Creation Corner Column, April 2016
Evangelicals: Pro-Life and Pro-Safe Energy; College Student
Activism; God in our World; Green Christians.
Evangelicals: The commitment of pro-life evangelicals to clean energy is
witnessed by members within the Lausanne Movement’s Cape Town
Commitment (Billy Graham and John Stott founders), and can be also seen as
shared by eco-Catholics.
The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) proposes that
being pro-life includes the biblical mandate to the care of all of life.
Pollution impacts the purity of life God intends for His creation.
Creation care is foundational to the EEN quest to defend children’s health; women's rights; overcome
poverty, human trafficking, and racism; and Jesus' call for
abundant life.
Being pro-life is not just about a political issue; it's a
world view, a life-view.
EEN urges us as we follow a risen Lord, to let go of an "outdated
dependence on fossil fuels and seek new opportunities...clean energy that
empowers sustainable economic progress."
Posts at EEN's web site www.creationcare.org include
subjects of the Papal Environmental Encyclical "Laudato Si", the EPA
climate change regulations, natural gas and methane reduction standards, etc.
The
evangelical pro-life support of environmental causes helps broaden the
common ground shared by others in the ecumenical, inter-faith and
secular communities. Another example of such support is that of
Eco-Catholics: For the blog of eco-Catholics at the National Catholic
Reporter on-line, see the editorial "Climate Change is Church's No. 1
Pro-life issue" at http://ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/editorial-climate-change-churchs-no-1-pro-life-issue .
College Student Activism: Among college students, days of environmental activism
occur. One woman student at Liberty University said she wanted to
"raise awareness for the fact that God's creation is everywhere, and it's
our job as Christians to take care of it...It's more our job than anyone else's
to take care of creation. I feel that's been taken out of the Christian
circle and become a political issue." "(If) you're focusing on
God you're focusing on people and the environment." (for complete
article see www.christiancollegeguide.net/article/New-Student-Activists, by Alicia Cohn, reprinted in the 3/16 issue of Christianity
Today).
God in our World: As Norman Wirzba says in his book From Nature to
Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World,
"Creation is not a vast lump of valueless matter. It is God's love
made visible, fragrant, tactile, audible, and delectable." Our world
is "a place so cherished that God enters into covenant relationship with
it (Gen. 9:8-17), so beautiful that God promises to renew it (Isa. 65:17-25),
and so valuable that God takes up residence within it (John 1:14, and Rev.
21:1-4).
