{"id":3019,"date":"2014-04-22T08:48:43","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T14:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=3019"},"modified":"2014-04-22T08:48:43","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T14:48:43","slug":"happy-earth-day-or-as-we-evangelicals-like-to-call-it-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2014\/04\/happy-earth-day-or-as-we-evangelicals-like-to-call-it-tuesday.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy Earth Day! (Or as we evangelicals like to call it, Tuesday)."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe> Evangelicals are known for our skepticism of science. We\u2019re also a tad bit prone toward conspiracy theories. I was a biology major at a state school known for agriculture, so I spent to much time listening to the dynamics of global warming to shrug it off as a hoax. Yet, we still have a fair number of folks in our tribe who deny the idea that climate change is even happening. Many think it\u2019s happening, but humans aren\u2019t contributing to it. Although many evangelicals are waking up to Creation Care and the responsibility we have in regard to taking care of the planet (Genesis 2:15), we\u2019ve still got quite a few who are not so sure about this global warming mumbo-jumbo. It always mystifies me, because it seems to me that Christians should be at the forefront of any conversation about stewardship.<\/p>\n<p>The most basic human vocation is to steward creation so that everything on it can flourish. We are on the hook for what happens to the planet. It\u2019s our responsibility, and we ought to take it seriously. Maybe just the off chance that we might causing global warming with the burning of fossil fuels could be enough to convince us to change.<\/p>\n<p>Creation is God\u2019s first text, the first revelation of God. Wendell Berry thinks that God is teaching us a new lesson via this text, and the lesson is about <em>limits<\/em>. Here are some great quotes from the video. I hope you\u2019ll watch it. He\u2019s a wise man:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I am waiting for is for somebody to come along and say, \u2018Look, we\u2019ve got to use less.\u2019 This thing that we\u2019re calling our standard of living can\u2019t be maintained, and so this means that we\u2019ve all got to make a criticism of our lives and of our standard of living.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re getting the scale wrong\u2026 We\u2019re putting too much at stake. Nobody thinks about anything little.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFinally we\u2019re coming into a time when the context is beginning to speak back to us very\u00a0knowledgeably, very loudly. We live in the world, and we\u2019ve been pretending like we don\u2019t. Now we\u2019re hearing from the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo assume that all experiences like that [Deepwater Horizon] oil well, it can only be handled by experts at great expense, is a mistake I think. What we need to do is to get it to where we can have a say in it, and we can I think. If we don\u2019t then we lose the personal ground of hope. And the next thing is we\u2019re all going around saying things like, \u2018it\u2019s inevitable\u2026 there\u2019s nothing you can do about it.\u2019 I\u2019m so tired of that word inevitable \u2013 that\u2019s part of the vocabulary of very lazy people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I think this news report on evangelicals and climate change is a good sign:<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Evangelicals to pray about climate change\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dYjC7Cp27LI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evangelicals are known for our skepticism of science. We\u2019re also a tad bit prone toward conspiracy theories. I was a biology major at a state school known for agriculture, so I spent to much time listening to the dynamics of global warming to shrug it off as a hoax. Yet, we still have a fair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53,993,992,484,280,232],"class_list":["post-3019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-creation-care","tag-earth-day","tag-evangelicals","tag-limits","tag-wendell-berry"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Happy Earth Day! (Or as we evangelicals like to call it, Tuesday).<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Evangelicals are known for our skepticism of science. We're also a tad bit prone toward conspiracy theories. 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