An open letter from 200 evangelical scientists

Two hundred US evangelical scientists write an open letter to Congress calling for meaningful climate action. Here is a taste:

The Bible tells us that "love does no harm to its neighbor" (Romans 13:10), yet the way we live now harms our neighbors, both locally and globally. For the world's poorest people, climate change means dried-up wells in Africa, floods in Asia that wash away crops and homes, wildfires in the U.S. and Russia, loss of villages and food species in the Arctic, environmental refugees, and disease. Our changing climate threatens the health, security, and well-being of millions of people who are made in God's image. The threat to future generations and global prosperity means we can no longer afford complacency and endless debate. We as a society risk being counted among "those who destroy the earth" (Revelation 11:18).

Does Jesus love religion?

A week or so ago, a spoken word video featuring a young man called Jefferson Bethke denouncing religion in the name of Jesus took the FaceTubes by storm, gathering over 15 million views in a matter of days. Here it is, for those remaining seven billion or so who may have missed it.

A mostly helpful analysis and response of the video by Kevin Deyoung can be found here (H/T Dominic). Deyoung says Bethke "perfectly captures the mood, and in my mind the confusion, of a lot of earnest, young Christians" who interpret the word religion to mean "self-righteousness, moral preening, and hypocrisy." Yet this is not what it means. Jesus did not come to abolish, but to fulfil. Deyoung's critique was read by Bethke, who subsequently contacted Deyoung and said "I agree 100%". The interaction is a good example of gracious constructive theological conversation.

And with a hat tip to Kyle, here is a very interesting Catholic response to the original video, also (I believe) done in a spirit of constructive dialogue.

Evangelicals ought to be greener than the Greens

Guest post by Mick Pope

What does the gospel say about caring for creation?
Evangelicals should be at the forefront of creation care, regardless of the issue. The Bible is far greener than the Greens can ever be precisely because we don't "hate humanity" (as the Greens are sometimes accused of doing) but should have a proper biblical anthropology in which humanity is made by God from the good dirt and called by God to the noblest of tasks. However, one of the problems with some strands of Evangelicalism at various points of history is that it hasn't taken biblical anthropology seriously enough. Because we belong with the dust from which we were made and will be bodily resurrected, matter matters, including matter that isn't human.

Genesis 1 makes it clear that the Earth is the divine temple and that humans are the idols/images in that temple (interestingly, the word used for "image" in the ancient Greek translation of Genesis 1.26-27 is the same word elsewhere used for pagan idols), representing God to the rest of creation. This rules out any negative views towards the dominion mandate, since it is in God's image that we are to rule.

Psalm 104 is oft neglected and makes a couple of things clear. Firstly, God cares for creatures that (at the time) lay outside of the human economy, indeed for creatures like lions that were often harmful to the human economy, because he took delight in them for their own sake. It is a Psalm in praise of God's own creative wisdom. Notice too how the Psalmist places human economic activity alongside that of his care of the rest of creation. It is a small step to see that if God cares for and tends the wild places, we have no right to interfere with that, and as we carry out dominion in his name we should be also caring for wilderness, not to our own detriment but not to its neglect either.

The third important passage is Romans 8:19-25, which shows how intimately our future and that of the non-human creation are tied together. Creation groans for its own liberation as it has suffered under human misrule because of our idolatry. Note a solid biblical critique of materialism and paganism - we can't afford to leave creation care to atheists or pantheistic Greens since it is our calling. Still, when those groups take caring for creation more seriously than us they shame us. Note too that if creation waits for liberation we don't "save the Earth" but we do act in hope for the future. Just as when we seek to be more holy we don't save ourselves but live in hope of our final sanctification.

So caring for creation matters for Evangelicals.

What about climate change? Is it disingenuous for Christian organisations like Ethos to support the mainstream scientific view without giving equal time to those who are sceptical? As a meteorologist and a PhD who has followed the debate I'd say the science is pretty sound, and that we at Ethos are following the understanding laid down by one hundred and fifty years of direct observation of temperatures, at least a thousand years of proxy data from various independent sources, the best models of the day that can only reproduce the twentieth century trends with greenhouse gases included in the model, and a whole slew of research based on various observations of temperature extremes, changes in rainfall patterns, melting glaciers, spreading tropical diseases and so on.

Addressing climate change is part of a much larger project. Evangelicalism has much to repent of (in my opinion) and has and continues to miss its mission of creation care and opportunities to live out the gospel.

Dr Mick Pope is a meteorologist and coordinator of Ethos Environment. An earlier version of this post appeared as a comment on the Ethos site.

Vote for others

During previous elections, I have encouraged people to vote for others, that is, as an expression of love for neighbour, to vote not for the party or candidate who will meet my needs, validate my projects, support people like me, but for the ones whose policies are more concerned with the common good, with protecting the vulnerable and needy, who will look for long term benefits not immediate political or economic gain. Siu Fung Wu has written an excellent little piece making the same point with some good examples.

If you're a new reader or haven't been following recently, you might like to consider some of these posts:
• How to vote Christianly
• Why I am neither right nor left
• How green are the parties?
• The elephant in the room
• Some myths about refugees in Australia
• Are the Greens anti-Christian?
• Changing the wind: elections and social change

Finally, for those looking for some slightly more detailed analysis and critique from an evangelical perspective, Gordon Preece, director of Ethos, has written a very useful piece summarising why this election has been particularly frustrating (parochialism, presentism and poll-iticians) and then offering some principles for ethical voting, including the need to evaluate the relative weight of ethical issues across a range of personal, social and ecological concerns. It is too simple to just pick one area and decide that the others are irrelevant.

Today, fear not and vote for others.
H/T Ian Packer for both the links.

On being evangelical: a question of loyalty

The gospel is a critical agent in human hearts and history. To be evangelical (to be a gospel person) is to affirm God's good world through cross and resurrection: that is, not simply and straight-forwardly to say "yes" to everything as it is, but to see it through the double lens of cross and resurrection, in which human pride and culture and institutions and traditions and "evangelicalism" (and "post-evangelicalism" and "anti-evangelicalism") are judged and found wanting, but then also raised to God's new life. To be a gospel person is to be against the world, for the world. It will also sometimes mean being against "evangelicalism" for the sake of the gospel. The good news of Jesus doesn't let us sit comfortably where we presently are, but draws us forward into the future promised by the cross and resurrection of Christ. And so to be evangelical means being open to critique, open to new light breaking forth from God's good news, which remains good and remains new. To be evangelical is to accept and offer "critique from within" and to allow my own proud stance of wanting to view things critically from the outside to be itself crucified.

If we belong to God and his coming future, and to the future of this world, we groan at the inadequacies of this world and at the inadequacies of all attempts to anticipate the resurrection of the dead.

This conception of being evangelical is not defined by loyalty to particular cultural traditions or to one party on certain contested social and ethical disputes, far less by loyalty to a particular political movement. It is not even defined by loyalty to the Holy Scriptures, at least not directly. To be evangelical is to be loyal to the Christ who meets us in and with the good news of the kingdom of God and to allow that loyalty to shape all our affections and desires, our fears and hopes, our identity and destiny.

Evangelical Social Engagement

The Theological Commission of the World Evangelical Alliance has released a Statement on Evangelical Social Engagement (published here in Christianity Today). It's an interesting read, and begins like this:

The confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ has immediate political implications for the witness of the church in the world.

Before you go and read it, ask yourself, "what are those implications?" - then see how closely they match the suggestions in the document.

Amazing Grace: now I see

On Thursday night, I went with a group from church to see Amazing Grace, the new-ish film about William Wilberforce and the abolition of the British slave trade around the turn of the 19th century. I'd read a number of lukewarm reviews and so my expectations were suitably dimmed. But it was good. Twenty years of parliamentary debate may not be everyone's idea of a thrilling plot, but the figure of Wilberforce holds it together. At age 21, he was the youngest ever MP and until his retirement 45 years later he never lost an election. During that time, he was involved in penal reform, helped secure better working better conditions for child labourers in England’s mills and factories, was active in setting up orphanages and worked for the welfare of single mothers, sailors, and soldiers. He helped found (what later became) the RSPCA, the Bible Society, National Gallery, Royal Institution for the Pursuit of Science and the Church Missionary Society. He helped abolish the religious test keeping Roman Catholics, nonconformists and Jews out of parliament and universities. He intervened to ensure there was a chaplain, Richard Johnson, on the First Fleet to Australia in 1788 (see Meredith's blog for much more discussion of Richard Johnson). And he regularly gave away an estimated one quarter of his considerable annual income to around 69 philanthropic causes.

But he is best remembered for his long campaign against British transatlantic slavery, a struggle in which he fought against the economic prosperity and military security of the empire, and which pioneered many tactics now familiar to contemporary political campaigners for swaying public opinion. During it all, and facing powerful opponents, death threats, chronic ill-health and accusations of sedition (advocating for the downtrodden was dangerous when revolution was in the air in France and elsewhere), he was inspired and sustained by his faith in Christ.

Wilberforce was an evangelical, a term much used and abused today. But traditional doctrines such as the corruption of humanity, the atoning work of Jesus and the transforming power of the Spirit were crucial in his motivation and goals.

I suspect that were he around today he would be told to keep his faith out of politics.
For those who want a good lecture on Wilberforce, try Sandy Grant's recent talk.
Points hint: this is the same Sydney suburb as this picture. I'm sure that will be very helpful.

Them's fightin' words

I will keep saying it until I have no more reason to: Evangelicals are propagating more heresies today than in any other era of the church. These include a Pelagian doctrine of salvation, a unitarian doctrine of God, a docetic christology and Bible, a gnostic doctrine of eschatology, and a Constantinian doctrine of church-state relations—which, by the way, was what led the German church to support Hitler. Do I really need to unpack these in more detail? I am afraid that I will have to, since I doubt most realize how much the American evangelical sector has capitulated to these grave heresies and called it "a personal relationship with Jesus."

From The Fire and the Rose. We'll have to see how that series progresses and how specific it is to the American scene, since 'evangelical' can have a range of meanings in different cultural contexts.

This great blog has a series of fascinating film reviews, including two of my favourites: Magnolia and Me and You and Everyone We Know. I highly recommend both the films and the reviews.

Oh, and just added is a collection of links to many many posts on universalism in recent blogging.

Words, words, words: or, why be catholic?

I know it's going to make me sound all emergent and everything, but I was thinking again today about how important it is to occasionally keep claiming good words like 'catholic', 'orthodox', 'liberal', 'pentecostal', 'baptist' (even 'evangelical'!). They are too easily Capitalised and turned from a useful adjective into a proper name of a movement.

Having preached today on Acts 19.1-7* (actually from 18.18-19.10, but 19.1-7 is the juicy bit that everyone wants to talk about), my application was twofold: (a) don't follow John the Baptist; (b) instead: be baptist, pentecostal and catholic. Seemed to generate a few conversations afterwards. Perhaps not so many as my suggestion that we call John the Baptist, 'Jack the dipper'. Oh well, you can't win them all.
* A quick straw poll: does anyone include this passage in their list of top ten Bible favs?

Fundamentalism

Two good posts on the differences between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Here and here.

Saving 'evangelical' from the evangelicals?

A few days ago, I started a discussion on what the term 'evangelicalism' means.

Earlier this year I was chatting with a certain well-known high profile evangelical (I'll avoid giving you the name and the tenous circumstances so that you can all get the impression that I'm really in the loop), and he said in various contexts* he thinks 'evangelical' is so misunderstood that he avoids the term altogether and 'translates' it using other language.

What do people think? How hard is it worth fighting for this term? Is there any reason not to also be fighting as hard to recover something of other great historical terms like catholic or othodox or liberal? Or is all such fighting a misguided attempt to conquer sociology with theology, and we should just use the labels we've inherited without further muddying of the waters? Is 'evangelical' worth saving from the 'evangelicals'?
* I suspect he was thinking primarily of contexts within the US, though can't guarantee what he might think about Australian versions of evangelicalism.
UPDATE: See also here.

Evangelicalism

What does evangelicalism mean to you? Everyone wants to be evangelical (just like we all want to be catholic, orthodox, liberal, pentecostal and so on), but what are your thoughts on the historical movement, on evangelicalism? Definitions or connotations, or even just the first thing that pops into your head: there are no right answers, so especially if you've been hanging back just reading (you know who you are), have a go at writing a comment.

Two kinds of evangelical

Rev Sam over at elizaphanian has an interesting post on his observations (as an Anglo-Catholic Anglican) of there being two kinds of evangelicalism. An intelligent outsider with a sharp eye: worth a look. While we're at it, he also has some good thoughts about how The Da Vinci Code challenges a widespread uncritical christological docetism.