susceptible to cult-like indoctrination.
BTW, Evangelicals & Fundamentalists aren’t the same groups.
Fundamentalism was a good word a century ago. It referred to the reaction against those who moved away from basic Christian teachings but still called themselves Christian. By 1958 when the Anglican theologian, J I Packer, wrote “Fundamentalism and the Word of God” he gave it the subtitle “Some Evangelical Principles.”
Evangelicals were Fundamentalists. There was an anti-fundamentalist attack with accusations of heresy and ignorance – not unlike the attacks on those who question climate alarmism and call them climate deniers. Sadly many Evangelical leaders today no longer hold to the basics in the way Packer and others did. Many congregation members, who have a superficial understanding of the basics of their faith, prefer to avoid serious climate discussions and fights. I agree with you that many alarmists are cult-like but this was not a feature of the Fundamentalism and Evangelicals Packer wrote about. Just like there has been a dumbing down in schools so too in many churches – and I blame the teachers in both. This is what we need to address in our fight against climate alarmism with solid climate apologetics which this report fails to do.
For The Last Nail’s information, if the great English scientist, Michael Faraday were alive today he would have been branded a “religious fundamentalist.”
That’s for sure. Islam has Fundamentalists too and they are the type of people who murder people for mocking Mohammad. I have yet to see a Christian Fundamentalist murder someone who disrespects Jesus. The command of the God that both Christians and Jews worship is “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For you will heap burning coals on his head, And the LORD will reward you.” (Prov 25:21-22, & Romans 12:20)
Since when did scientific evidence convince a religious fundamentalist?
I couldn’t put it better myself. CAGW is an ersatz religion for the weak-minded and credulous. All the real scientific evidence in the World will never convince them of the falsity of CAGW.
And he never explained just what it is of which they need to be convinced.
A tree ring makes a crystal ball?
A computer model is a crystal ball?
Siting issues have nothing to do with the data fed into the crystal balls?
God’s promise to Noah still stands, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” (Gen 8:22)
LOL, despite all the wailing of the CAGW crowd.
I am not a religious scholar so I may be off base. I believe the Judaeo-Christian teachings never implied that humans were a pollutant on Earth and invariably would destroy paradise. This seems to be a rewriting of the teaching.
The anti-human views of the radical wing of the environmentalist movement are noticeably inconsistent with Judaeo-Christian teaching, especially “made in God’s image”, but arguably also “dominion over creation”. The funny part is that while dominion seems to imply some type of responsibility, it also seems to imply the right to manage/organize the natural world for one’s own benefit, with the latter being emphasized significantly more.
True, Christian (and Jewish teaching) is that we are STEWARDS of God’s world. A steward does not treat the property he is entrusted with as his own possession to be disposed of as he wishes.
Look at this tidbit from Juneau Alaska where they want to build up a fleet of EV buses for their city “The 40-foot Proterra bus has experienced mechanical problems since its launch and was not holding battery charges long enough to complete an entire route during this winter’s cold weather, …” … https://www.juneauempire.com/news/charge-pending-on-electric-bus-fleet-city-awarded-grant-for-bus-barn-roof-in-preparation-for-addition-of-seven-new-electric-buses/
Don’t these people checkout news from around the world on city ev bus fires and other problems?
Search this:
cities with ev bus fires
They can’t climb hills either
AGW Fundamentalists are utterly immune to any data that doesn’t fit into their religious convictions.
Such as griff, for example.
Oh please. They took over my church. They practically worship the solar panels they put on the roof instead of paying off the debt on the roof.
I am a Christian. For those who study the Bible (even for those who don’t), go through the Bible and find out how many occurrences and references there are to God controlling the weather (and weather events). And we think we can control the weather?
In addition to evidence coming up short, evangelicals also recognize that the climate science narrative is contaminated with marxism, politics, and racism. And, since their sense of worth comes from Christ, they have no need to be seeking other sources of virtue or redemption — which they see in spades in the climate extremists.
Arguably the entire alarmist narrative is a warped parody of the bible story – original sin (burning fossil fuel), prophets (Al Gore, Mann), and the promised land of our redemption (our Net Zero future).
Some of the most fervent global warming believers I have met were brought up in strict Christian families, but lost their faith. Their climate activism might be a poor substitute for faith, but to an extent it appears to fill the God shaped hole in their lives.
More evidence that those who believe in nothing will believe anything.
While the Bible never uses the word climate, it has much to say that relates to weather and climate. For the Christian this should be a guide as whether to be alarmed by what we keep hearing and how to respond.
Some years ago I looked closely at the views on climate change held by various Evangelical denominations and charities, by the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, and by mainstream Protestant denominations. Among their leadership and those writing on the subject, I found near unanimous agreement on the threat of climate change. However, I noticed that key Scripture passages and doctrines were avoided. Certain passages were interpreted to fit their climate narrative rather than to follow the natural sense.
I have only had time to skim the report but notice similar significant shortcomings.
Two key doctrines should have been prominent: Creation and providence. Providence was only mentioned once in the report with a single reference to Matthew 5:45. There was no discussion of either the meaning nor implication these have for understanding climate and weather. The creation narrative and implications of a Creator God are conveniently avoided. There is no mention of various relevant passages like those in the Psalms and Job that make astounding claims with implications for how a believer ought to view climate alarmism.
Jesus said to his hearers, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky . . . . ” This indicates that two thousand years ago farmers observed weather patterns and farmed accordingly. They learnt to adapt and stored water in cisterns for the dry seasons. The report speaks at some length about adapting but seems rather negative about this.
Another serious omission is the failure to consider and interact with CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration: There is no climate emergency. A number of Evangelicals, who are engineers and scientists, have endorsed this statement. For them Christian climate alarmism is a contradiction of their faith.
Can they abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too? Surely, they are playing with a double-edged scalpel.
One Democrat recently declared that she does not support unlimited abortions. Her position is more nuanced.
According to her spokesman she believes that there should be no restrictions up to the point of viability and after that it should be up to the mother and her doctor.
Doesn’t their God.sort.fhese issues out?
E.g. Sodom and Gomorrah
Don’t eat where you drop #2’s is pretty much a Natural Law that has very negative consequences for violation. It is incorporated in many religious traditions as an understanding of human duty to husband the environment. The zeal of that commitment varies markedly from atheism through Gaia worship to the fundamentalism of Political Scientist, Dr. Hayhoe.
A couple of thousand years ago, Paul wrote a snailmail to the Italian Church Elders (Romans 1:20ff) expressing some dismay regarding worshipping creation, rather than the Creator. Consequently, there would be extraordinarily low probably that today, any pope, for example, would venerate a carved image of the Pachamama, or participate in a Smudging Ceremony, complete with Spirit conjuring. In addition, if discussing Atmospheric Science with a Pantheist, the focus would be purely on experimental observations, lest proposed actions to address a hypothesized problem lead to real misery, particularly among the poor.
Let us hope that those with religious beliefs find in them motivation to seek and speak the truth, despite a cacophony of voices proclaiming the end of the world in 10 years because of humans on the planet.
These people are crackpots. I would no sooner go to a religious leader for scientific guidance than I would go to a florist for mechanical advise. My former church belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The ELCA has become completely politicized, I won’t have anything to do with them anymore. My mother was disappointed I couldn’t find a way to fit in, in the end she also left the ELCA. A piece of crap organization.
Most mainline churches have been taken over by politicians over the last 100 years.
Goes back further than that.
Constantine, for example.
Martin Luther preached Christ via a return to the Scriptures themselves.
That doesn’t mean that a denomination named after him is still doing what he preached.
As I understood, Evangelism is all about the teaching, preaching and spreading of Good Words, Good Deeds and Good News
So how anyone imagines that anything about Climate Change fits the Evangelist narrative is ‘interesting’ – to say the least.
Let’s consider the ‘net flow’ though:
i.e. If you yourself has become chronically depressed, both chemically (diet) and emotionally (Trash TV & anti-social media) and only circulate amongst like-minded souls (consensus) – that State of Gloom becomes normalised and you cannot comprehend (magical thinking) how anyone can or could be different.
You then attempt to project the badness & wrong that’s inside your head onto ‘evangelists & skeptics’ and if they resist, you become angry (Andy) and ‘deranged’ (Trump Syndrome)
And when there’s nothing else in this world to eat except sugar and doctors assert that booze & cannabis can actually be good for you – what can anyone expect?
Climate Change will become a self-fulfilling prophecy exactly because of all those things.
and here it is, out today, report by The Grauniad = a perfect anti-evangelist report/book
What is really really disappointing from my perspective is seemingly that the author ‘knows’ what the problem is (Soil Erosion) but has completely failed to link it with atmospheric CO2.
So he then goes off into wild-land of white supremacy and population control.
Holy Kow, are we really in some shit here.
Even worse, he doesn’t even start to comprehend a fix – which is beyond simplicity..
i.e. dig/mine/quarry Basalt or any black coloured rock (some shales will be perfect) and spread it around **everywhere**
Even at modest amounts of 5 tonnes per acre.
The tech is all there, the materials are all there – it’s just sooooo simple.
Credit-cards/Paypal/Amazon account at the ready…. here
(The lack of imagination & original thought is evident from the get go – have a sick-bag handy)