Hunger emergency: Christians respond
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Aug 2022
Even before the invasion of Ukraine, many of the poorest nations of the world were suffering the catastrophic impact of climate change.
Earlier this year the island of Madagascar, for example, experienced its ‘worst drought’ in 40 years. UNICEF says half a million under-fives will be ‘acutely malnourished’ this year; in the south, where 80% of the people depend on agriculture to survive, the UN World Food Programme estimates that half of the population now faces hunger. The drought has decimated crops and dried up water sources, resulting in little sustenance for communities and cattle. The pandemic, deforestation and Madagascar’s cyclone season have further exacerbated their woes. According to UNWFP, this could become ‘the first famine to be caused by climate change’.
earth watch
Creation’s hope: Christ
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Jan 2022
What happened at COP26?
At
the
beginning
of
November,
delegates from every nation
in the world
arrived
in Glasgow
for COP26, the UN
conference on climate change. COPs (in
full, the Conference of the Parties to the
UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change) happen annually but the big ones
are every five years or
so. COP26 was
particularly critical, being
the first major
gathering since the Paris Agreement in 2015;
the first test of whether countries would live
up to their promises on climate change.
‘I thought, wow, that is three seismic events in one year...’
John Woods
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Andrew Wilson is based in Eastbourne and serves as the Teaching Pastor at King’s Church London.
Andrew will be familiar to many from his books, including The God of All Things and 1 Corinthians for Today, the Think Theology website, and his regular columns in US magazine, Christianity Today. Our Reviews Editor John Woods was pleased to have the opportunity to chat with Andrew about his latest book Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, which is now hot off the press from Crossway.
Economic terror
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Dear Editor,
‘How should we respond to the world’s poorest?’, asked Justin Hall (en September). We should ‘give and continue to give’ was his answer, and he has a point, since, as Jim Wallace, put it in relation to Matthew 25.31-46: ‘People will be stunned to discover they will be judged, not on the basis of right doctrine, personal piety or sexual ethics, but on how they treat the poor.’ But unhappily, as I stated when Tearfund took me to Tanzania and Zambia in 2011: ‘We have these great injustices, that are grinding down entire generations, across whole continents. The idea that we can rectify [extreme poverty, etc.] without getting major ‘structural’ changes, is delusion.’
news in brief
Eternal Wall prayer drive
Inspired by Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem’s wall, ‘Eternal Wall: 52 Days of Prayer, Fasting and Worship’ is underway.
It began on 3 September in support of a crowdfunding campaign for the Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, a Christian landmark planned for the West Midlands, UK in 2023. It is to include 75,000 ‘heritage bricks’ celebrating answered prayer as far back as 600 AD. The 52 days of prayer is a flexible prayer schedule that can be followed daily – either individually or in a small group, or in a church or organisation. For more information visit eternalwall.org
earth watch
Cumbrian coal mine
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Feb 2023
A few weeks before Christmas, controversy exploded in the environmental world when the government gave planning permission for a coalmine in Whitehaven, Cumbria. It would be the first new coalmine in the country in 30 years.
Now the UK would not be what it is today without coal, a bountiful source of concentrated energy which has been exploited since Roman times. Plentiful supplies powered the Industrial Revolution and led to the creation of close-knit mining communities from the South Wales Valleys to the Clyde.
legal eye
Worried by the new Police Act? You should be
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Jul 2022
Noisy and disruptive protests are, frankly, a nuisance to us all. At the time of writing, the prospect of serious disruption for many rail passengers with the planned June’s rail strikes is bad enough, but at least travellers can plan ahead and take a different route (or drive, if they can afford the fuel).
But try driving through a busy city and finding the road blocked with climate change protesters chained to their vehicles – all in a good cause, of course; but creating not merely a public nuisance but serious disruption.
earth watch
Are you ready for the future?
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Aug 2021
Are you ready for the future? Pose that question to a Christian and I guess they will immediately start thinking of getting ready for the return of the Lord Jesus – a good reaction to have, but not quite what I had in mind. Let me put it this way: before that day comes, are you ready for the planet’s future?
I work in nature conservation, but I’m also a chartered town planner (yes, it is a slightly weird combination, but that’s another story). Town planners are in the business of looking to the future. They make plans for ten or 20 years ahead and even longer. It’s an uncertain endeavour. They have to carefully look at the evidence before making decisions, but also build in flexibility and regular review.
Jesus’ return and green issues today
Dave Gobbett
Date posted: 1 Dec 2022
The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, widely known as COP27, has just been running in Egypt. In a timely new book* Dave Gobbett of Highfields Church Cardiff helps us think through a Biblical perspective on the environment. This extract explains how Jesus’ return might impact our thinking on this issue.
‘We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him … The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever’ (1 Thess. 4:14, 16).
Indonesia: Primate brings gospel to interfaith summit
Chris Sugden
Date posted: 1 Dec 2022
The Archbishop of Nigeria, Henry Ndukuba, has told a new international platform of religious leaders how many in the Global South are ‘finding in Jesus Christ hope for living and eternity’.
But the Primate also told the R20 (a gathering of leaders from major world religions in the countries of the G20,): ‘Nigeria is now one of the most dangerous countries to be a Christian.’
earth watch
Birds on a high wire
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Feb 2022
In recent months, while the world’s attention has been on what we’re doing to the climate, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that – even aside from climate change – the rest of creation’s in a bad way as well.
We don’t always realise this. Over the last few decades we’ve been fed a diet of Attenborough documentaries which show an amazing world, but one seemingly untouched by human hand. Only recently this has begun to change. Scientists refer to the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ as each successive generation of people accepts the world they see around them as normal, without realising how much nature has been lost in the past.
Christian mountaineer speaks out
en staff
Date posted: 1 Oct 2022
An evangelical mountaineer is encouraging individual believers to take small, seemingly ‘insignificant’ actions to help combat climate change.
Raphael Moser, a mountain guide and sports coach specialising in Alpine routes, was speaking after it emerged glaciers are melting faster and faster.
Science and faith
Date posted: 1 Oct 2022
Dear Editor,
In the recent past, scientific discoveries have overturned several widely-held notions that each in their way denied what the Bible teaches. For example, the Bible states or strongly implies:–
‘Fanatical arrogance of men of science?’ Selective, alarmist and dystopian
By Prof. Keith R. Fox
Date posted: 1 Sep 2022
‘I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood’ wrote James Watson at the start of his book The Double Helix.
Crick may well have said the same about Watson because these two scientists were certainly not known for their humility. And surely it is no surprise that some scientists are arrogant, just as are some sportspersons, some teachers, some doctors, some pastors and church leaders, and so on. Humans are not perfect and one way of being imperfect is arrogance. Scientists are no exception – they exhibit the same range of imperfections as society at large.
The promise of unfailing ‘seedtime and harvest’: a cover for climate complacency?
David Golding
Date posted: 1 Feb 2022
New figures just released by the European Climate Agency Copernicus reveal the last seven years as the world’s hottest on record.
We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency and that the world’s people face untold suffering due to the climate crisis unless there are major transformations to global society. (Article in Bioscience endorsed by 11,000 scientists from 153 nations, 5 November 2019)
Evangelicals speak out at COP26
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Dec 2021
Christians have made their presence felt at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
Many young evangelicals were among the thousands who marched through the city as part of the Fridays For Future movement, inspired by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was at the rally. Churches were behind a special handing-in of petition signatures and paper ‘prayer boats’ to the COP presidency.
earth watch
Climate ‘crisis’? Really?
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Oct 2020
Recently the Environment Minister for Northern Ireland, Edwin Poots, got into a spot of bother for saying publicly that his department didn’t believe there is a climate crisis.
He later retracted his words and his chief civil servant had to apologise for giving the minister a misleading briefing. He really does think there’s a climate crisis, a view also shared by governments and many local councils across the country who have declared a ‘climate emergency’. So that’s all right then.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Tear Fund
Date posted: 1 Jan 2022
While you are sitting here reading this from the comfort of your chair (or, who knows, maybe in your bed or even in the bath), 62-year-old consultant cardiologist Professor Graham Stuart has rather more uncomfortable seating.
The Bristol grandparent is scheduled to be rowing 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean – crossing the Atlantic Ocean as part of a team of 12.
Scientific arrogance?
Date posted: 1 Aug 2022
Dear Editor,
I’ll admit that I was not inclined to lend a sympathetic ear to William Philip’s article, entitled ‘The fanatical arrogance of men of science’ (en June), given his insensitive stance on climate change during COP26 in Glasgow (see http://ne-calltoaction.org.uk/?m=202207). Indeed, it really upset me to see all the good people I’ve worked with over the years maligned in this way and I hate to think of the damage such teaching could do to young people. The article fosters an attitude of fear and antagonism towards the whole scientific community and this is undeserved. ‘Men (and women) of science’ are not generally ‘fanatically arrogant’, any more than are men of politics, lawyers, school teachers – or ‘men of the church’.
John Stott’s ‘new’ book: a heartfelt environmental plea
Thomas Creedy
Date posted: 1 Nov 2021
In 2011 IVP published what was intended by the author to be his final book – summing up decades of prayer, study and ministry. John Stott’s The Radical Disciple, ten years on, continues to provoke, encourage and inspire.
Stott’s own purpose in that book was ‘to consider eight characteristics of Christian discipleship which are often neglected and yet deserve to be taken seriously’. One of these was ‘creation care’, an issue which is increasingly coming to our attention and the focus of the world. With the Stott centenary running from April 2021 to April 2022, IVP took the decision to publish John Stott on Creation Care, a definitive collection of Stott’s writings on the topic, carefully compiled from throughout his ministry. Sam Berry and Laura Yoder, in their own way, have carefully curated tens of thousands of Stott’s own words, adding interpretation and context, to produce a vital new book.
Climate reactions
Date posted: 1 May 2022
Dear Editor,
Just to say how pleased I am to see the interview with Sir John Houghton in the centre-page spread in the April issue of Evangelicals Now. Many thanks.
The hopeful church in a hopeless world
We live in a hopeless world. Or at least a world full of false hopes which are quickly dashed.
In the West we seem to be going through what Os Guinness calls ‘a civilisational moment’ – a time when the foundations are being destroyed. Reading of the four horsemen of the apocalypse from Revelation at times feels like reading a news bulletin – death, war, civil strife, famine and plague no longer seem the stuff of ages past. The fears that people have about climate change, racism, economic depression or gender confusion only add to the growing sense of hopelessness and gloom.