A Call to Serve and Preserve Creation
I just returned to the United States from a clergy conference I was invited to address by Rev. James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool. As a leader in the Church of England, he has also become a global leader in the Christian responsibility to "serve and preserve" the earth. In a recent lecture he said:
Just as we look back on previous times with incredulity and wonder how people, especially believers, could have not only condoned but succored the slave trade and slavery, so in later years I think subsequent generations, who will live consciously with the reality that the earth is not a limitless larder, will find it difficult to understand how we could have described ourselves so uncritically as: "consumers."
A convert to this belief himself, Bishop Jones, without equivocation, calls for conversion of our hearts, our places of worship, and our public policy.
This Friday, HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, is scheduled to go to the House of Representatives for a vote. As we seek to "serve and preserve" the earth on personal and communal levels, this legislation represents a great step forward for our entire country to do the same.
This bill will create incentives for our largest polluting industries to reduce harmful emissions; has the opportunity to create up to 1.7 million new "green" jobs; and has protections for some of the world's poorest people to help them adapt to the ongoing consequences of climate change. The costs of inaction are already being felt across the globe, and this is the opportunity to mitigate the effects of our consumption and pollution. Leadership from the United States in this area is crucial as the world looks forward to December and the international climate treaty discussions in Copenhagen.
It is clear that to love your neighbor is to love the earth, and we all need to take steps on personal and communal levels to do just that. This means setting priorities and being willing to make sacrifices in our own life, but the same needs to happen on a national and global scale.
This legislation is a start and still far from perfect. But, it defines priorities for policy moving forward and demonstrates substantive changes that can provide global leadership for a challenge we must all face together.
I urge you to call your representative's office today and ask him or her to vote to pass this climate change bill. You can find your rep's phone number here, or you can call the congressional switchboard at 202-225-3121 and ask to be forwarded.
Make your voice heard and ensure that history does not remember us just as "consumers" of the earth and its resources, but as people who take seriously the God-given mandate to "serve and preserve" the earth.
Jim Wallis is the author of The Great Awakening
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"Founder of Sojourners, speaker, author, activist" They left out myth believer.
A good example of an ad hominem argument. Something the Right uses often... but is not rare on Huffpost when strict rationalists confront religion. And is a smug, superior way to alienate the majority of Americans who might otherwise be allies. I am a labor radical, transgendered, and gay. I've been called "sick and twisted" on other posts-- for being TG? Hardly. It was for coming out as Christian. And for suggesting that understanding religious people was both more humane and a better political tactic than hostility.
~Marian Visions~
Marian Visions and misguided minions
An icy pall awaits to descend
You can feel a presence
Sense foot steps comin
Nothing it touches
Is the same again
It's in granite and plaster
That times movin faster
To that destination
Where this mystery began
It's on the drums of Africa, The Tora, The Quran
The Bhagavad gita, the Bible
Those handbooks of man
That salvation is singular
For each individual
There's no crossing that threshold
Holding anyone's hand
But there's footsteps to follow
All short cuts ring hollow
The Krelim and The Pentagon
Are both built on sand
So go tell your brother
You're in the charge of each other
From India and Pakistan
Israel and Iran
So go tell your brother
We're in the charge of each other
Every father and child
Woman and man
Marian visions and misguided minions
An icy pall awaits to descend..
Marian Vision by me
Copyrighted 1991
Use by permission
TJ...
Sorry about the typo of Kremlin...The Kremlin, The Pentagon are both built on sand...
So now Cap and Trade is a religious issue? This is what this climate bill will do:
"Is all of this economic pain justified by gains against global warming? Higher energy prices dramatically slow the economy. These higher energy prices push unemployment up by 1,145,000 jobs on average, with peaks over 2,479,000. In aggregate, GDP drops by over $9.4 trillion. The next generation will inherit a federal debt pumped up by $28,728 per person.[5] All of these costs accrue in the first 25 years of a 90-year program that, as calculated by climatologists, will lower temperatures by only hundredths of a degree in 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree at the end of the century.[6]"
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm2476.cfm
Make sure you realize what you are voting for.
The climate bill will make clean energy jobs in this country. The bill stops the projected INCREASE in global warming if we kept on our current track.
It stimulates American innovation in energy technology.
It doesn't help oil companies or Saudi Arabia. Oh, darn.
I am waiting to see more details on the "green jobs". If it is like ethenol, it will go to the huge multinational corperations like Archer Daniels Midland and GE and even the oil companies. When the laws and ammendments get finalized in the dead of night, the people getting this government subsidy for wind and solar will be the companies that give the most money to the politicians. It will make the rich richer and the poor will just get higher energy bills.
From the Heritage Foundation, a neocon, free market fundamentalist think tank. Like I trust them one bit. They're wrong about almost everything.
G-d says
Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
some think that means they can do whatever they please to G-ds creation. instead it is a fiduciary responsibility.
lets not forget
Numbers 35:33
So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.
a little more esoteric quote
“When the Holy One Blessed be He created Adam, He took him and caused him to pass before all the trees of the Garden of Eden. He said to him, ‘See how beautiful and praiseworthy are my works; and all that I have created, I have created for your sake. Take heed that you do not damage and destroy my world.’” (Koheleth Rabbah 7:28)
That's exactly the problem with such thinking. The mentality that we're hurting God's creation, rather than hurting our closest kin. Human beings are animals, we're creatures of the Earth like every other microbe, bacterium, reptile, and mammal. We share our genes with every species. So rather than seeing animals as separate from us, we should start seeing them as ourselves.
It takes religion to actually convince one's self that we humans have "dominion" over the animals. How arrogant and self-important. Additionally, maybe you shouldn't criticize those who seem to "do whatever they want." Clearly you're using a computer, and that takes energy. That energy is being supplied by pollution-causing operations. So you're contributing like everyone else. Do you drive a car? Yup. Do you eat meat? Yup.
I do as well, but I don't criticize others when I do such things myself. But of course, don't expect consistency from the religious. They only want to impose their morals on others, not follow them. Although when you read the scripture, there are plenty of mandates that are 1,000% immoral. So it's a good thing people ignore much of their belief system.
God is an idea. We made it up. And it's time to wake up from our own creation.
Just as arrogant and self important as those who rail against established religion.
One must wonder just where the idea comes from that they have any better idea than anyone else does?
And your idea Dave is that God doesn't exist..that's an idea too.
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." I wonder what this "us" and "our" stuff is. More than one creator? The editorial 'we"? Or maybe the translation?
And then after God got done with that little exercise, he apparently forgot all about it, for in Genesis 2:5 we observe that "there was not a man to till the ground," and that's what got Adam created in Genesis 2:7. All kind of peculiar.
But more to the point: are human beings capable of doing anything without invoking God? Can't we just decide for ourselves to do the right thing without the need to please some deity? Is it not enough to treat the earth, and all the creatures upon it, with respect and dignity and kindness? What good are we if we are motivated only by fear of the wrath of God, the stick, or an afterlife in heaven, the carrot? Really, do we need all this God stuff to act responsibly?
Whether by the hand of God, or a random happenstance in an endless universe, Mother Earth is the Miracle. Sadly, she has cancer. It is us.
God created a perfect ecosystem a paradise we choose to make hell on earth all too frequently due to our willfulness...
There is more than enough to feed and cloth and serve us all it is the distribution of resources that make things terrible for so many...
Bankers have a lot to do with this internationally, and the corporations that accumulate wealth for wealth's sake..which serves no one, no good purpose...
Nothing has changed in 6,000 years nothing...
Recently here it was reported rare miniature elephants were slaughtered for their tusks, bottle nose dolphins are being shot and blow up with hand grenades..by Americans so called sportsmen...
People are being shot in their churches, and reverends are asking people to bring their guns to a church as would be objects of worship...
Reverends have become political hacks, such as Pat Robertson and that zealot baffoon Falwelland so many more...
The biggest churches preach materialism...heresy..same as Ciaphus..
Man is a failed species...after all the chances God gave us we still chose to fail ourselves and our Creator...due to our free will and pride and arrogance...
There is no salvation for mankind, only if at all the individual...
Now watch how those who have no faith attack like hyenas..
We are in the final days and there is no Rapture none, that too is heresy..so get ready to reap what we've sown...
I'm resigned to it, are you...
And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
Jesus replied, "Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me."
And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
I'm guessing the vast majority of American Christians won't be attendance at the pearly gates?
I can't argue with that...
In fact I agree..
As Nietzsche said:
"There was only ever one true Christian, and He died on the Cross..!"
And God said to Adam & Eve, "Go forth and multiply." And the did. And so did the rest of us. And therein lies the real problem causing global warming. Too many people sharing too few resources. How about we start addressing the real problem for once? We can start by making people who have children start paying for them. Let's remove all the tax incentives to have children. We have enough people already and don't have enough jobs for them now. Instead, how about rewarding people for NOT having children. Why should people who have children get lots of tax deductions for contributing even more to the problem while people who have never had children are supposed to help pay for them?
Do you really want to live on a planet with no life forms left other than human beings and insects? Because that's where we're headed Reverend. BTW: Why didn't Noah save the dinosaurs? I thought he was supposed to save all the animals two by two? I actually had a Jehovah's Witness tell me that they drowned in the great flood.
I have bad news for you Reverend: There really aren't any Bogey Men.
Sorry . . .
it is better to talk religion is you knew your bible.
it does not say "Go forth and multiply" it says
Genesis 1:22
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
the key words are fruitful and multiply.
as anybody who has fruit trees will tell you to make them fruitful you need to constantly pruning them.
as a mathematician will tell multiply is an orderly growth. not a cancerous growth.
That still does not negate People'sKey main point, which is that there are too many people on this earth than can be supported in a sustainable way. There is no question of that. Around the world we need to have birth control. In this country, it is immigration that is fueling our population growth. Those are the facts and they don't go away by quibbling over Bible verses.
i hadnt read your post all the way through before posting. actually had the wrong verse the idea is still the same.
sorry you had a bad experience with a jw who didnt no the bible. if they had read the bible they would know that the sun wasnt created till the 3rd day. this means we are not talking about a 24 hour day but a day in the life of G-d. when the story of creating is read as it is suppose to be read it follows the scientific view of creation.
of course it is deliberately misread by some who want to keep people ignorant.
It doesn't follow at all the "scientific view of creation."
The people who made up these fables had no idea how the universe came to be, or that there was a universe beyond the small part of the earth where they dwelled. Hence the thousands upon thousands of different stories of creation, all of them invoking some kind of supernatural processes.
Please let us not torture the words in the Bible into coinciding with scientific theory and knowledge, but instead let them stand as primitive explanations for things poorly understood by primitive peoples. Because that's what they are.
Want to know the meaning of Genesis?
That God made the Heavens and the Earth and made all of us.
That's it period.
What's so hard about that?
Bash religion all you want, folks, doesn't change the fact that maybe Mr. Wallis's work will reach audiences that would otherwise never hear it. Hopefully he can help persuade more people to support going green. The more the merrier. Let's keep our eye on the ball, shall we? What matters is keeping this planet livable for future generations, not trying to one up each other with smackdowns on other people's religious beliefs.
For those of us who don't believe in Bogey Men, HOW the message is delivered is important too.
For those of you who are so rigid and prejudiced that you want to cut out everybody who doesn't agree with every aspect of your own personal ideology, you're not part of the solution. You're part of the problem.
Sure, that's often the only way you can get through to religious people, logic and reason doesn't always work.
I just hope they don't remember that slavery itself is sanctioned in the bible by Abraham himself.
And we are talking what maybe a couple of thousand years before the Bible was written?
Taking history out of it's original context..
IS ALWAYS A BAS IDEA...
The Earth is fine: We humans, however, are screwed. And here's the truth about religion, Mr. Wallis --- eloquently and comedically expressed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNy6ziOyxoA
If everyone realized there's no god to bail us out, we'd be all be far more prudent in caring for what we have. .
It's very simple.
We need to keep the planet hospitable, in order to survive. If we don't, we die. It doesn't matter how "economies" suffer (they are suffering even WITHOUT Kyoto and other environmental protections). If you have planet which cannot support human life, you have no economy.
If you are a Christian, the Bible says man is given dominion over the planet. Dominion doesn't mean "the right to destroy its life-supporting systems".
But don't expect conservative Christians to adhere to such principles.
If Jesus came back to Earth, conservative Christians in America would run attack ads against him, because he stood for everything they hate.
"If Jesus came back to Earth, conservative Christians in America would run attack ads against him, because he stood for everything they hate."
WRONG. Jesus was the first character in the bible to introduce hell. He was the first to introduce damnation and eternal fire for failure to worship him. He made it crystal clear that following him was more important than family, world peace, brotherly love, or even food and water. He spoke once or twice about loving your neighbors, and even your enemies, but mostly he said, "believe in me or burn for all eternity." He said it over and over and over again. It's the primary theme of his wretched book. THIS is what Christians love so much about it. No common sense or reasoning can penetrate it. Trying to use scripture as a communicative tool for environmental issues is a futile and foolish effort.
Sorry but you are just proving what Christians know of those who are railing against us..
You can't even do your own homework:)
One of the last lines of one Gospel says that the author wrote these things so that we may believe...he also said there were other signs that Jesus gave that were not recorded.
Your god did not give us this earth. My god is older and she wasn't even around when Earth formed. By the way it formed and was not created. That indacates a creator.,
My god is an indian who turns into a wolf.
"By the way it formed and was not created. That indacates a creator."
Wha...?
Global Warming is BS and Australia, New Zealand and other European countries have realized it and are either not enacting and climate legislation or if they already have, they are quickly undoing it.
No kidding. Please site your sources so we can all check this out. Personally, I had no idea that "Australia, New Zealand and other European countries" were claiming that global warming was BS and as such "are quickly undoing" climate legislation.
Hell, I didn't even know that New Zealand and Australia were European countries.
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