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Letter from America

Hotting up?

Strange as it is may seem to environmentally minded Europeans, the fact remains that many Americans do not think much about global warming.

Could it not be, some wonder, that global warming, including its detrimental side effects like the shrinking polar cap, is merely the result of an unavoidable cyclical increase in global heat? If so rising temperatures are not ultimately due to gas-guzzling SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles), and similar industrial pollutants.

Of course, recent hurricanes have made that view — shall we call it the brown not green doctrine — harder to sustain. The vicious and violent spate of hurricane weather in the gulf tends to underline the oddity of contemporary weather patterns. Add to that the calamity in Guatemala and Pakistan and you have a frightening picture of the future. But some still say that such increase in seasonal storms and natural disasters is really more local phenomenon than a global matter.

To be accurate, in other ways America is very green. Most cities in the USA have recycling cans, rubbish receptacles especially given over to glass and tin. The traditional suburb is littered, if that is not a pun, with such ecologically politically correct items.

Green Christians?

From an evangelical Christian point of view, should America sign up to the latest treaty on reducing greenhouse gases?

Incontrovertibly, the Bible does speak of the environment, albeit under the term creation, and in quite direct and crystal clear terms. Genesis 1 teaches us that we humans have a responsibility given by God to rule over creation (1.28). Rule means tender concern, take care of, gardening, as originally man did in the Garden of Eden. After the fall, Genesis 3 introduces the thorns and thistles (3.18). This is the subject of ‘groanings’ not to be released until after the final revelation of the sons of God redeemed through the blood of the Son of God (Romans 8.18-21).

Does that mean that Christians should take care of the environment? Yes, for we are a part of God’s human creation specially invested with the responsibility of looking after the natural creation. Does that mean it is possible to return the ‘garden’ to its pre-fall state in this world by our own careful tender care? No, for until the New Heaven and the New Earth the creation is subject to frustration.

In essence, what we have is the difference between an ideal and an idol. Christians are to look after the environment as the ideal of God’s created order, to do so responsibly and carefully, but to do it in accord with its relative importance compared to, say, the eternal soul of my neighbour. We need to look after nature as a Christian ideal but avoid it as a pagan idol.

What then for America and its environmentally unfriendly economic policies? The average person has little influence on such matters, but nonetheless has a responsibility to do what he or she can, while keeping the priority focussed not on this world but on the next, on the New Heaven and the New Earth, and ensuring our citizenship in that finally perfect society.

If it’s hotting up now, think how hot it will be if we get that wrong.

Josh Moody