Same answer as from back in 2005, Dave. Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.
Ha! “I have a mortgage that requires $2000/month payments. I’m only saving $1000/month, I’m burning through my savings and I could lose my house. What should I do?”
“Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.”
Sanctimonious claptrap, which ever way you slice it.
In related news, the Frontline documentary Heat screens in two parts on SBS tonight.
Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, fires, floods and droughts. On the eve of a historic election, award-winning producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates how the world’s largest corporations and governments are responding to Earth’s looming environmental disaster.
Just to be clear then, are you retracting the position that there are theological limitations on our wisdom that prevent us even caring about global warming in the first place, let alone making decisions about it?
Uh-oh, we’re approaching a vortex.
No, it’s more like the “Medusa Cascade” from Doctor WHO when it comes to getting a clear answer from my mate Gordon.
Same answer as from back in 2005, Dave. Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.
Problem is, I did all that and appear to have come to a different decision to you.
I decided that we should “go with the scientific flow” that we have access to today, at least until clear evidence presents itself to disprove this whole “warmening / coolening / floodening thing”. (Your terms?)
That’s all us human beings can do with our limited human wisdom. I’m embracing the “uncertainty” of the future and remaining grounded in my “limitedness” (and that’s not just my Napoleon Complex talking either), while still affirming that we have enough evidence to go on today.
Your many posts linking to Planet Blair seem to indicate that you have decided something different… deep down there in the Medusa Cascade… but I think it will take a TARDIS to dig it out.
I wonder if global warming denialists believe God will issue what I’d like to call The Magical Envelope.
You hear the story from time to time in Christian circles - a family runs into financial hardship, occasionally through their own dubious financial management, and then lo and behold, The Magical Envelope arrives containing the exact sum of money required to tide Struggling Family over until the next payday. Like magic, it is declared, God has provided for them in their time of need.
Now I’m not having a go at people’s generosity - far from it, people do hit financial hardship for reasons beyond their control, and people are generous in response when they hear about the plight, which is excellent and what Christians should be doing.
However, when these stories are related, this simple cause and effect is often left out in favour of God hand-writing a cheque and personally delivering it to the mailbox himself as a kind of mysterious, get out of jail free card that falls like manna from heaven.
So I wonder if this kind of faulty thinking is so endemic that when it comes to very serious problems that require fairly drastic action, Christians of a certain persuasion just expect that if the going gets tough, God will deliver them a Magical Envelope, and the problems - in this case ones they don’t actually seem to believe in - will, like magic, disappear.
After all, when it comes to the future, you just need to trust God.
Hi Luke,
I think you’re onto something there mate. As Byron Smith wrote, after debunking the myth that “the market will always provide”, he then debunks a Christian version of this myth.
It is possible to generate a ‘Christian’ version of this blind faith, based on unqualified claims of God’s sovereignty. For example, if God is in charge, he won’t let our civilisation collapse. And, if God loves us, he will protect our society from anything too bad, so we can ignore dire predictions of impending catastrophe. Perhaps this feeling is stronger in America, where many people still assume their nation has special prerogatives as a divinely chosen
instrument, but I suspect that a weak version is held by many of us in the West who assume, perhaps subconsciously or implicitly, that the wealth and growth of our society is a mark of God’s basic approval of our democracy and freedoms.
After the flood story in Genesis 6-8, God made a promise to Noah guaranteeing against another global disaster that would end all life.But God made no such promises about specific civilisations.The next major incident in Genesis is the tower of Babel and the sudden, permanent breakdown of a society. Moving further into the biblical narrative, Israel’s status as God’s chosen people did not protect her from slavery, exile and scattering. The Roman Empire, when it fell, was a largely Christian society. However we are to understand it, belief in divine sovereignty does not justify closing our eyes to the possibility of disaster. God’s rule is no guarantee against calamity.
It will simply not do to deny the possibility of catastrophe based on blind faith, whether faith in the market or in God. Following Jesus means being freed from false hopes. If, as Christians believe, God raised Jesus from the dead,
then God has promised to also raise those who follow Jesus and to restore and transform the entire created order.
In light of these great promises, there is no need to generate a mistaken belief inhuman, or western or capitalist invincibility. If God can raise the dead, then death (whether individual or social) need not terrify us. And this means that Christians are freed from having to believe the myth of infinite growth or relying on the market’s ability to solve the world’s problems. The market may have a place, but it no longer needs to be seen as humanity’s saviour and hope.
By trusting in the God who is committed to humanity it is possible to ask hard questions about what might be on the horizon. It may be that predictions of peak oil turn out to be incorrect or based on false assumptions, but these are discussions Christians ought to be entering, indeed initiating and leading, given the potentially huge social suffering that may well be around the corner.
Some Christians might consider these debates a distraction from the real issue of preaching the gospel. In one sense, yes, it is quite possible for secondary concerns to make the church forget its raison d’etre: witnessing to Christ crucified, celebrating his resurrection and awaiting his return. However, willfully ignoring secondary concerns can be a symptom of an unfaithfulness that reveals a failure to grasp and embody these very truths. Christ’s bodily resurrection is an affirmation of the goodness of creation and generates a hope for the redemption of the world, not merely redemption from the world. The good news includes not just our “souls”, but our whole lives and the entire created order. God is the one who makes all things new. And since God’s love for us is not limited to our minds, Christian love for our neighbour is also more holistic than simply imparting important information.
Byron’s now doing his Phd in The role of the Church in a world in crisis. I look forward to his conclusions.
Same answer as from back in 2005, Dave. Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.
Ha! “I have a mortgage that requires $2000/month payments. I’m only saving $1000/month, I’m burning through my savings and I could lose my house. What should I do?”
“Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.”
Sanctimonious claptrap, which ever way you slice it.
Interesting, since one way or another your mortgage analogy has been the story of my Christian life for the last 30 years or so.
I’ve been let down by people, but never by God. I’m intending to keep going as I began, God being my helper—and he has been!
Then what did all those Christians do wrong that lost their homes in Katrina, or can’t find work (like a growing bunch of men in our church from the financial industries), or who may lose their homes as this recession gathers steam, or lose their lives in famines in Africa, or already lost their lives in the Irish potato famine (1.5 million) or Mao’s “Great Leap forward” (20 to 40 million)?
Sorry Gordon, I think I’m with Byron on this one.
Your argument seems a bit “Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc” about your own life, without really accounting for the stuff Byron mentions in the bible or that we notice from empirical evidence about the world around us. Christians and non-Christians alike starve to death in various circumstances. Christian compassion motivates us to DO something about it, and “risk mitigation” or common sense would have some of us think through other issues that might unjustly impact the poor.
I’m trying to remember where I said that God would protect civilization from calamity. I’m fairly sure I haven’t, and I have from time to time said the opposite, but please feel free to correct that mistake by finding the relevant place in our discussions over the past few years.
Here are some terrific verses about the attitude Christians should have when people insist that they bow the knee and realign their priorities in the face of impending climatological doom:
[Nebuchadnezzar:] “But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
You might even say that the global warming that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego looked set to experience was scientifically speaking, far more likely than the few degrees, plus or minus, predicted for 100 years from now.
I do wonder if Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had used computer generated warming models to predict what life in the furnace would be like, they would have been a little more scared.
“Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.”
Sanctimonious claptrap, which ever way you slice it.
Luke : ( 25/1 4.17pm #214 ) :
.... After all, when it comes to the future, you just need to trust God.
Dave ( 25/11 - 10.44pm #218 ) :
Then what did all those Christians do wrong that lost their homes in Katrina, or can’t find work (like a growing bunch of men in our church from the financial industries), or who may lose their homes as this recession gathers steam, or lose their lives in famines in Africa, or already lost their lives in the Irish potato famine (1.5 million) or Mao’s “Great Leap forward” (20 to 40 million)?
Are some folk ‘losing their religion’ ? I think I see what you’re trying to say - but ‘dishing’ out on ‘trusting in God’ looks more like an atheist’s point of view - or an over zealous intellectual approach. What do we seek to announce to the man and woman in the pews - or to those seeking or who are new to the Christian faith ?
What will our Connect 09 message be ?
“ Repent and believe in the Gospel - but think green - and change all your light globes and throw out your plastic bags “ ?
And, Dave, are you trying to say that God ‘caused’ Katrina etc ?
Where is God’s sovereignty in all this ? [ A year ago, whilst stating that I did not believe that God had a ‘preferred choice’ of government for Australia, I queried of you how a change of government in Australia could be ‘arranged’ by God. I also asked how God could influence just the right number of voters in various electorates to enable that to come about. Your response was “ just the sovereignty of God”. ]
Has anything changed ? Is accepting the sovereignty God inadequate for us today ? ( And what can we learn from Job’s plight through his harsh life experiences ? ) Are we really thinking of Heaven as our home - or are we trying to create a new Heaven - right here - right now - through our own Babel-like attempts. While there are obviously plenty of things we can aim to do as ‘good stewards’ - in a world of a 6.6 Billion souls, with plenty of climate ‘spruikers’ already about - surely Christians should concentrate on being about the “Father’s business” as a priority ? Because the non-Christians sure aren’t doing our ‘work’ of proclaiming the gospel of repentance and reconciliation through Christ, are they ? Then again - are we ?
Hi Gordon,
I guess I vividly remember the “Pizza Angel” discussion from the first Overpopulation thread. But I wonder if the category of discussion is confused if we refer to Daniel 3? That’s about faithfulness under persecution. Global warming is about our stance on a public social issue. One is about private faithfulness, the other about our public position on a public policy matter.
Remember in today’s society we help “run the country” in a democracy. In this case, if Global Warming were represented by Nebuchadnezzar, then it’s our fault because Nebuchadnezzar is George Bush and Christians voted for him.
Good question Kevin, and thank you. We always need to be reminded to keep trusting in God at a personal level.
Are some folk ‘losing their religion’ ? I think I see what you’re trying to say - but ‘dishing’ out on ‘trusting in God’ looks more like an atheist’s point of view
When it comes to my own future, then I completely agree with Gordon.
“Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.”
It’s that simple, even if we go through hard times and grieve the loss of employment, health, homes, etc… the “formula” for life on the personal, individual level is just that simple.
But I thought this thread was not discussing that. I thought we were discussing our position on Global Warming as a public policy. That means, while we personally should always trust God with our future, we should NEVER just say “God bless you, be at peace” and smother the poor in our crop-destroying Co2. As far as I can tell, Global Warming is about our love for our neighbour. (EG and wanting to protect our neighbour in Africa whose crops may fail because of our lifestyle).
Kevin, is God sovereign when a father sees his 2 kids fall of the wharf and dives in to save them and they all drown? Or is God sovereign when someone fires a gun, and He still allows the bullet to travel through the air, obeying the laws of physics, and plunge into someone’s heart? Is God sovereign in more slow motion catastrophes, like the Russian kids slowly dying from radiation poisoning a few decades ago? Is God sovereign when bad farming techniques denude the soil and famine strikes Ethiopia again?
Where does God’s sovereignty conflict with our actions having consequences? All I know about God’s sovereignty is that my ultimate destiny is to be with Christ in heaven, but setting that up against our own moral responsibility for our actions now is a very dangerous precedent.
Was William Wilberforce trying to enact heaven on earth when he worked tirelessly to abolish slavery? Did he also forget to keep the gospel as his main priority? I’m not asking all Christians to devote themselves tirelessly to Global Warming, just don’t get in the way! Why is it that so many Christians use what little time they have for the environment to do their best to obstruct and tease and snarl at an area of social concern vastly outside their area of expertise?
Anyway, imagine William Wilberforce, smug in the comfort of his own privileged position on this planet, just ignoring the slaves and saying “God bless you, be at peace.”
Are some folk ‘losing their religion’ ? I think I see what you’re trying to say - but ‘dishing’ out on ‘trusting in God’ looks more like an atheist’s point of view - or an over zealous intellectual approach. What do we seek to announce to the man and woman in the pews - or to those seeking or who are new to the Christian faith ?
I’m not having a go at trusting in God (which we’re obviously suppose to do), I just don’t think it should be used as a pat answer in lieu of anything meaningful to back up a rather dubious position.
--
It’s interesting to see how the discussion has shifted from the scientific legitimacy of human caused global warming to now people criticizing whether being concerned about it equates to worshipping false idols. For instance Gordon apparently believes that “people insist that they bow the knee” to climate change, and uses Daniel 3 as a reason for why we should apparently happily walk into the fire. I fail to see how the analogy even makes sense, and to me that seems like a very dubious use of the bible to try and proof text a position.
Be that as it may, there has been an argument percolating out there in Briefing land that ‘environmentalism is a new religion’, and therefore it should be treated with severe scepticism. If right-wing newspaper columnists happen to help you make the case (however poorly), then all the better.
Unfortunately, it seems they are fighting the last battle of a decade or two ago.
AGW denial has, instead, become the new quasi-religion, requiring more and more incredible leaps of faith, and if it means throwing out the whole notion of peer-reviewed science, so be it!
The last time I think people demonstrated such hostility to science was in the YECS threads from the ardent YECS supporters, from what I recall.
And now, like the YECS crowd, belief in the nasty “science” all those terrible secular humanists seem to be talking about is akin to disobeying the bible, worshipping false idols, and being led away from God.
It used to be that such blind fundamentalism was treated with scepticism, but now, on this issue at least, it seems to have taken over in some quarters that really ought to know better.
Thankfully it hasn’t taken over everywhere though, and Dave I look forward to Byron’s conclusions.
