According to ABC Online, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has turned to the Church in its campaign to halt climate change.
The ACF has formed an alliance with the National Council of Churches to encourage Christians to write to, or visit, their Federal MP to lobby for a re-think on water and energy use.
Reverend John Henderson, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches, says Christians have a moral obligation to help fight climate change:
“These are basic issues through the teachings of the New Testament and the Old Testament,” he said.
“This is not new to us. I mean the Christian Church comes out of a long community, in fact it comes out of more than 2,000 years of community life where people have learnt to live with the world in which they are placed.”
While the ACF and mainstream Christian Churches are, in my view, both essentially faith-based institutions, how much of their base philosophy is compatible when it comes to the environment and how it should/might be managed/not managed? For example, while the ACF generally advocates a “hands off” approach to nature i.e. exclude people from the landscape and don’t manage it, in the bible Noah took a “hands on” approach i.e. built the ark to save the animals.
What do you think?
One of my definitions of sustainability has been salvation in the church of the environment.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Loss of biodiversity, pollution, global warming, water shortages and famine, are brandished by popularist environmentalism, as the most acceptable enemy to unite the global community, irrevocably towards the emergence of a new all-inclusive earth-centred faith.
Christianity exists to counter such blasphemy. The book of Revelation foretells of Satan being given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All the inhabitants of the earth will unite in worship of the beast.
However, Christians cannot support such an environmental agenda, as they are required to worship the creator; not his creations. Environmental worship is a blasphemous form of idolatry, which is not to say that Christians are disinterested in the environment. According to the scripture, God told humankind to take care of his beautiful planet and when he put humans in charge of his creation he wanted them to love and care for it as he would; not abuse it by mistreating animals, wasting trees and squandering resources.
The ACF is seeking to invoke the Christian war between good and evil upon the battleground of environmentalism.
Christian leaders, such as the Reverend John Henderson, should be very careful not to be swayed by the passion of ACF propaganda. He might just end up making a deal with the Devil.
On the other hand, perhaps the Christian undertones of the ACF executive perceived the emergence of the Australian Environmental Foundation as so apocalyptic that an alliance with the Australian Christian community was warranted.
What do I think? I think your ability to discern links that nobody else would ever see – such as that between ACF’s ‘general approach’ to nature and Noah building arks – is second to none. Clearly the alliance between the ACF and the NCC is unholy. Satan has a finger in the pie of every environmental group.
Slightly o/t…
MOSCOW. (Yury Izrael, Director, Global Climate and Ecology Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences and IPCC Vice President, for RIA Novosti).
One issue on the table at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in early July is global climate change.
As I see it, this problem is overshadowed by many fallacies and misconceptions that often form the basis for important political decisions. G8 leaders should pay attention to them.
There is no proven link between human activity and global warming……..
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050623/40748412.html
I can’t understand this loopback model of environment research. I was listening to one guy who said that basically that the argument is over and all research to this point is a given.
THe problem is for people of my vintage we have now heard of global warming, cooling and both.
The computers for modelling have only really been available for some 5 years.
Lastly Howard and Bush get whacked for signing up to Kyoto and in Australia we are in advance of our so called targets and the EU is not even close to their phurphylnad target.
What do religious scholars have to do with the Environment or is link it to God to make it stick. I would have thought this a science based argument.
Interesting comments from Neil…
My mind wandered a little when reading “wasting trees and squandering resources”. I could think of nothing more wasteful than burning 3.5 million hectares of forest, containing the equivalent of 90 years worth of harvestable Alpine Ash, all for the want of a bit of prudent burning off. The inevitable result of the implementation of ACF policies over the last 30 years.
Forester
The ACF is essentially a religious organisation so it is logical it should turn to another like-minded organisation for solidarity.
Science however is the continual battle between reason and logic on one hand, and blind faith on the other.
Surprises me not one bit.
the acf and ncc are both faith-based in the sense that their sense of mission is based upon faith.
when it come to the environment, the churches have tended to display a more ‘use it’ than ‘preserve it’ approach. not that the acf’s ‘no touchie’ and ‘pretend we can live without it’ attitude is a winner.
head-under-pillow is pointless. we live in the environment, and cannot live without it. we also cannot live without affecting it. we cannot pretend we can wrap the environment up in cotton wool and it’ll be alright so long as we leave it alone.
“One of my definitions of sustainability has been salvation in the church of the environment.”the environment isn’t a church [it’s not the collective body of worshippers]. methinks it might be more apt for a christian to say that sustainability enables the church to continue in its mission of salvation.
it might also be apt to consider whether the acf’s appeal to the ncc might not be construed as reaching out to organisations with aligned views, but rather as reaching out to the members of the churches, through their leaderships.
[are the churches really “campaigning *against* climate change”?]