4/16 CCC: Evangelicals pro-life and pro-safe energy; college student activism, God in our World; Green Christians

                                         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EEN urges us as we follow a risen Lord, to let go of an "outdated dependence on fossil fuels and seek new opportunities...clean energy that empowers sustainable economic progress."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).

Green Christians: The aggregator of this column, upon attending a Green Party conference in London in 1988 as part of his International Studies graduate program, stayed with a Christian Green Party member.  See the Green Christian Magazine ( www.greenchristian.org.uk ) and (http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/whatcel.htm ).