Fall 2004
Download Fall 2004 issue (PDF, 754 KB)Table of Contents
From the Publisher's Desk by Jim BallGroaning in the Spirit by Cheryl Johns
Creation Care and the Mission of God by Howard A. Snyder
Environmental problems now a 'Megathreat' by David P. Gushee
From Gurdy's Run to global leadership, Part I by Larry Schweiger
The glory of God by Rev. Dwight McKissic
From the Publisher's Desk
Jim BallDear Friends,
On October 31, 1994 the Evangelical Environmental Network formally came into existence. We have accomplished a great deal in our 10 years of ministry on behalf of all of God's creation. Highlights include: the creation of the Network itself with 23 Partner organizations; the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation with nearly 500 signatories; 42 issues of our quarterly magazine; materials delivered to over 35,000 churches ; an Endangered Species Campaign that helped save the Endangered Species Act in 1996; three websites that have been visited by hundreds of thousands; the What Would Jesus Drive Campaign that resulted in over 4,000 media stories and helped change the debate on fuel economy, and; nine major conferences of evangelical leaders.
Indeed, our latest conference for evangelical leaders, the CT-NAE-EEN Creation Care Conference, marks a new phase in the history of evangelical creation-care efforts. This conference took place June 28-30, 2004 in Maryland at the Sandy Cove Christian Conference Center located literally at the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. To make this conference a reality, EEN worked with two of the most respected institutions in the evangelical community: Christianity Today and the National Association of Evangelicals. We have cooperated with these organizations in the past, but not on something of this magnitude and significance.
Simply having the cosponsorship of CT and NAE made the event significant. But it was the level of participation from senior leadership that helped to mark the event as historic (see a list of participants inside). What made it what I believe to be a kairos moment, however, was the work of the Holy Spirit. Ted Haggard, President of the NAE, described his experience as "an epiphany." Others stated how they had been "converted" to the cause. You could hear the ice breaking at the center of evangelical life on our cause. Evangelical creation-care is no longer a fringe movement. It now lives at the center. All credit and honor goes to the Lord.
One of the results of the conference was the Sandy Cove Covenant and Invitation, printed in this issue of the magazine. Inside you will also find presentations from the conference, including: two devotions delivered at the conference by Dr. Cheryl Johns and the Rev. Dwight McKissic; an adaptation of Howard Snyder's keynote presentation on the biblicaltheological basis for creation-care; part one of Larry Schweiger's keynote presentation reflecting on God's work in his life as a senior environmental leader; and some select quotations from a variety of the sessions. One of the conference participants, Dr. David Gushee, provides us with a reflection article on the conference itself and the opportunity it provides. I believe you will find it all engaging, edifying, and uplifting. And thank you again for everything you do to care for all of God's creation.
Your brother in Christ, Jim Ball
Groaning in the Spirit
Cheryl JohnsWe are gathered at Sandy Cove to address an issue of critical importance, namely our responsibility as Christians in care of creation. Each of us is a caretaker of some niche of God's created order. We may care for a plot of land, tend to animals, care for children or give elder care. There is no one here who is not a steward over the created order. In the weeks preceding this conference we have had opportunity to reflect upon our stewardship over creation as we have meditated upon the Scriptures provided us or read articles from Creation Care. These readings have provided opportunity to take a hard look at the quality of our stewardship.
Reading the Scriptures and the conference materials gave me cause to reflect upon the day I failed as a steward over creation, in par ticular in the area of animal husbandry. I call this event "the slaughter of the innocents." A few years ago my husband, Jackie, and I raised poultry on our small farm. Besides chickens, we kept a few guinea hens. Raising guineas is a long-standing southern tradition. Guineas make good 4 watch animals because if someone comes on your property they will let out piercing screams. Another benefit of raising guineas is their ability to control bugs, especially ticks. However, their maternal instincts are lacking. Guineas have a tendency to lay their eggs where predators can easily destroy them. After losing several nests to opossums and raccoons, we decided to incubate a few eggs. Not knowing the gestation period of guineas (and failing to find out), we guessed at how long it would be until the eggs would hatch. Day after day, week after week, we carefully tended the eggs, turning them each day.
After a while, what seemed like a long while, it appeared that the eggs were not going to hatch. Fearing the eggs were going bad I suggested to Jackie that we dispose of them. He agreed that the eggs seemed past their due date. So he took the eggs and threw them over the fence into the back pasture. Almost immediately we realized our mistake. As the eggs hit the ground and shattered they revealed tiny, live and seriously injured baby guineas. We rushed out to gather up the injured babies and hurriedly put them back into the incubator. But their trauma was too much. The guineas were too pre-mature and too injured to survive. One by one they died…until only one baby guinea remained.
This baby guinea was a stubborn one. It seemed to will itself to live. All afternoon I kept a death watch over the pre-mature guinea. Every few minutes I would lift the top off the incubator, expecting to see a dead guinea. Upon first glance it appeared that the guinea was dead, but when I would softly call to it, the baby guinea would lift its head and attempt to make a chirping sound. It seemed to respond to my touch, so I would stroke its tiny head and speak softly to it. As the afternoon wore on we bonded, that guinea and I. I became its companion in a valiant struggle between life and death. Eventually, however, death won over. When the guinea died I cried tears of the penitent, knowing I had caused this premature death. That afternoon I became totally pro-life. The guinea taught me painful lessons about the fragility of life, the will to live that is present in every living creature, and the breath of God that fills all of life.
We often fail to see our connection to all of life and because of this failure we fall shor t in our stewardship over creation. Evangelicals, as heirs of the Enlightenment, emphasize individual autonomy. While there is much to celebrate about this emphasis, it has weakened our view of the economy of salvation. When sin is only personal and redemption is only for individual souls, we miss the fact that our redemption is part of Christ's restoration of the whole created order. Indeed, as Paul reminds us in the epistle of Romans, all creation is under the curse of sin. Creation waits in eager expectation for its liberation from the bondage to decay. The whole creation, notes Paul, "has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" (Romans 8:22).
There are times when we hear this groaning of creation. It is especially poignant at the deathbed of a loved one. Is there anything equal to the pain of watching the person you love struggle to breathe? At these times we stand helpless before the bondage to decay. Yet, we know that our groaning is in expectation of resurrection and the liberation from the power of death. Even in death there is hope. The groaning is not the final word.
Within my tradition there is the experience of praying in the Spirit to the depths that we utter sighs too deep for words. In this form of prayer we groan in the Spirit and with the Spirit. We are invited into companionship with the same Spirit who brooded over chaos at creation is even now brooding over the brokenness of a cursed creation. Our groaning in the Spirit and with the Spirit is a form of cosmic prayer that calls for the restoration of all things. It is painfully delightful to pray in this manner.
While we wait in eager expectation of this day of restoration, we do not do so passively. We actively pray in the Spirit and we give care to creation, knowing that one day we will give an account for our stewardship. We wait with hope that all things will be made right and that harmony will once again be established in creation.
We were not present at the dawn of creation when the morning stars sang together. The majestic beauty of that music must have been glorious. We will, however, be present at the singing of redeemed creation. It is a song whose music is even now stirring within us:
"Then I heard every creature in heaven and on ear th and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is on them singing, 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!'" (Rev. 5.13)
Editors Note: Dr. Cheryl Johns is Professor of Discipleship and Christian Formation at The Church of God Theological Seminary in Cleveland Tennessee. This was the opening devotion at the CT-NAE-EEN Creation Care Conference, presented on June 28, 2004.
Creation Care and the Mission of God
Howard A. SnyderDo you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? - Job 38:33
Biblically speaking, creation care is an integral part of the good news of redemption and new creation in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. But if this is true, why is creation care not a more prominent theme in much of contemporary Christianity? Evangelicals claim to believe in the full authority of the Bible. Yet in the United States especially, Evangelicals for the most part read the Bible in such a way as either to positively exclude creation care, or to relegate it to such a low priority that it gets lost among other concerns. Evangelicals who claim to believe the Bible fail to take the Bible seriously in this area. My impression from living most of my life in the Evangelical community is that most American Evangelicals do not believe that the Bible teaches creation care as an essential part of the Good News of Jesus Christ, or that it must be an indispensable part of faithful Christian witness.
I am thoroughly convinced that the human race today faces a growing ecological crisis, particularly with regard to biodiversity and climate change. We are well beyond the point where further scientific evidence is needed to confirm this. Failure to recognize and address environmental issues is not fundamentally a scientific issue; it is an ideological and political one. In other words, from a Christian standpoint, the issue is fundamentally theological. It has to do with how we think about God, God's world, and the human place within it.
When we explore Scripture with these challenges in view, we find a richly textured, comprehensive, and profound biblical mandate for creation care. And we find it is integral, not tangential, to the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ.
The Bible offers numerous reasons and motivations for creation care. Here I will explore five from a missional perspective.
1. Creation care for God's sake. "The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1). God created the universe to glorify himself and to assist his human creation in praising him. We are to praise God through, and also because of, his beautiful but complex world.
The primary reason for faithful creation care, therefore, is that caring for God's world is a fundamental way of glorifying God. We glorify him by the proper stewardship of the world he has made. Scripture affirms that "whether [we] eat or drink, or whatever [we] do," we should "do everything for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). God is glorified when we see him in the created order, and when we take care of the world he has made. Creation care is part of our acceptable worship (Rom. 12:1).
One of the main lessons Job had to learn was that the created order testifies to the vast wisdom of God and therefore is a motive for praising God. "Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God" (Job 37:14). We see God in his works, and lift our eyes from nature to nature's God—but then look back again at nature with new eyes, seeing the garden we are to tend. Fulfilling God-given stewardship through the God-like powers that have been given us for good, not for evil, we glorify the Creator.
Caring for and protecting the world God has made is part of our wor ship and service. We care for creation for God's sake.
2. Creation care for our own sake—for human well-being. We should care for creation as if our life depended on it—because it does.
We often forget how dependent we are upon the physical environment—" few hundred yards of atmosphere and few inches of topsoil," as someone said. Scientific evidence is mounting not only of our vulnerability, but of serious threats to human health and well-being.
If we are passionate about people, we will be passionate about their environment. Christians have often been concerned with feeding the hungry and providing shelter for the homeless. It is time that we understand that this Christ-like human concern must expand to include the environmental conditions that enable food production and the well-being of the planet that is our home.
Scripture is in part the story of God's people serving God in God's land. If God's people are faithful, the land prospers. Conversely, if the land suffers, we suffer. This is a repeated theme in much of Old Testament literature—in the law, the prophets, and the wisdom literature. It comes to particular focus in the Jubilee legislation of Leviticus 25-26.
If we care about people, we will care for the land and air and multi- plied species on which our well-being depends.
3. Creation care for creation's sake. We should care for the created order because it has its own God-given right to exist and flourish, independently of its relationship to us. The world after all is God's handiwork, not ours. God created the universe for his good purposes, not all of which are yet known to us. We need, therefore, a certain eschatological humility and reserve. We are to honor God's creative work, and to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of what he has made.
Scripture says that "the whole creation" groans "in labor pains" as it "waits with eager longing" for the final redemption. We know that in God's timing "the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. 8:19-23). Until God finally brings the new heavens and the new earth, the creation groans, suffering the effects of the fall and of ongoing human exploitation. It is our responsibility to care for creation, to work to relieve its suffering. The disorder and suffering that entered the world through human sin is not the final word, and it is not God's final intention. Like our own gardens and house plants and pets, the creation depends on us to see its need and to respond with God's compassion and care.
In great measure, God's other creatures depend on us for their well- being and survival. Increasingly, in fact, we see that the whole biosphere is more dependent on human nurture and care than we would have imagined. We need to recover the biblical sense of why creation exists, how it proclaims God's glory, and of how all nature will par ticipate in God's salvation. Since all God's creatures reflect God's glory and have a place in God's plan, they are part of legitimate Christian concern. If God cares for and about the creatures, so should we.
4. Creation care for the sake of mission. Another major reason Evangelicals should be passionate about creation care is that this is essential for effective mission in today's world. The church is in mission because God is in mission. God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son to give us eternal life through faith in him. Therefore the church is to love the world and bring the Good News to people everywhere. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (Jn. 20:21).
The biblical doctrine of creation assures us that mission is not truly holistic unless it includes the church's mission to and in behalf of the earth. In the biblical vision, God acts in Jesus Christ not to save men and women out of their environment, but with their environment. The biblical vision has always been God's people serving God's purposes in God's land.
The theological truth here is based in both creation and fall. God created man and woman in harmony with himself, with each other, and with the created world. Man and woman were at peace (shalom) with God, with themselves and each other, and with the plants and animals God had made.
Sin, however, brought disruption in a fourfold sense. As Francis Schaeffer pointed out years ago, human disobedience brought alienation between 18 humans and God and as a result an internal alienation within each person (alienation from oneself), alienation between humans, and alienation from nature. All derive from sin; all distort God's good purpose in creation. These are all concerns therefore of the gospel of reconciliation, and they clarify the church's mission agenda. Faithful Christian mission focuses on healing the four alienations that have resulted from the fall. Creation care, therefore—working for reconciliation between humans and the created order—is an indispensable element in Christian mission. It is part of the gospel.
The argument here is both theological and strategic. Theological, because a fully biblical view of mission will necessarily include the dimension of creation care. But also strategic and pragmatic, because a holistic theology and practice of mission that incorporates creation care is much more persuasive. Do we want people of all nations and cultures to come to faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world? Then we should proclaim and demonstrate that Jesus is the renewer of the whole creation, the whole face of the earth. Salvation is that big. This is a grander portrayal of Christ than we sometimes present. It both honors our Savior and makes the gospel more persuasive and attractive when we present a gospel of total healing—the healing of creation; the restoration of all things. This is truly the whole gospel for the whole world.
5. Creation care for the sake of our children and grandchildren. There is a final persuasive motive for creation care today: For the sake of our children and grandchildren. For our descendants yet unborn. As Scripture teaches, we have a responsibility—a stewardship—in behalf of the generations yet to come.
Today we look back at Christian slaveholders in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and ask, How could they not see that slavery was incompatible with the gospel? What did they think they were doing? Our grandchildren, as they wrestle with ecological issues, will look back on this generation and ask: Why could they not see the Christian responsibility for earth stewardship? Why did they wait so long? What did they think they were doing when they failed to defend the forests and the seas and to protect earth's endangered species? Did they not understand what they were doing to their own descendants?
We today are the generation that must rediscover and proclaim creation care as part of the gospel, part of the mission of God. We hope that our children and grandchildren will know and serve Jesus Christ, and we hope also that they will inherit a world that is not choked and poisoned by pollution or made scarcely habitable by environmental disasters. If that is our hope, the time for action is now. We should treat future generations the way we would want to be treated.
Editor's Note: Howard Snyder is Professor of the History and Theology of Mission at Asbury Theological Seminary. This article is adapted from his presentation given June 28, 2004, at the CT-NAE-EEN Conference on Creation-care at the Sandy Cove Christian Conference Center in Maryland.
Environmental problems now a 'Megathreat'
David P. GusheeIt is becoming increasingly clear that human beings are doing significant damage to God's good creation and to the creatures who inhabit it, including ourselves. We generally know what to do about the problems if we can only find the will. Christians must join the fight to steward God's world, in obedience to Scripture.
This was my take-away from a major conference of evangelical leaders June 28-30 at the Sandy Cove Christian Conference Center located at the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. We prayed, talked together, and listened to some of the world's leading Christian naturalists and scientists. It was a treat to be a part of this event, though in many ways a deeply sobering experience. It has left me a changed person.
I have to admit that going into this conference creation-care issues were a concern but not a top priority for me. I knew enough to include such issues on my radar screen but was a bit overwhelmed by the complexity of the scientific issues and controversy of the political ones. I have also been fully engaged in dealing with a number of other ethical issues in my writing and teaching. The environment has never been my "specialty."
But it is now clear to me that no thoughtful person can afford to bracket off "the environment" as an optional "moral issue" to get around to when other concerns abate. We only have one planet to live on, and if we poison that one we risk the future not just of other creatures but of humanity itself. (And we are already doing that poisoning, and some people and other creatures are already suffering.) And if such concerns aren't serious enough, think of it this way: If human beings poison this planet beyond reclamation it will be a cosmic-level violation of the first commandment ever given to human beings—to care for the earth and all who dwell here.
For these reasons, I have now decided to group major environmental problems with weapons of mass destruction and certain applications of biotechnology as the three greatest "megathreats" to human and planetary well-being in the 21st century. I will seek to read, teach, write, parent, and live accordingly.
No one set out with a plan to pollute the land, water, and air, poison and kill various species of plants and animals, make human beings gradually sicker, and even change the overall climate around the world. These problems have emerged over time, primarily as the unintended consequence of the modern industrialized western lifestyle. Now it is increasingly clear that the damage we are doing is real, and that it is affecting us and will definitely affect our children and grandchildren and the world they will inhabit.
While there are a number of problems affecting God's creation, the heart of the problem is two-fold. First, some of the industrial chemicals and other substances we have developed are damaging to our own health, to the health of many species of animals as well as plant life, and to the natural environment. We assumed (or acted as if we assumed) that the world was infinitely resilient, and that it could absorb or break down anything we might throw at it. But it is more fragile than we knew. So when we release certain kinds of chemicals into the creation they hang around and make all forms of life—including ourselves—susceptible to increased sickness and even death. This is not just save the whales stuff; it's save ourselves stuff as well.
Second, our marvelous discovery and use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) has begun to result in an effect on the very atmosphere that envelops us, keeping us both warm and safe from the sun's rays. The great majority of the world's most respected scientists (not alarmists or quacks) are now confirming what many people who live close to the land have been saying for awhile—the climate is slowly changing. Essentially, heat that fossil fuels produce is getting trapped in our atmosphere rather than being released, and this is the main reason why the surface of our planet is slowly heating up. There is debate among serious scientists about the severity and pace of the problem, but with few exceptions little debate about the existence of the problem itself.
For those of us who get cold in the winter, a little more heat may not seem like such a bad idea. But the consequences are not to be scoffed at. Even a couple of degrees' increase in global temperature is likely to do such things as heat (and thus expand) ocean water, flooding islands and coastal areas in which tens of millions of people live—in some cases they are already being washed out of their homes forever. At least 150 million people will likely become "environmental refugees" within 50 years because of climate change and other environmental problems. Also, the warming that is already happening seems to be the reason for an increase in extreme weather events, such as intense rainstorms and droughts, which bring immense suffering to so many.
So here's the deal: human beings are a powerful enough species now to affect the very planet on which we all live. We didn't know that we had this kind of power. But we are at risk of poisoning ourselves and overheating our world. More study of the issues is needed, but that seems to be where things are.
This growing threat has caused some Christians to find their way back to the Bible with fresh eyes to see what is actually there. Genesis 2:15 says, "the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Genesis 1:28 says, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves along the ground."
Today, we see what these mandates have always really meant: We are a unique species and play a unique role on the planet. Because of our intelligence and power we are responsible for what happens here in a way that no other creature could ever be. We are in charge of this planetary Garden, with an authority delegated to us from God, and like everyone who has such delegated authority we are responsible to God for exercising it wisely.
It is important also to ground creation care in New Testament teachings. Reducing pollution and environmental degradation are a part of reclaiming the whole world for God, which is the essence of the Kingdom agenda proclaimed by Jesus our Lord. Our joyful privilege is to participate in the advance of God's reign; whenever God's will is done on earth, and sinful patterns broken, it is a victory for the Kingdom. We need to learn to see environmental reclamation as an aspect of that Kingdom work, as well as a direct application of Jesus' teaching that we love God with all we have and love our neighbors as ourselves.
The thirty or so signers of the Sandy Cove Covenant included some who have made creation care their life's work and others for whom the issue had barely surfaced prior to our time together in Maryland. It was striking to see God's Spirit moving among us. Those of us who were there wanted to find some way to attest to having been nudged along by the Spirit of God to become better stewards of God's creation—and to lead those in our circles of influence in the same direction.
The statement is cautious about scientific claims. Clearly, we know that there is much more study needed before we can be fully confident in our descriptions of the full range of environmental problems and the relative seriousness of various threats for the short- and longterm.
But there was full clarity among us that this issue is not going away, and that creation care must now be, as the document says, "a permanent dimension of our Christian discipleship." We covenanted to keep the issue permanently on our agenda, as well as to get it on the agenda of as many people as we can reach.
We pledged these things as an expression of our commitment to being God's faithful people, and in the realistic political hope that if evangelical Christians in America become committed to environmental stewardship, we will not only change America—we will change the world.
The good news going into this effort is that we already know what the basic problems are and most of what to do to adapt to them and fix them. Some of the damage is irreversible, but concer ted action by individuals, churches and Christian organizations, businesses, and governments cans slow down this runaway train, and at a reasonable cost that guards both liberty and the free market. This we must do while there is still time.
Editor's Note: David Gushee is Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University and co-author with Glen Stassen of Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context.
From Gurdy's Run to global leadership, Part I
Larry SchweigerWhat I thought I would do tonight is talk about a personal journey of how the Lord first of all moved me to get into this line of work and some of the things that I've seen and experienced in my walk. I want to tell how God has used me in my walk and how God has brought special people into my life.
I grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and at the time I was born Pittsburgh had the most serious air pollution problem on the planet. The same year that I was born there was the so-called Donora episode.
It was a terrible air pollution event that put over two thousand people in the hospital.
There were over twenty people on the streets of Pittsburgh that fell over dead. I mean they literally died of acute air pollution exposure.
When I was a boy we were dumping over a hundred tons of soot on our landscape in the Pittsburgh area each month.
When we had a snow storm we could enjoy white snow for about 8 to 10 hours, and then it turned totally black. Then, you'd get another snow storm on top of that and you had this sort of Oreo cookie effect where the snow would go from black to white to blac k to white.You could actually count the layers when you shoveled through it. So, I grew up in an environment that was raining soot.
One of the things that happened to me, and it probably related to the toxics I was exposed to as an unborn, was that I was born with a bit of dyslexia. I had trouble with numbers and trouble with putting words together in a way that made any sense. That impeded me and actually prevented me from going into a career in the sciences. I loved science as a kid, and I always had a chemistry set, but I never could do it because of my dyslexia; it just didn't work.
But one of the things that did work for me—I was pretty shy because of my dyslexia—my retreat was into nature. Fortunately we lived on the edge of the city of Pittsburgh and one of my favorite places was a nearby stream called Gurdy's Run.
My brother George and I spent all sorts of time on Gurdy's Run, building log cabins out of the Aspen trees that were nearby, and we built dams in the creek and we were catching fish in a local pond and putting them in the stream by the dam that we built. We listened to nature and I learned the bird calls. My father was actually a member of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and active at the local level, so I got that kind of an exposure as a youngster. We spent all of our free time out on Gurdy's Run and on those hillsides called Fox Ridge.
One summer during the drought of 1962 and 1963 we came home from my grandmother's and I remember coming over the hill and I was anxious to see our Fox Ridge where we spent so much time. To my utter shock and dismay, developers had come in with bulldozers and sparked a fire and burnt the entire place down.
There was not a living tree left.
It was all black.
And so this place that I grew up as a boy was utterly destroyed.
Even when I think about it today it chokes me up to think about what happened to that place.
Much later I happened to be flying over Pittsburgh, and I looked over what was around my home and where Fox Ridge once stood, and I realized that all the places that I spent as a kid are gone from this planet and will never ever be there again.
In their place are houses, and the most troubling thing is Gurdy's Run, where I caught crayfish and saw salamanders and enjoyed all the things you can find there. That stream is now in a concrete pipe. And the kids that live in those areas will never see Gurdy's Run. They'll see a concrete pipe and a sewer main.
Also when I was a boy we used to go to Lake Erie from time to time. My father didn't make a lot of money, so going to Erie was our big trip. I remember getting all excited for weeks in advance for this fishing trip with Dad to Lake Erie.
We got there really late, my dad worked until 6. It was probably 9 or 10 and it was dark and my mom made us go to bed and not go and visit the lake until the morning. It was difficult, sort of like the night before Christmas.
The next morning I woke up at the crack of dawn and I was down to the waterfront.
And again, to my great pain I saw a tremendous mat of dead fish on the water.
Just a tremendous mat. In the mat there were these big fish, and I didn't realize at the time, but I was witnessing the extinction of the blue pike, what once thrived and was once a great fish in Lake Erie.
That fish is now forever extinct and will never again be.
There is a whole zone in Lake Erie that was once the domain of the blue pike and there is nothing in that zone today. Because they were nuked out and will never once again be.
I was standing on the beach that day and I remember walking angrily along the beach. My fishing trip had just been spoiled, and not only that, the air stank from the anoxic water. I mean it was just terrible.
It ruined our vacation. But more than that it moved in my heart, and I'll never forget this.
I had been a Christian for a few years when my younger brother died after living for 10 days. I realized there was such a thing as death and that it can happen to little boys.
I remember making a decision for Christ, I knew I had something out of whack and I made a decision for Christ through that experience of my younger brother dying. But I was on that beach and I remember making a promise to God. I remember the promise: "God, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but if you open doors, I will spend my life working on this stuff."
And you know something, God had demonstrated that in my life in ways I couldn't even imagine, that that boy on the beach, with dyslexia, would be standing here…President of the National Wildlife Federation.
And God has done that.
In 1964, a couple years after that, I had the privilege of going to a youth conser vation school. It was being run by some pretty special people.
These guys were trying to pass laws in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to control mining. Now at that time, Pennsylvania had over ten thousand miles of polluted rivers and streams from mine drainage. We felt in Pennsylvania that coal was King. The energy boys really controlled the House and the Senate.
But my friends were crazy. There were about four of them, and they thought they were going to beat the oil and coal industry.
And so, as a teenager, I got real excited about this. This was the first time I encountered people that were crazy enough to take on bad public policy. I'll never forget this.
I wrote a paper in my history class about it. My history teacher gave me an A on the paper and said "I'm sorry to tell you, but four people can't change the mining laws in this state. The politics are too strong." He was wrong.
These guys were able to overthrow the mining industry. One of them ran for the State legislature. His name was John Laudadio, and in 1971 I actually went to work for John on his staff. I had ten years working in the State legislature. Very early on in my time at the legislature we were working on Lake Erie. We had just gotten the Clean Water Act passed.
You remember Richard Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act and the Congress overrode his veto and passed the Clean Water Act over his veto. Nixon finally relented, but one thing he did do, he impounded the $18 billion that was to fix the sewage system. We had gathered a bunch of State lawmakers from all over the Great Lakes. At that time the Cayuhoga River, which caught on fire, not once but twice. The second time it caught on fire it got so hot is warped the metal deck on the bridge in town there. It was a very serious problem - our waters were flammable.
We went to work on this, and a number of state legislatures, particularly Michigan state lawmakers and the Pennsylvania lawmakers and New York.
We were sitting around a table saying, "What can we do? We need money to clean up these sewage systems and deal with these problems, and the President has impounded the money." The member from Michigan said, "You know, Gerald Ford is the minority leader. I know Gerald pretty well, and we'll go down to meet with him."
So we go to Washington DC, and we make this pitch to Ford about getting money for the Clean Water Act and how important this was. We had all the facts and figures of what was going on in the Great Lakes. And Ford said, "I'll talk to the President and see what I can do."
The long and short of that is obviously Ford became President of the United States, the money started to flow and the Clean Water Act was funded. We saw some great things happen.
When that happened, I was sitting there thinking, "You know Lord, this is amazing. Here is this kid on the beach, and now we're working on fixing the Great Lakes."
Another exciting thing happened while I was with the State legislature. I had seen some developing literature on acid rain when I was at Penn State University as a student.
I had been doing some research where we were collecting rain off of a forest, and I was realizing that the rain in some places had a pH as low as 2.8. Normal rainfall is 5 or 6. So, every unit you go down is an order of magnitude more intense acid. So, 2.8 was very serious deposition.
What I didn't realize is that Pennsylvania was in the eye of the acid rain storm. I took the research I had gathered from the scientists and wrote it into a more popular piece and I published it in a Pennsylvania forest magazine, which was the magazine of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association. And it so happened that John Heinz, who was then a Senator for Pennsylvania, saw it.
John and I were good friends, and he introduced it into the congressional record without even telling me about it. The next day, I walked into my office in the capital and I had a stack of messages from newspaper and media types all over the country. Heinz had made a speech on the floor and talked about acid rain. It was the first time that had happened in Congress.
Shortly thereafter, Heinz asked me to meet him. So I had an opportunity to meet him for dinner and we had a great conversation.
He said, "Larry, look, I believe that acid rain in a very serious threat. I am a fisherman and I hate to see this kind of thing happen. I'll tell you what, if you can get a couple things accomplished, I will be a champion for acid rain controls."
We had worked on some other issues in the past so I knew that he was a man of his word. He said, "The couple things you have to do is one, convince the people of Pennsylvania that acid rain was a real problem, so you're going to need to work on that.
"And two, you're need to come up with a plan to deal with it that is not going to kill the coal or the steel industry in Pennsylvania. If you can figure out how to do that, we have a deal here."
So, we went to work on this and I share this story with you because it connects to where we are today with our efforts on climate change.
We started in 1974/5 and it took us until 1990 to get a bill passed. 15 years! We put together a plan to address acid rain controls by least cost dispatch and it also involved the opportunity to trade, so it created a free market for sulfur that allowed industries to go find the cheapest sulfur to abate and then to sell the credits for those steps they had taken. We ended up achieving our goal, in fact exceeding it of reducing the sulfur emissions beyond what the original intent of that bill was, but at about 1/10th the cost that everyone said it would take.
All during that time I was attending churches and very involved in church activities. It was interesting because the first thing people would say when I said I worked as an environmentalist, was "Oh, you're one of those liberals." But the good news is I've seen a growing number of Christians really get involved. I have to tell you, some of the early people who were working with me on some of these causes were Christians.
So I've seen both sides: Christians who get it and move on the concern. And I've seen other Christians who are critical and very skeptical.
I would say I've operated in two worlds: one is my Christian world where I've been involved in Youth for Christ and various church ministries, teaching Sunday School to adults and teens, and that sort of thing, and for a time actually doing some supply preaching for pastors.
My other world has been my environmental vocation. I've been on both sides of this discussion from a Christian standpoint, and for me it is has always been integral to who I am in this whole cause. I honestly believe the Lord has been opening doors for me all along in my life and giving me opportunities to do what I do.
Editor's Note: Larry Schweiger is President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. This is the first part of a twopart article that is an adaptation of a keynote presentation Larry gave at the CT-NAE-EEN Creation Care conference June 28-30, 2004. Part II will appear in the Winter 05 issue.
The glory of God
Rev. Dwight McKissicPs 19:1-4 (KJV) reads: "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the ends of the world."
And in the book of Romans, chapter 1, verse 20, the Apostle Paul states: "For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse."
God has been faithful to send great preachers to proclaim his name throughout history, the history of the Christian church. In most of our lifetimes, we have been privileged to hear two of God's greatest preachers Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. Generations before us heard D.L. Moody, John Jasper, Billy Sunday and Charles Finey, just to name a few. Europe was privileged to have heard George Whitfield, C.H. Spurgeon (I believe they spoke in America also) the great Martin Luther, who Martin Luther King was named after, John Chrysostom, to name a few. North Africa heard great preachers like Augustine, Teutullian, Origen, and Cyprian, again, just to name a few.
However, David and Paul, taught 16 that before any of these preachers came along, God's creation proclaimed his greatness, goodness, glory, and yes, even the gospel. Long before any of these men took the stage, Paul said that God's invisible attributes are clearly seen in creation and his eternal power and Godhead, leaving man without excuse when it comes to expressing faith in God. David and Paul taught that God revealed Himself through nature. "The heavens declare the glory of God, " David said. "And the firmament shows forth his handiwork." In my tradition, all preachers, when talking about the creation would say, "God stepped out on nothing, and stood on nowhere, and hung something where there was nothing, and said stay there."
When Moses asked God, "Whom shall I tell him sent me, who shall I say to Pharaoh that gave me the power to tell you to let your people go. Whom shall I tell him sent me?" God said to Moses, "you just simply tell them 'I AM that I AM.' You don't have to tell them I hung the stars some 93 billion miles in space, the moon some 258 million miles in space.You don't have to tell him about the nine planets, you don't have to tell him I painted the sky blue, and carpeted the earth with green grass. You just tell him 'I AM that I AM.' They ought to be able to look at nature and see my handiwork."
When the grass turns brown in the winter, and it comes back to life in the spring, God is trying to tell us that dead things can come back to life.
Even in adversity, according to the scripture, nature speaks to us. Jesus talked about rains falling, and the winds blowing, and the floods occurring. He said if Elijah built on the solid rock of God's word, Elijah would stand.
You heard the story about a Chicago lawyer, en route to a funeral, and on the boat ride heard about another death in his family. But, God calmed his hear t and wrote the words "When peace like a river, shall attendeth my way."
I am reminded of another hymn that Martin Luther King was so fond of calling: "I've seen the lightening flashing, I've heard the thunders rolling and I've felt the breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I've heard the voice of Jesus, telling me to still fight on. For he's promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone."
David says "Praise the Lord, praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his firmament, praise his mighty acts. Praise Him according to his excellent greatness. Let everything that hath breath praise ye the Lord." This is my Father's world. Amen.
Editors Note: the Rev. Dwight McKissic is Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, TX. Rev. McKissic delivered this devotion on the evening of June 29, 2004 at the Christianity Today-National Asssociation of EvangelicalsEvangelical Environmental Network Creation Care Conference.