The Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Pat Robertson, politically poles apart, appear in a public-service TV ad together, promoting the “one thing we can agree on”: taking care of the planet.
A couple of months ago, a Vatican official made headlines when he offered his list of modern sins, including pollution. Not long before, the Vatican hosted a scientific conference to discuss global warming and climate change, and engineers at the Holy See are installing photovoltaic cells on some buildings to capture solar power.
In 2006, 86 evangelical Christian leaders signed a document to express concern over global warming, signaling a new level of concern among some theologically conservative Christians – and revealing a rift between some older leaders who consider environmental action a distraction from the work of saving souls, and a younger generation of leaders who see “creation care” as vital to the Christian message.
All of this is to say that around the world, religious movements – in this case, Christian ones – are talking green.
Locally, where churches seem to hug every bend in the road, such talk has been pretty quiet.
“I don’t see much evidence of faith-based initiatives here,” Johnson City Commissioner Marcy Walker said this week. She has been involved with development issues for years, including serving on the city planning commission and school board. “I know people who are very spiritual who are committed to protect the environment. I’d really like to see that here.”
Walker, who has lived in sprawling San Diego and Memphis, doesn’t want to see northeast Tennessee plowed under by development.
It’s not that she is anti-growth, she said. The question isn’t if the area will build more houses, shopping centers and business parks, but how best to manage that growth so it doesn’t spoil the beauty that attracts people to the area in the first place.
She is quick to point out that the city is already working on being more “green” by tapping and selling methane gas from the Iris Glen landfill, reducing the need for electricity production and netting almost $1 million for the city every year. Johnson City was among the first communities in the state to launch a recycling program, and it’s started to financially break even.
These and other efforts are “baby steps,” she said, but put enough of them together and the effects will be significant.
“We have a lot of creative people in this community, and we need grassroots initiative,” she said. “How do we build smarter, better?”
Roy Settle, the coordinator of the Appalachian Resource Conservation and Development Council, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is occupied with that same question.
“Balance is the key,” he said. “We need to grow, but people relocate here and talk about how green it is, about the mountains.”
How do we keep it green? Local governments, for example, can offer incentives for redeveloping property close to the central core of a city rather than converting farmland into new subdivisions.
When asked, Settle easily connects concern for the environment, economic policy and matters of faith.
“I always start with Genesis 2:15, when God told humans to till and tend the garden, not rape, pillage and burn it,” he said. “The Bible says that good stewards are rewarded, and it’s clear that civilizations that didn’t take care of their resources suffered.”
A practical man, Settle suggested how people of faith can practice good stewardship in their own backyards. He began with grocery shopping.
“Go to farmers’ markets,” he said. “The food is fresher, it’s more economical and by supporting local farmers, it gives them a reason to keep their farmlands.”
Buying local produce cuts down on transportation costs too, not a small thing in days of high gas and diesel prices.
“But faith isn’t about the effect on my pocketbook,” he added. “People can be mindful of the resources used. If we’re wasteful, we don’t have as much to share with other people.”
Religious belief is not necessary for taking care of the environment, Settle said, “but in fact it does give a basis for that. It’s in the Bible.”
First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 10 May 2008.
Good, but don’t let it become a your religion as so many have. Jesus is first then we can do other.
Comment by David Davidson — May 31, 2008 @ 12:34 pm |
I did
Comment by David Davidson — May 31, 2008 @ 12:36 pm |
All this hype about going green is a pagan attempt to bring a socialist government to the entire world. It’s main focus is the control of carbon emissions in an attempt to stop “global warming”. When 2008 produced a colder than average winter, the focus became “climate change”. Global warming is a hoax.
As a matter of faith we are responsible as conservative capitalists to preserve and renew natural resources. USA leads the way in this effort yet is portrayed as the evil of the world. As an industrialized nation, we feed the hungry of the world, bring the medicine to the sick and point the way to political freedom – all based on our Christian foundation.
USA is more “green” and “green conscious” than any nation you can name. We work hard to raise our standards of living and continually prompt other third world countries to do the same – by embracing Christian faith and American capitalism.
We need not concern ourselves with another fad or worse, the worship of the planet instead of the worship of the Creator of the planet.
It is my firm belief that the current “over”emphasis on green conscious issues is the pathway to a unified socialist world government where the Christian freedom of America will be surrendered in deference to the “good of the Earth.”
Comment by Ray Christensen — June 8, 2008 @ 11:12 am |
I do believe that “going green” started out being a good thing, but then as all good and popular things do, it commercialized. Now you see “green”
products everywhere. I do believe the only ones benefiting from the going green at this point are the companies that jumped on the bandwagon. yes God wants us to be good stewards and take care of this earth that he gave us. But I do believe that as in anything we can go overboard. Until our Lord and Saviour comes back to take us home, which incidently is not earth, we will still have satan trying his best to get us to focus on anything but God. We must always include and ask God what he needs us to do for him. I do believe that God has managed very well to take care of his earth and people thus far what makes us think that one generation can take it to ruin without his intervention? God willing he will send his Son back to earth and take us home where we truly belong.
Comment by Karen Walker — July 16, 2008 @ 8:43 am |