Winter 2007

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From the Editor
The Creation: Reinstating Its Awesome Meaning in Science, Society by Dr. Calvin DeWitt
Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why Tactics of the Religious Right Won't Fly with Most Conservative Christians by Joel Hunter
Saving God's Green Earth: How the church can lead the way in caring for creation by Tri Robinson
The Lion, the Curse, and the Evangelical: No longer can Christians remain silent on issue of the environment by Dean Ohlman
Jesus and the Earth: Understanding serious words on creation from the Savior by James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool
The Zero Carbon Christian: How ECI is helping believers reduce their carbon footprint by Rusty Pritchard
Understanding the Ins and Outs of Carbon Offsetting
Cooling Our Future: Young evangelicals take powerful message to U.S. Congress
EYCI Beyond the Classroom: Creation Care Study Program provides students new perspective
How Does A Steward Pray? by Scott Rodin
Preserving God's Presence: Turning up the volume of God's voice in your life by Helen Goody
Serve God, Save the Planet by Matthew Sleeth, M.D.
Returning to Conservative Roots: How the conservative movement has trivialized the environment by Rod Dreher
My Soul's Dark Night: The best evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this battle by Chuck Colson

From the Editor

You've been too patient. We've been horribly remiss. You are holding in your hands a great collection of Spirit-filled articles, essays, and book excerpts...and this apology. I'm sorry it's taken so long to get this combined double (triple?) issue to you. The past year has seen the creation care movement explode into the public consciousness, and EEN, through its president Jim Ball, has been in the midst of encouraging the church, managing the media, and speaking prophetically to policy-makers. EEN has had an influence on public awareness of environmental issues far, far out of proportion with its staff and budget. We've done well in that regard. What we haven't done well is publish magazines. We intend now to stay on track, and we've hired additional staff (including your new editor) to help do the work.

As a network, EEN has the privilege of working at a convergence zone—this issue is an example—you'll find long-time champions of creation care, like Cal DeWitt and Dean Ohlman, joining their voices with newer ones like Rod Dreher and Tri Robinson. After you read Dr. Matthew Sleeth's encounter with childhood asthma, you will be hungry to encounter the Creator God who spoke to Charles Colson on a North Carolina mountaintop. Helen Goody and Scott Rodin will help to ground your devotions, and you'll be inspired to join the work of the young Christians of the Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative. Our prayer is that these articles will minister to you and equip you for the work of creation care.

And finally, here's a plea for your assistance: We are embarking on a long-overdue redesign of the magazine, to better serve the growing and changing movement of Christians for whom creation care is an expression of the gospel—a ministry of compassion for the poor, careful stewardship, and offering of praise to the Creator. That movement includes you. If you have ideas about how Creation Care can be more useful for you and your ministry, we'd like to hear from you. We want to know what kind of articles you've liked best (or least), what features inspire (or bore) you, and what you think has been missing. We don't need offers of pro-bono design and layout assistance; please focus on content, departments, structure, and audience instead. Please send me an email (rusty@creationcare.org) with your thoughts and ideas.

In the Creator's love,

Rusty

The Creation: Reinstating Its Awesome Meaning in Science, Society

Dr. Calvin DeWitt

A couple of decades ago I was invited to speak at one of the sixty and more Christian colleges I have addressed over the years. It was an unusual invitation—unusual because I was asked to speak on "the Creation." I knew they were expecting me to say something about "origins," that they might even be thinking I would address the topic of evolution. But, agreeing to give this lecture, I decided to stick to the assigned topic. I would make the best of this wonderful opportunity! I would speak on "the Creation."

Then, very recently in December 2005, a student member of my university's lectures committee invited me to introduce Professor E. O. Wilson as our January Distinguished Lecturer. I was delighted! Not only was this an honor for me, but it would mean I would prepare something that, in the tradition of this lecture series, would be a 5 to 8 minute presentation that would not only introduce our distinguished speaker, but also would contribute substantively to thinking and learning on campus. And so, in introducing this highly influential biologist and thinker of our time—author of 20 significant books and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner—I would place his efforts toward preserving the diversity of life on earth in ethical context. I would conclude my introduction by saying, "Please welcome Professor Wilson, whose lecture this evening will be an encouragement to us in our efforts to preserve the whole Creation."

It would be a deliberate use of "the Creation" in a setting where this term had been lost from use for nearly a hundred years. I reviewed with Prof. Wilson what I planned to present—a framework for simultaneously addressing science, ethics, and praxis—and asked for his affirmation of my use of the words, "the Creation." Soon thereafter, within the first few sentences of his address to the 1300 professors, researchers, and students in his audience, he said, "I am one of those who would agree with Professor DeWitt, that we must re-instate the use of the words, "˜the Creation' in our dealing with questions of biodiversity in science and society."

In a long and friendly conversation prior to his lecture I had asked him about his use of the words "the Creation" in the widely-distributed video production, Keeping the Earth, in which both he and I had been interviewed. He replied, saying that he fully supported use of "the Creation" then and now, both in religion and in science. I was pleased of course, but then he told me something that further lifted my spirits: "In fact, I am writing a book whose title will be The Creation! It is scheduled to be released on September 6, 2006."

As I concluded my introduction of E. O. Wilson that winter evening, with its potentially "charged" last sentence, I pictured many of my colleagues mentally squirming in response to my reference to "the Creation," and found myself pleased with their likely amazement by Prof. Wilson's affirmation of the need to reinstate this phrase into our vocabulary!

Today as I write at my home on this great wetland preserve just south of Wisconsin's capitol city, after spending early morning tending the garden, I am celebrating with you what he and I, and no doubt many more, have discovered: The words, "The Creation" are vital to the new challenges we confront in our world today throughout earth's biosphere, particularly for us who are the inheritors of Western culture. Re-instatement of "the Creation" in reference to our marvelous world—to the biosphere and its biodiversity—is vital in science, in theology, and throughout the West in our day.

So you might be thinking, what did I present at that Christian college? I stuck to the topic, and spoke only of the Creation! I reviewed its awesomeness, its inexpressible testimony to God's love and care, the vitality it can bring toward understanding God's creative and ongoing work in the world. I spoke of God's revelation in the Bible—the book of God's Word. I expressed enthusiasm for the rich perfusion of the concept of the Creation throughout the whole of Scripture and its vital importance to understanding the substance of the Bible and biblical theology. I spoke of God's commitment to maintaining the lineages of living creatures in the days of Noah, and of the covenant God made with all life reported in Genesis 8 and 9. In the long-standing and biblically-based theological tradition, I spoke of the Creation as God's revelation—the book of God's works—and its great accessibility to us. I emphasized that taking the Bible seriously brought us to understand, through Romans 1:20 and elsewhere in Scripture, that God's divinity and everlasting power are so marvelously and convincingly expressed in the Creation that it leaves all people across the earth and through all time without excuse. It is a marvelous Creation and reveals God's power and divinity!

Many stayed after my talk to express their joy in beholding God's Creation and its creatures. Among them were the people who invited me; I found that they were both surprised and pleased by what I had said. And yes, even though they had assigned me the topic, The Creation, they really had expected me to speak about evolution! But instilling and renewing a sense of awe and wonder for God's Creation was far more engaging!

It should be clear, then, why I found E. O. Wilson's news about his upcoming book, The Creation wonderful. Here was the person closest to being a "living Darwin" and, while retaining his identity as a "secular humanist," he was affirming what I so deeply know and believe to be at the heart of a wholesome life as well as being central to Creation Care, the importance of using the words, "the Creation."

Recognizing the whole world and universe as the Creation is of course at the very heart of responding with passion and compassion to the challenges we face across the continent and around the world and its biosphere. It is this biosphere (oikomene in the Greek Septuagint and tebel in the Hebrew renditions of Psalm 24:1) that has been entrusted to us. It is this biosphere—the Creation as we know and experience it in our everyday lives of work and praise—that we human beings are bending, stressing, and warping to meet short-sighted aims and narrow interests.

Where and how did we lose the concept of "the Creation?" Where in Western history was it unthinkingly supplanted with "the environment," thereby getting a greatly diminished meaning? Perhaps it was with Chaucer, whom the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says was the person first to use the word "environing." This, in turn, looks to be the word that led to invention of our word, "environment." Prior to the addition of this new word, it seems that we had no way to express ourselves as separate from the rest of the Creation. Instead, our language compelled us to see ourselves as part and parcel of Creation— we were part of, and were woven into, its marvelous fabric. True enough, we had the special status of having been made to image God and to image God's love for the world, but we were far from being "number one." We were not gods or masters of our own destiny. Instead, we were (and still are) creatures of God. We were (and still are) stewards of the earth and all earth's creatures.

The invention of the words "the environment" changed all that. Equipped with new language that allowed us to imagine ourselves separated from "the rest," we gained the dubious freedom to ask new questions— questions that directly challenged and threatened the wider Creation, questions that even challenged and threatened ourselves. We became able, using our newfound words, to ask the question, What is more important, people or the environment? In time we would not even think this to be an odd question, even though it is much like the question, What is more important my heart or my body?

It takes but little thought to discover that provision of this new linguistic capacity contributes to human degradation of Creation. Envisioning ourselves as apart from, rather than part of, everything else, we could "look out for number one," meaning ourselves, rather than the Creator (or His creatures, like Behemoth; see Job 40:19).

The difficulty of this linguistic separation was compounded, as we all so well know, by the capturing and embedding the word Creation in the word Creationist. While a person so labeled conceivably could be a person who works to serve and keep Creation, it in fact came to refer to someone who had a specific understanding of origins and the age of planet Earth.

And so it becomes clear why my hosts at that Christian college thought I would be addressing evolution and "origins". We simply had forgotten what we once meant by it. Somewhere following the time of Chaucer, we came to think less about the Creation and more about how God made it. And this, despite God's admonition in his speech to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth..." (Job 38:4). Somehow we became far more engaged with deciding how God made all things than taking care of Creation. More than that, we became linguistically able to praise our Creator God in a truncated way that largely ignores the awesome status of the Creator of all things. Praising God in a lesser way became possible because we became enabled to assign the rest of the Creation—"the environment"—to a lower priority. Unwittingly, by removing ourselves from "the environment" and in reality also from the rest of Creation, we did something akin to putting our own bodies at a lower priority than our beating hearts! Impossible as this really is, it appears to be what we have (ignorantly) done.

This helps explain why the title of Wilson's upcoming book, The Creation, is so exciting. It is not because Prof. Wilson has returned to his Southern Baptist roots. Instead, it is because his Southern Baptist religious roots instilled in him an understanding of the richness of the concept of "the Creation." So we are not celebrating his return to his southern Baptist roots; we are celebrating his desire "to save the Creation."

There will of course be the ever-present naysayers and detractors among us who respond to Wilson by telling the world that here is a secular humanist—a pre-eminent evolutionist— using a phrase that is inconsistent with his beliefs. If they do this however, they will have "blown" a wonderful opportunity—the opportunity to utilize this important scientist's insight to help themselves, scientists, and others discover the deep significance of need to reinstate "the Creation" into our vocabulary. Wilson, in writing his book, does so to an imaginary pastor who grew up in the same Southern Baptist faith. In doing this, he writes, "You have found your final truth; I am still searching," and this means that the significance of the title is the help it gives toward reinstating the concept of "the Creation" into our vocabulary. Its significance also is expressed in his homily to this imaginary pastor, "Save the Creation, save all of it! No lesser goal is defensible." It is a goal with which all of us should agree no matter what our religious beliefs and non-beliefs.

What if we would go beyond Wilson's scientific and secular reasons for reinstating "the Creation," and do so on biblical and theological grounds? We would acknowledge our Creator God's care for the world. In honor and obedience to God, we would commit ourselves to imaging God's care for Creation in our life, work, and worship. We might go so far as to model ourselves after Jesus—the one through whom God created all things, holds all things together, and reconciles all things to God (Colossians 1:15-20). We might be inspired passionately to image God's care with our own. And in striving to care as God does we would seek to do the inexpressible:

Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air; it shines in the light.
It streams from the hills and descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain!

God's love: expressed as animal-to-plant and plant-to-animal gas exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide; expressed as light shining out from thermonuclear fusion processes on our star the sun; expressed in the remarkable intricacies of the streamings and distillations of earth's hydrologic cycle. How can we possibly express the reality of God's care for the world within the limitations of language? And how also can we care for Creation, with deep passion and love? We can seek to image God's love for the Creation.

Reinstating the phrase "The Creation" is necessary for rebuilding the bridge that once connected religion and science—the bridge that inspired pastors to be among the best students of the Creation, the bridge that inspired scientists to "think God's thoughts" as they wondered about and described the Creation.

By what means can we re-instate "the Creation" in our life and work? Among the many ways are to have "the Creation" burst out from those 60 and more Christian colleges, from radio and Christian organizations, development and relief agencies, congregations, and denominations. It can break forth from synagogues, meeting rooms, and mosques. It can be expressed with awe and wonder even by all the rest of humanity, who are left without excuse (Romans 1:20). And much more...

As for the naysayers among us, we can pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth..." while pondering Revelation 11:18 and the tough language of its conclusion about destroying those who destroy the earth. For naysayers within the secular world we can help reinstate the concept, "the Creation," even if they resist reinstating the phrase.

And all of us, whatever our metaphysics, philosophy, and profession, can translate into corrective action the biblical and scientific truth: If we destroy the Creation we also destroy ourselves. CC

Editor's note: Cal DeWitt is a scientist, writer and conservationist. He is the President Emeritus of the Ausable Institute of Environmental Studies.

Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why Tactics of the Religious Right Won't Fly with Most Conservative Christians

Joel Hunter

We need to reverse the established trends of the religious right to attack opponents. Even wellrespected and usually thoughtful leaders of the religious right vilify other Christians when they disagree with them, without first getting their facts straight. We have adopted the methods of talk radio and cross-fire TV, and diminished the art of debate so that we are fighting only our version of their side.

For example, in a May 2006 radio broadcast, a nationally known Christian leader mischaracterized and misquoted a well-respected evangelical leader about global warming. Richard Cizik, the Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals (a 30-million member organization) was attacked for his stance — only it wasn't his stance. The Christian leader quoted Richard as saying things than none of us (including Richard) would ever agree with, including, "global warming is the most important social issue of our day"; "those who are skeptical of global warming are immoral"; "he and his associates want to roll back the use of fossil fuels, oil, to the 1998 levels or even earlier, which would paralyze industry and put millions of people out of work . . . the net effect is anti-capitalistic and underlying hatred for America."

Wow! Does that sound like what any of us would be for? Putting concern about global warming above the sanctity of life instead of being another expression of it? Putting millions of people out of work? Hating America? What? No!

I use this example not only because I was one of the original signers of the Evangelical Climate Initiative along with Richard (and therefore know what we are recommending and what we are not), but also because this kind of rebuttal is such a clear example of what so many debaters are doing in the media: radicalizing someone's position so that they can knock it down more easily. The leader did not contact Richard to verify his facts, and then he accused Richard and his associates of trying to divide evangelicals . . .

Global warming is certainly a complex issue. Those who do not believe it is happening, or that humans do not contribute to it and can't fix it, or that there are no impending dangers connected with it, believe that because there is some evidence to support their argument. Those who do believe that global warming is real, that humans can be helpful in addressing the problem, and that it might well have some effects that are not gradual but currently volatile, also have evidence. Let's encourage the debate!

But first let me ask, is debate a prerequisite to doing everything we can to be good stewards of creation? Do we really need to settle the scientific debate before we stop accepting pollution as a necessary evil and diligently work to devise better forms of energy usage? The issue to evangelical Christians isn't global warming; the issue is whether or not we will exercise a moral and biblical obedience to a direct command of God (Genesis 2:15). How we do that, personally and policy-wise, is something we can all work on together. We just need to keep working on it together, and that will require seeing our differences as informing instead of inflaming.

Conservative Christians need to be more ambidextrous rather than just "Right" or "Left" oriented. The Bible is more holistic, more fulfilling to all of life's needs rather than heavy-handed on what is morally right or compassionately left. We need to expand our repertoire. Before we expand, though, let's sing some praises for the foundation that has been laid.

The issues that have defined evangelical voters up to this time are biblical and moral ones that will always be primary for us. The protection of all life, especially the most vulnerable, the protection of the biblical definition (Genesis 2:18- 24) of marriage as between one man and one woman, the nurture of the family, the advocacy of religious liberty, and the advocacy of sex only within marriage are crucial issues for the Christian in addressing his or her culture.

There is another constituency, though, that is looking for leadership on other important issues in order to be a blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3). These are usually younger Christians, or more liberal ones who have learned that in order to effectively deepen our impact on society we must broaden our team. What are these other areas addressed in the Bible that are also important to God?

Peace — Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers . . ." (Mt. 5:9). Though conflict is sometimes necessary, it is never God's ultimate choice. Ambrose and Augustine outlined a "just war" theory; it s purpose was not to justify aggression but to limit it. The primary question for a Christian is never, "Do we have the right to go to war?" The primary question for a Christian is, "How can I work toward peace?" When the Bible talks about peace, it is not just talking about the absence of conflict, but also the building up of all of life. Peace is a term for betterment and fulfillment. So the basic value that we must voice and vote is this: How can I take the present situation (or issue or candidate) and support what will bring not only the solution to conflict but the reconciliation of people?

Basic Human Rights, Including Religious Liberty — Every person is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26- 27). Each person, therefore, deserves life, liberty, and to be treated with respect. Any form of oppression that subtracts from the dignity and freedom of people is wrong. These forms include:

any restriction of religious freedom;
any permanent class or caste system;
human sexual trafficking and slavery;
failure to search for the cures of any disease that would disable large segments of the population;
any long-term restriction of a free-market system.

Poverty — Scripture doesn't just talk about giving to the poor, it talks about empowering the poor so that they can be poor no more! The famous verses found in Deuteronomy 15:11-18 (from which Jesus quotes) are really about equipping the poor so that they can be free from the benefactors some day. So the question on legislation is not merely "What temporary relief can we give people?" (although that is often needed) but "What does this bill or candidate promise to do that will end the cycle of poverty?"

Creation Care (environment) — As I have mentioned, in Genesis 2:15 God gives a simple command to mankind about the earth: "Cultivate and keep it." That is to say we must not only be concerned with production, but also with the protection of God's creation. Dominion is never given for the purpose of exploitation. Christians, of all people, should be thankful enough for the grace of God and His immeasurable gifts that we would not want to pollute such gifts. The question for us is, "How does this candidate or bill seek to balance production with protection, or how can I be a part of preserving the earth for generations to come?"

Justice Issues — In Isaiah 61:8, as well as many other places in the Bible, God declares, "I, the Lord, love justice." Of course this has everything to do with each person being made in the image of God. It also has to do with God being a holy God Who demands that right prevail. Ron Sider does a fine job writing about an approach to justice. Particularly interesting to me is his definition of "Distributive Justice," which he defines as "how the numerous goods of society are divided." Of course there are other types of justice, such as retributive and procedural . . . The question from a biblical standpoint for a Christian to consider is, "How much does the community or state or nation have an obligation to equip the individual for the good of all?" Or more personally, "Will this legislation or candidate result in the kind of redistribution of wealth that strengthens all of society?" CC

Editor's Note: The Rev. Dr. Joel Hunter is Senior Pastor of Northland Church in Lakewood FL and a spokesperson for the Evangelical Climate Initiative. This excerpt, used with permission, is found on pages 78-83 of Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won't Fly with Most Conservative Christians published in 2006 by Distributed Church Press (Longwood, FL). See www.rightwingwrongbird.com.

Saving God's Green Earth: How the church can lead the way in caring for creation

Tri Robinson

As our church began to wade into uncharted waters with our new environmental ministry, I was excited to see what would happen for a couple of reasons. For one, I wanted to see how the community would react to what we were doing. Would they ignore us? Question us? Make fun of us? Embrace us? The potential reactions were almost endless. The other reason I was excited about launching our new ministry was because I was curious to see how this new value in our church might open the door for members to share their faith with others. Would people question our motives? Inquire about our faith? Dismiss us as a gimmick church? Only time would tell if this was going to be an effective way to share the Gospel while we fulfilled the biblical mandate to care for God's creation.

It wasn't long before I received my answer. Stories began pouring into our staff about how leading our community in this value opened doors to conversations about Christ that never would have happened otherwise. One of my favorite stories happened when my administrative assistant, Lori, fielded a call from an environmental activist named Sam.

Sam had heard about our ministry to care for the environment and visited our website. Not knowing that we were a church, he called in to report his good environmental deed of the day—he was on his way to protest what some corporation was doing to the environment. After sharing this information with Lori, Sam awaited for some type of approval for what he was doing. But Lori didn't give it to him. Instead, she challenged him to move from protest to action.

"Sam, that's not the kind of thing we do here," Lori told him. "Instead of telling people what they're doing wrong all the time, we want to demonstrate how to do things right more than anything. We think we should care for the environment by being good stewards of it. If we do our part and help others understand how to care for the environment, then we can actually begin to change things." After a moment of contemplation, Sam replied, "That's what I believe, too." And the unsuspecting Sam was issued an invitation to church, which he warmly accepted.

Making the Connection

People in the mainstream media often misinterpret many Christians' actions. And if truth be told, they paint an accurate picture sometimes, too—and the truth is hard to swallow. However, no matter how Christians are depicted in the media, the one thing that will change people's perceptions about Christians is knowing one personally who is living out a faith that saturates every part of that person's life. There are always areas that we can improve upon, but when God begins prompting wholesale change, we cannot ignore Him. The environment is one such issue that for too long has gone largely ignored by many Christians—and this hasn't been misinterpreted by anyone.

Reversing those perceptions is as simple—and yet, as complicated—as applying true repentance to our lives: we stop moving in one direction and begin moving in the opposite direction. Instead of ignoring the environment, we become the leaders in caring for God's creation. It will earn you a puzzled look highlighted by a furrowed brow. "But you're a Christian," they might protest. "You don't care about the environment." However, they're only half right, and you must readjust their perception—"No, I am a Christian; therefore, I do care about the environment."

As our actions begin to back up our talk, the world will begin to see a clearer picture emerge about what it means to follow God. Our deeds will speak so much more than our words. We've all heard the saying, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." The church can quickly become the leader in this area because many environmental groups merely express a love for God's creation without doing much about it.

Sharing Christ in Your City

Let's face it: most Christians are scared to share their faith because of what might happen. "Will they ask a question I can't answer? What if I don't know how to respond? What if they laugh at me?" We can think of lists a mile long of reasons not to talk about our faith with other people. But when we feel most comfortable—and excited about what God is doing within us—is when someone asks us about our faith. Instead of trying to find some clever way to start the conversation (which Jesus didn't do either, by the way—He was merely being who He was), the other person starts the conversation, and we get to simply tell about our faith.

While Christian t-shirts rarely spark a favorable response or line of questioning from other people, our reusable "green bags" (canvas bags used for shopping which eliminates the need for plastic bags) create a curiosity that people just can't handle. They have to ask about the bags. "Where did you get those bags?" the stranger asks. "From my church," is the surprising response. "Really? Your church sells those? Why?" fires off the inquiring mind. "Well, because we believe in being good stewards of the environment— and cutting down on the number of plastic or paper bags is one way to do that," is the stunning rejoinder. (However, recycling plastic bags you get at the grocery store is also a good way to be friendly to the environment. Many stores will take your old plastic bags—and some will even pay a small amount for each bag.)

Before you can say "paper or plastic," the questions start coming. Suddenly, an unsuspecting grocery shopper is arrested by the thought that a church in their city just might actually care about God's creation as much as the shopper does. In Boise, a city that is known for its endless outdoor activities, people hold the environment as an important value, even though they may not be doing much about it themselves. So especially in our town, when people start seeing the church take the lead in caring for the environment, they are intrigued. And for some, the church's lack of respect for the environment might be the reason why they always dismissed the idea of becoming part of a church community.

Sharing Christ Abroad

Caring for the environment opens so many doors on so many levels to take the love of Christ to others around the world. And caring for the earth is a crucial building block for us to show how much we, as Christians, love people. I have heard plenty of arguments that claim we should care for people above all else—and I agree. However, caring for people is not at odds with being good stewards of the earth. In fact, they go hand in hand.

Consider this staggering observation: Contaminated land is a problem in industrialized countries, but it is also a problem in developing countries where pesticides and nitrate-rich fertilizers damage the environment. When the land becomes infertile in a developing country, starvation is sure to follow. With such rampant poverty in some of these countries, a problem of this magnitude can seem insurmountable and lead to much hopelessness.

Sir John Houghton, one of the world's leading environmental scientists, recently explained how caring for the environment in developing countries equates to truly caring for people: "Aid and debt relief are not the end of the story for Africa. Climate change will increase the continent's problems very seriously, and already has. What is the point of taking steps to reduce poverty with one hand while, by ignoring climate change, increasing it with the other? The two problems are inseparable."

That is why caring for the environment can become one of the most powerful tools for evangelism in the 21st Century. We can—and should— care for the sick as much as possible. But there will be far fewer sick people to help when the environment becomes more livable, through means such as clean water and nutrient-rich soil. Through caring for the environment, the church will be afforded access to areas that at one time were closed to Christians, much like medical missions opened many doors during the 20th Century.

However, we must take it one step farther and educate people on the dangers to their natural resources, equipping them with the knowledge to renew them and protect them from contaminants. CC

Editor's Note: This book excerpt is used with permission from the author and is taken from the book Saving God's Green Earth by Tri Robinson, the founding pastor of the Vineyard Boise Church. The book was published in 2006 by Ampelon Publishing (Atlanta, GA).

The Lion, the Curse, and the Evangelical: No longer can Christians remain silent on issue of the environment

Dean Ohlman

We find in the term "evangelical" the implied priority of everyone who claims the name. It defines one who believes, shares, and lives by the evangel, a Greek word meaning "good news." This good news, of course, is that the chosen one of God—the Messiah— came to restore the Kingdom of God and through the Holy Spirit is preparing us to be Kingdom people.

C. S. Lewis wrote of this allegorically in his Narnia chronicles: "Aslan is on the move!" The loving intent of the not-tame lion, Aslan, ("the good lion by whose blood all Narnia was saved," The Last Battle ch.3), was to defeat the dormancy and death of perpetual winter and bring back the verdancy and life of perpetual spring. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the noble lion willingly gave up his life, like a sacrificial lamb, in order to do two things: remove the curse on the natural order and reestablish people as rulers and stewards of the kingdom of Narnia ("Narnia was never right except when a Son of Adam was King," Prince Caspian, ch.5). Aslan then arose from the dead in order to accomplish this—using all of creation to assist him in defeating the evil witch who had held the land in her icy grip. This same picture is used in a more sophisticated manner by Lewis in his novel That Hideous Strength.

One could imagine the Narnian creatures singing the lines from Isaac Watt's beloved Christmas hymn, "Joy to the World":

"No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest ('nor ice afflict') the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow [as] far as the curse is found."

Mr. and Mrs. Beaver might have read from the apostle Paul's letter to the Roman Christians:

"The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. . . . The whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God!" (Romans 8:19-21, PHILLIPS).

Tumnus, the faun, might then have led the creatures in the song the apostle John witnessed in a revelation from Jesus Christ: all of God's creatures singing in praise at the consummation of history. They were celebrating the return of the Lamb (as Aslan was characterized in the end of the Dawn Treader) who was slain, Jesus, now risen again as the Lion of Judah:

"Blessing and honor and glory and power be given to him who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for timeless ages!" (Revelation 5:13, PHILLIPS).

Lewis' allegory of animals in praise of their savior is not only affirmed by the Scriptures, but also asserted by a number of the great saints of the Christian faith. Let your imagination roam again. Think of John Wesley preaching his sermon "The General Deliverance" while standing on a hillside and proclaiming to the creatures what he told the people of his congregation about nature's rebirth at the consummation of the ages:

"In that day, all the vanity to which [you] are now helplessly subject will be abolished; [you] will suffer no more, either from within or without; the days of [your] groaning are ended. At the same time, there can be no reasonable doubt, but all the horridness of [your] appearance, and all the deformity of [your] aspect, will vanish away, and be exchanged for [your] primeval beauty. And with [your] beauty [your] happiness will return; to which there can then be no obstruction. As there will be nothing within, so there will be nothing without, to give [you] any uneasiness: No heat or cold, no storm or tempest, but one perennial spring. In the new earth, as well as in the new heavens, there will be nothing to give pain, but everything that the wisdom and goodness of God can create to give happiness. As a recompence for what [you] once suffered, while under the "bondage of corruption," when God has "renewed the face of the earth," and [your] corruptible body has put on incorruption, [you] shall enjoy happiness suited to [your] state, without alloy, without interruption, and without end."

How great is the grace of God that promises everlasting blessing not only for His people but also for His other living creatures. I wonder, though, how often we think of that grace in reference to the non-human world—a world that biblical writers seemed to honor far more than we. The sweet sound of salvation's grace that amazes us will one day draw from "all creatures here below" the same doxology we have sung for centuries: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" Do we truly understand, as the Bible and our Christian hymns imply, that all things in their own nature respond to God?

Other time-distant voices proclaimed what seems strange to our ears today. American Quaker minister John Woolman remarked.

He whose tender mercies are over all his works hath placed a principle in the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness towards every living creature; and this being singly attended to, people become tender-hearted and sympathizing; but when frequently and totally rejected, the mind becomes shut up in a contrary disposition.

Mentor to C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, made the conjecture that individual animal souls may even survive death and be reunited with their bodies in the last resurrection:

For what good, for what divine purpose is the Maker of the sparrow present at its death, if He does not care what becomes of it? What is He there for, I repeat, if He have no care that it go well with His bird in its dying, that it be neither comfortless nor lost in the abyss. If His presence be no good to the [dying] sparrow, are you very sure what good it will be to you when your hour comes? Believe it is not by a little only that the heart of the universe is more tender, more loving, more just and fair than yours or mine.

While many of us know that William Wilberforce was England's great emancipator of slaves and a catalyst for emancipation in America, fewer realize that he was also one of the founders of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). That great heart broken by slavery was also broken by cruelty to animals.

Contemporary evangelical writer and pastor John Piper in a poem titled "Glorified" imagined the dawn of the messianic reign of Christ when all those who died in faith are reunited—and he also with his cherished dog:

And as I knelt beside the brook
To drink eternal life, I took
A glance across the golden grass,
And saw my dog, old Blackie, fast
As she could come. She leaped the stream—
Almost—and what a happy gleam
Was in her eye.
I knelt to drink, And knew that I was on the brink
Of endless joy.

Are these men of faith insisting that one must believe in the immortality of individual animal souls? No. MacDonald confesses it as mere hope. But he also goes on to base that hope on the character of God:

Multitudes evidently count it safest to hold to a dull scheme of things. . . . Those that hope little cannot grow much. To them the very glory of God must be a small thing, for their hope of it is so small as not to be worth rejoicing in. That He is a faithful creator means nothing to them for far the larger portion of the creatures He has made. Truly their notion of faithfulness is poor enough; how, then, can their faith be strong?

Evangelical Protestants often make of little account the stories about the honored Roman Catholic saint, Francis of Assisi, with his sympathy for and empathy with the animals. Many evangelicals may not realize, however, that the words of one of our most beloved hymns, "All Creatures of Our God and King," were originally penned by Saint Francis. In this anthem, we sing of sun, moon, clouds, wind, flowers, fruit, joining with us in praise of the triune God. Further, it is this hymn that introduced to Christendom the much-maligned expression "mother Earth." By that phrase Francis did not imply that the earth had a personality, but that it was the nurturing source of all life. For that reason he concluded, "Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness."

The truth implied in that song and made clear in many biblical prophecies about the restoration of nature to a state at least as grand as the Garden of Eden is one that has been lacking in our churches and our Christian educational institutions. We understand that the Kingdom of God is, in part, with us now, but will one day be fully realized—at the return of Jesus Christ. We believe that the process of sanctification, becoming more like Christ, is taking place in us now. We stand as witnesses before the fallen world that the evangel, the good news, is true and that some consequences of the fall can begin to be reversed now. Francis Schaeffer believed that because of the redemptive act of Jesus on the cross and the work of sanctification we should be working toward a "substantial healing" of all the rifts created by the fall of man:

My division from God is healed by justification, but then there must be the "existential reality" of this, moment by moment; second, there is the psychological division of man from himself; third, there are the sociological divisions of man from other men; and last, there is the division of man from nature, and nature from nature. In all of these areas we should expect to see substantial healing. . . . On the basis of the fact that there is going to be total redemption in the future, not only of man but of all creation, the Christian who believes the Bible should be the man who—with God's help and in the power of the Holy Spirit—is treating nature now in the direction of the way nature will be then. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, or we have missed our calling.

Perhaps none have missed this high calling as profoundly as we evangelicals who say we desire to live by the "whole counsel of God." Not grasping that the gospel we preach is also good news for the other living creatures that share the earth with us, we have neglected and even abused God's good creation. We have forgotten that the evangel is not only to be preached, but also to be lived out faithfully under the gaze of the watching world. Witnessing for Christ does not only mean sharing God's salvation plan for man; it also means we demonstrate renewed appreciation and care for the natural world that God will also save. Simply put, nature is also going to be "born again." Do we hold that joyous truth in our hearts as a motivation to cherish creation's fellow worshippers who are also recipients of God's attention and compassion?

Schaeffer asked us a significant question over 35 years ago that most of us older evangelicals never bothered to answer:

Christians, who should understand the creation principle, have a reason for respecting nature, and when they do, it results in benefits to man. Let us be clear: it is not just a pragmatic attitude; there is a basis for it. We treat it with respect because God made it. When an orthodox, evangelical Christian mistreats or is insensible to nature, at that point he is more wrong than the hippie who has no real basis for his feeling for nature and yet senses that man and nature should have a relationship beyond that of spoiler and spoiled. You may, or may not, want to walk barefoot to feel close to nature, but as a Christian what relationship have you thought of and practiced toward nature as your fellow creature, over the last ten years?

Because our theology of nature is slim and anemic, we evangelicals have simply missed the boat on this matter. By our carelessness toward the natural world, we've often been negative witnesses for our Savior and Creator. We've also failed to see that many unbelievers will refuse to listen to the good news addressed to them because they see that we have neglected to be evangelical in reference to God's creation— to be "complete evangelicals."

I used to backpedal when evangelicals responded to my urging, "Yes, we do have a responsibility to care for creation, but that has to be the lowest of our priorities." I would agree far too easily. But I'm not going to do that anymore. The reason is that the majority of those who use that argument almost always demonstrate that God-honoring care for the creation does not appear anywhere on their priority list. Yes, the endangered souls of men are our major concern, but we have no justification for prioritizing our evangelical responsibilities in such a way that some of them are never attended to. The reason I feel so strongly about it is that regardless of where it appears on our priority list, when any responsibility is neglected for a long period of time, the consequences of that neglect become greater and more demanding. By our disregard for creation, the responsibility of creation stewardship is rapidly climbing toward the top of our list, because our long neglect of the non-human creation is now beginning to seriously impact the human community we say we love. Water and air pollution and other degradations of God's good creation are killing thousands every year. The health of people depends upon the health of the earth. That's why we must be completely pro-life, not selectively so.

Now is the time for evangelicals to speak for the dumb—the voiceless creation that is looking forward to the consummation of all things when it will by the redeeming power of Jesus' death and resurrection be relieved of the frustration of the curse and of thoughtless human exploitation.

Let Handel's familiar melody touch your heart as you read the lyrics of praise that poured from the soul of Isaac Watts:

Joy to the world! The Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns;
Let men their tongues employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.

Dean Ohlman is a writer, producer, photojournalist and frequent contributor to Creation Care.

Jesus and the Earth: Understanding serious words on creation from the Savior

James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

Until I began to seriously study the issue, if you had asked me what Jesus had to say about the earth and whether the Gospels had anything to say in formulating an environmental ethic, I would have thought, "precious little." However, all that has changed. I have read the Gospels again and again [in light of this question], and am still reading. I am determined to read out of the text and not into it. I find myself unearthing things in the Gospels which persuade me that Jesus not only was earthed but also saw his mission as none other than the earthing of heaven. "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" was the logical sequitur of his prayer for the coming of the Kingdom. This book (Jesus and the Earth) is a reflection on my search for evidence of the connectedness of Jesus to the earth and begins in the stormiest of waters and with the furious debates over what Jesus meant when he called himself "The Son of Man." It is the only title that he takes to himself . . . in Hebrew the phrase "Son of Man" is Ben Adam, Son of Adam, and Adam is the one hewn from the earth, Adamah in Hebrew. I returned to the Gospel text with a new eagerness. Searching for evidence of a connectedness between Jesus and the earth I took special notice of those episodes in which he called himself the "Son of Man" and wondered whether I would find there any echoes of Adam or Adamah, the earth . . .

Of the passages in the Gospels where the Son of Man and the earth are explicitly mentioned together, let us look at three, one each from Luke, Matthew, and John.

The Lukan passage occurs in all three synoptic Gospels. It is the story of the forgiving and healing of a person paralyzed and incapable of walking. Having absolved him, Jesus says to him and his critics, "The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (Luke 5:24).

Each synoptic Gospel account includes the reference to the earth. Why "on earth"? What is added to the meaning of his authority to forgive by stating explicitly that it was "on earth"? . . . Is there any mention of the earth in the story of Adam's falling into sin? There is, of course. The result of their sin is that the earth is cursed. Adam who was hewn from the earth and called to serve the earth (Genesis 2:7, 15) finds that his sin wreaks havoc on the earth: "cursed is the ground because of you" (3:17).

The only way that the earth can be relieved of its curse is through the forgiveness, healing and restoration of Adam's successors . . . The earth bears the wounds of human sinfulness. "The whole creation has been groaning," says Paul, clinging to the "hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay" (Romans 8:21, 22).

The future wholeness of the earth and the whole of creation according to Paul is bound up with the destiny of the children of God. A redeemed humanity is central to that vision. Key to that redemption is God's forgiveness. In short, how can the earth be freed from the curse of human sinfulness? Only through God appointing and anointing a successor to Adam to have "authority on earth to forgive sins." This is clearly how Luke saw Jesus. This Jesus who is "the Son of Man [who] has authority on earth to forgive sins" undoes the earth-damaging work of Adam.

Let us turn to Matthew . . . Forgiveness presupposes judgment . . . Crisis is the Greek word for judgment. When the media broadcast the headline "Environmental Crisis" they are declaring to the world a truth greater than we realize. We are reaping what we sow. This is the crisis, the judgment: "Do not be deceived," wrote Paul, "God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow" (Galatians 6:7).

It is in this context of judgment that we come to our next passage in which we find Jesus speaking of himself as "Son of Man" and in the same breath talking about the earth (Matthew 12:40f). "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth" . . . What happened to the earth when he died? The earth quaked (Mt 27:51). What happened when God raised him from the earth? The earth quaked again (Mt. 28:2). . . . As the son of the one hewn from the earth is laid in the heart of the earth there is a seismic response from the earth's heart to his death and resurrection. Is this a voice in the chorus of the collective groaning of the whole of creation which Paul writes about in Romans 8:22? The earth, God's creation, is longing for liberation from the curse in Genesis and somehow knows that its own freedom "from the bondage of decay" is inextricably bound up with "the children of God" and "their redemption" and "their freedom," and that comes about through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus "who has set us free" and in whom there is "now no condemnation" (Rom. 8).

Turning to the Gospel of John we are arrested by the declaration: "All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being." This is a confessional statement about the Word who is Jesus. This is echoed through the primary chapters of Colossians, Ephesians, and Hebrews. Colossians 1:16: "For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible . . . all things have been created through him and for him." Never has so much theology hung on two such small prepositions, "through" and "for"!

It is these creedal statements that lead to a high view of creation. It is the gift of Christ. . . . Creation does not exist for the human family but for Christ. . . . It is a blasphemy to usurp Christ's place. . . .

In John 12 we find a third Son of Man/earth saying: ""˜And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people [all things] to myself.' He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered, "˜How can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up?'" Here again the Son of Man is found in the same context as the earth and is cast in the role of the one who will draw all to himself. Echoes again of Colossians: "And through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of his cross." The Son of Man's ministry is one of connectedness with the earth. Jesus self-consciously sees himself on a mission through which he should lose nothing of what has been given to him. "'I have come down from heaven [to earth] not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me'" (John 6:39). Jesus has the whole cosmos in his sights, not just individual souls who want to escape earth and bag a place elsewhere. The earth is within God's cosmic purposes. CC

Editor's Note: The excerpts above are used with permission from the author and are taken from pages 7-18 of Jesus and the Earth by James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool. The book was published in 2003 by SPCK Press in London and available at amazon.com.

The Zero Carbon Christian: How ECI is helping believers reduce their carbon footprint

Rusty Pritchard

Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!" That may have been said in years past, but with the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we can see it hasn't been true. The scientists who put out the peer-reviewed report say it's a virtual certainty that our actions have altered the climate now and into the future. It's clear to many people, including the Christian leaders who last February announced the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI), that government action is necessary, and that Christians should lead efforts to change policy.

In the meantime, what's an ordinary person to do? The science implies that the response at every level has to start now and to involve everyone. To that end, the folks at the ECI have set up a campaign to walk Christians through the process of reducing their carbon footprint to zero (full disclosure: EEN's Jim Ball conceived the idea and helped set it up). They began by recruiting ECI leaders to sign on. "We expect evangelicals to lead in this campaign because of the emphasis in our community on personal responsibility and the desire to be obedient to God and to serve Him with our lives," said Dr. Matthew Sleeth, an ECI signatory and author of the book Serve God, Save the Planet. "First, we're asking our leaders to make theirown personal commitment to reduce their global warming pollution to zero."

The Cooling Creation campaign has now gone public, with its own website at www.coolingcreation.org. How does it work? In two steps: visitors to the web site first fill out a commitment to personally reduce what they can, and to encourage others to become informed about the campaign. Then they're asked for money--$99 per year, which the ECI reckons is the amount necessary to pay for 23 metric tons of carbon dioxide reductions. That's the amount of global warming pollution the average American emits per year, both directly (with your car, home and air travel) and indirectly (from the energy used to make your food, clothes and everything else we consume). The emissions reductions, which are certified, come from projects, including renewable energy (wind, solar), energy efficiency and reforestation.

Several leaders have made their commitments public, including Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Lakewood, Florida, Jo Anne Lyon, Executive Director of World Hope International, and Bob Andringa, President Emeritus of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. ""I believe there is a biblical mandate to be good stewards of the earth, plus I want to be a good citizen. I can afford to give, I need the accountability of making a commitment, and I should easily recoup my donation by following these good practices," says Andringa.

The idea behind the campaign is simple. Right now you can make some direct reductions cheaply and easily, while others just don't make sense. Everyone should be replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs); they use one-third the energy and last a lot longer. Many of us should drive less, and walk and bike more. But some actions (for instance putting a wind turbine on your house, or planting your own forest), are just not feasible for most people. The same amount of money spent elsewhere in the economy could give much higher carbon reductions. At some point, it's more cost-effective to contribute to reducing carbon pollution elsewhere.

That process of reducing carbon pollution elsewhere is called carbon offsetting, and there are a growing number of for-profit and not-forprofit enterprises that can help make you carbon neutral by supporting projects that reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Some companies offer carbon offsetting as an add-on service. Computer manufacturer Dell offers PC buyers a chance to contribute to tree-planting projects, to balance out the climate impact of powering their computer.

For its offset program, the ECI chose to partner with Carbonfund.org, one of the handful of reputable, experienced, nonprofit carbon offsetters. Carbonfund.org is ranked as the best value in carbon offsets (they offset the most pollution for the least cost), and their work is audited and verified by third parties using national and international standards. CC

Understanding the Ins and Outs of Carbon Offsetting

Creation Care sat down with Eric Carlson, Executive Director of Carbonfund.org, to better understand the process of carbon offsetting.

Creation Care: How did you first get involved with helping the Evangelical Climate Initiative launch their Cooling Creation campaign?

Eric Carlson: The ECI has a great reputation and is becoming a leader in providing common sense solutions to climate change. This is Carbonfund.org's goal as well. About a year ago we sat down with Rev. Ball, and it was immediately clear that together we could provide literally millions of evangelicals a simple, affordable and direct action to combat climate change. We both wanted to inspire people to reduce what you can, and offset what you can't, so we laid the groundwork for this exciting program.

CC: What kind of potential did you see in evangelical Christians doing offsets?

EC: A few million evangelicals could change the world and stop climate change. I am not kidding. Just two to three million people, out of over a hundred million evangelicals, would be enough to help drive the price of renewable energy, such as wind energy or geothermal, below that of dirtier fuels such as coal. Since energy investment is so price sensitive, when this occurs, we'd expect to see energy investment change to renewables based just on economics. A few million people could spur a clean technology transformation that would increase US jobs and investment while reducing our reliance on foreign energy and making our country safer as well.

CC: And you work with both companies and with individuals?

EC : About half of Carbonfund.org's offsets are from individuals and their families and the other half is from our corporate partners such as Dell and Lancome and organizational partners such as the National Wildlife Federation. To date, we've offset over 400 million pounds of CO2.

CC : Can you tell us a little about the kinds of projects you fund with offset money?

EC : Carbonfund.org lets you decide where your money is spent—on renewable energy, energy efficiency, or reforestation projects. We know some people prefer one type of project over another so we figure it's your money, your choice. We then ensure each project meets strict national and international standards, certification and verification requirements. We've supported wind energy in Kansas and South Dakota, a low income solar housing project in Chicago, reforestation projects throughout the US and in India and Nepal. And we are very excited to be adding more projects all the time.

CC : So pollution generated in Atlanta might be offset by a project in Nepal? Doesn't it matter where an offset project is sited?

EC : Not really. Some pollutants, like sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, are localized pollutants, meaning the damage occurs near to where the emission occurs. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, is a global problem; it traps heat in the atmosphere globally. So, in essence, it does not matter if you reduce a ton of CO2 in Brazil, Bermuda or Baton Rouge. We seek carbon offset projects globally that are costeffective, certified and have a positive social impact.

CC : What is your response to folks who say they'd rather reduce their own emissions than pay for an offset?

EC : Absolutely. Reduce your emissions first, then offset the rest. We support personal reductions as the first step. But even a hybrid car or compact fluorescent light bulbs use energy and cause pollution, and you can reduce those remaining emissions to zero with offsets. Reducing your emissions is a process: you can probably do a few things today but if you're not planning to replace your windows or buy a new car for a few years you can still offset these emissions and get to zero carbon emissions today. The ability to 'get to zero today' through reductions and offsets is a very powerful message: I can eliminate my impact on climate change today.

CC : Who else have you worked with on carbon offsetting?

EC : Carbonfund.org works with more than 125 corporate and organizational partners, including Dell, Lancôme, the National Wildlife Federation and others. Dell, for instance, is making it possible for every customer to offset the electricity their new computer will use over its lifetime. Lancôme is planting 10,000 trees to offset the production of its new Cell Defense product and to offset the travel of its spokesmodels. We work with each company to tailor a program to meet their goals.

CC : You would think companies wouldn't do this unless they were required to, but they are. Why are companies so interested in voluntary offsets?

EC : Companies have a lot at stake with climate change. They have factories all over the world that could be affected by either rising sea levels or significant displacement of people. Customers have more choice and access to information than ever before and it is easy for a consumer to choose a company that sells both a quality product and supports sustainability and a clean planet. Companies are responding to their customers.

CC : Do you think there should be federal regulations on carbon dioxide emissions? What will that do to organizations like Carbonfund.org?

EC : We absolutely need federal government leadership to combat climate change. The United States has just 5% of the world's population but emits nearly 25% of its emissions. Federal mandates will put our country on the slow, steady path toward emissions reductions, while Carbonfund.org will always empower people to reduce their emissions to zero. Just as millions of Americans support cancer research even though the government funds it as well, the more people, companies and governments involved in providing solutions to climate change the better.

CC : What do you think are the chances that we'll be able to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by mid-century, as some experts have suggested is necessary?

EC : We can definitely do it (and I don't think we have a choice). An 80% reduction in emissions over 40 years is only 2% per year. Most of the technology we need is already here. Cost-effective energy efficiency could make up half the figure, while existing hybrid cars with a plug-in capability can get over 100 MPG, lightbulbs can save 60-70% and solar hot water heating are cost effective in most parts of the country today. The solutions are available today and they cost a lot less than most people think. The average person can reduce their entire climate impact for just $99 a year, $8.25 a month.

CC : What have you learned by partnering with ECI on this project?

EC : Evangelicals care deeply about God's Creation and have the ability to play a major role in solving our climate problem. ECI and its leaders have the vision, commitment and strategy to make it simple and affordable for millions of evangelicals to embrace the solutions we need. It's been a great partnership. CC

Cooling Our Future: Young evangelicals take powerful message to U.S. Congress

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Representatives of more than 1,500 young evangelical Christians from forty-one states presented a statement on November 16, 2002 that called for government and religious leaders to take definitive action against global warming. Thirty students from evangelical Christian colleges and Christian fellowship groups on secular campuses visited over 20 Senate offices to share how their Biblical understanding of creation and compassion for the poor led them to speak out on climate change. They also sent letters to the President, urging him to announce new measures against global warming in the State of the Union address; and to Congressional leaders, urging them to chart a new course for the United States to solve global warming.

Their statement was called "Cooling Our Future: A Declaration by Young Evangelicals on Climate Change," and is reprinted in its entirety in this issue of Creation Care.

Ben Lowe, who attends Wheaton College and was part of the delegation in Washington, said: "Climate change is a crisis for all of us, and must be addressed as such. As young evangelicals, we hope that our government leaders will tackle the challenge of reducing global warming pollution. Making the world safer for our generation, and for their grandchildren, is not exclusively Republican or Democratic; it is a moral issue, and the faithful expression of God's people."

The young Christians' statement was developed last spring and the signatures of college-aged students were collected with the partnership of Restoring Eden, an EEN partner organization that ministers on Christian college campuses. As part of the Washington event, the group of students was briefed on climate legislation and Christian environmental responsibility by staff from EEN and Restoring Eden. The Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative included students from Wheaton College, Abilene Christian University, Point Loma Nazarene, Azusa Pacific University, Houghton College, Bethel University, UNC-Chapel Hill, Montreat College, Toccoa Falls College, Trinity Christian College, Palm Beach Atlantic College, and others. CC

In Their Words ...

Creation Care asked some student leaders to share reflections on the event

Ben Lowe, Wheaton

Everyone has heard of Al Gore's recent film on global warming - An Inconvenient Truth. We would expect a movie on that issue to come from Gore. What may be more notable is that in January of last year, Dr. Duane Litfin, the President of Wheaton College, joined over 80 other senior evangelical leaders in signing the Evangelical Climate Initiative? Then, eight months later, over three hundred and fifty Wheaton students affirmed Dr. Litfin's personal position by signing onto the student statement. I am one of those students. I'm a senior at Wheaton College, and part of the group that helped gather the signatures on our campus and bring them to Washington, D.C., this past November. The purpose of this time in D.C. was to fellowship with other student leaders, release the student statement, and lobby our government towards action to curb global climate change. And we did that. I had a meaningful time meeting with fellow students across the nation. We got to know each other and I heard many inspiring stories of campuses and administrations taking leadership in positively engaging creation care issues. These conversations have also helped motivate a follow-on meeting, the Wheaton Summit; a groundbreaking creation care summit in January, 2007, for student leaders to confer with each other and meet with renowned climate change expert Sir John Houghton. I'm encouraged that as Christians, we are taking leadership in addressing daunting environmental challenges such as climate change, and I'm excited by the unique witness we have to offer the world. Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth." Climate change fills the world with despair, driven by fear and desperation. With our eyes fixed on Jesus, we see the same issue with hope, driven by His love for us, and for all that he has created and cherishes. CC

Kate Hagborg, UNC-Chapel Hill

This event was my first exposure to any sort of organized political activity. When the van full of Southern college students came to pick me up in Chapel Hill, I harbored secret doubts as to qualification for this conference. After all, I didn't consider myself to be an "activist," and I was a greenhorn to the green movement— what have I gotten myself into? I thought. But my fears were quickly quelled upon meeting Rusty from EEN and the other college students in his tow. They were not a collection of fiery, protesting tree-huggers who would resent me for not knowing the rate of melting permafrost; no, instead, they were normal college students, mostly like me, who have recently been learning about mankind's culpability in warming the earth, and who want to repent personally and effect broader social change as an expression of the gospel's restoration of all things. And each staff member of EEN and Restoring Eden that we met were humble, approachable and passionate, eager to know us as college students and to help us organize movements of creation care and environmental protection on our campuses. I learned so much throughout the three days about climate change, how to take political action, and how decisions on Capitol Hill are made. I met thirty other college students and heard about their work on their campuses, such as starting recycling and compost programs, or bringing in guest speakers from Alaskan tribes to speak firsthand about the changing climate, and I was both encouraged and inspired for greater vision for my own campus. But what I am most grateful for is that this conference gave me hope. Climate change is such an overwhelming issue, and the daily news tempts me to despair. But this conference was a reminder to me that as believers in the Risen Christ, we must not despair. For all creation waits in eager longing for the future glory that is promised us in Christ, when creation will be set free from decay, and until then, we proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand by doing whatever we can to restore creation and humanity back to God. This gathering of believers was, to me, a precious reminder and expression of our hope that will not disappoint us. CC

Ali Illyn, Western Washington Univervisty

I am a lonely girl. I am lonely because I am a Christian environmentalist at a secular university. There are many, many environmentalists on campus but almost none of them consider themselves Christians. And there are many, many fellow Christians on my campus, but few feel as strongly about the environment as I do. It is frustrating - feeling alone. I joke that I am tired of being the "token" - the "token" Christian in environmental circles and the "token" environmentalist in Christian circles. Since I desperately want to meet others like me, the Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative (EYCI) conference was like soothing therapy to me. It was a time to build strong relationships with other Christian environmentalists. . . and it felt good. Because of EYCI, I realized that I was not alone in my concern for God's creation, that in fact, there are students from around the nation who care deeply about the environment and are actively working to protect it. I sometimes feel alone at my school, but in reality, there are many others scattered around who share my deep concerns for environmental stewardship. Additionally, lobbying Congress in DC helped me realize that politicians are paying attention to our voices as evangelical youth. I've lobbied before on other environmental issues like protecting the Arctic Refuge or in support of endangered species legislation, but never have I been confronted with so much positive response as I received while lobbying about climate change. After meeting at Senator Murray's office, a legislative aide told our group that he was "definitely" going to remember our meeting. During another meeting, a legislative aide from Senator Cantwell's office told our group that our meeting was the one he had been most looking forward to all day. It was exciting to realize that the EYCI gathering is part of a much larger movement. There is a sense of excitement, a feeling that a shift is coming. Politicians seem to know it, and religious leaders are beginning to sense it as well. Part of this is due to our unique voice as young evangelicals. We are young Christian college students who are beginning to look at our faith as an integrative whole. We are declaring that as Christians we have a biblical mandate to care for God's people and God's creation. We are declaring that social justice issues such as hunger, poverty, and the environment should be and will be a part of our faith. And we are ready to work with elected officials and religious leaders to begin to taking a strong stance on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Most of all, we are the political and religious leaders of the future and are ready to lead the movement to protect all of God's creation. CC

EYCI Beyond the Classroom: Creation Care Study Program provides students new perspective

Boarding the plane for a semester in Belize with the Creation Care Study Program (CCSP), leaders from the Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative (EYCI) Caroline Brown, Joshua Van Staalduinen, and Bethany Ricks had one goal in mind: To learn as much as they could about God's creation and how to care for it. They wanted to see, touch, and hear tropical forests, streams and coral reefs and learn how they are impacted by climate change. They wanted to experience first hand how global warming and ecological destruction affects the lives of subsistence farmers and their families in the developing world.

Textbook knowledge wasn't going to cut it for one more semester. So they packed up their sense of adventure, curiosity, and desire to love and faithfully follow Christ, embarking on a life-changing semester.

Dr. Chris Elisara, CCSP's executive director, first met these students at the EYCI launch in Washington D.C., but he was very interested to find out what they were learning and how their CCSP Belize experience was further preparing them for leadership. On a recent trip to CCSP Belize, Dr. Elisara had the opportunity to discuss this with them. While it was a little early to definitively answer the question, "What have you learned about how climate change impacts the developing world?", the subsequent conversation was lively with perceptive insights and ideas.

Bethany Ricks, who attends Bethel University, led off with this observation: "Given that Belize's economy is reliant on tourism—much of it based on the coast and tropical reef—if climate change increases the frequency and intensity of severe weather events like hurricanes, Belize won't be able to cope with recurrent hurricanes hitting it's shores. The ecological damage will keep the tourists away, let alone the damage to infrastructure. It will ruin Belize's tourism industry and economy." Joshua Van Staalduinen who attends Trinity Christian College, quickly added the comparison: "Unlike wealthy countries such as the U.S., small developing countries like Belize do not have deep pockets and cannot respond to repeated shocks to the economy caused by big, and possibly more frequent hurricanes."

Caroline Brown from Asbury College provided another angle, noting "it will be the poor subsistence farmers and their families who will suffer the most from severe weather events in Belize, be it hurricanes, or raining when it should be dry, or dry when it should be raining . . . they survive by living off the land and if they cannot produce a crop they cannot survive." The students found agreement in these initial thoughts and continued to discuss more wide-ranging observations and analysis.

Then the conversation took a turn. "On the positive side," pointed out Ricks, "we visited a community that came together and set aside communal land to save habitat for Howler Monkeys, and now the Howlers are thriving."

"That's why I'm here," said Van Staalduinen "to learn how to respond to our ecological challenges, to be a leader and make a difference." Brown added, "I'm trying to take as much in as I can. I've got a lot to learn, especially how environmental degradation impacts people in poor countries, but as our program director encourages us, 'I'm squeezing the sponge.' I'm grasping this opportunity with two hands and squeezing every ounce of learning I can out of it." CC

How Does A Steward Pray?

Scott Rodin

As God's people we are called to be people of prayer. We are also called to live as godly stewards. And there is a powerful integration of these two callings, a rich interconnectedness that can ignite both a deeper prayer life and more passionate pursuit of godly stewardship.

Scripture gives us an illustration of how we should pray and a theology of what it means to be a steward. As we look at each we can see how they can so beautifully work together.

As recorded in Matthew 6, the pattern of the prayer Jesus taught us can be understood as a spiritual progression of eight parts. It begins with praise acknowledging God as our Father and Creator. It moves to an appeal for God's kingdom to be manifest on the earth and God's will to be accomplished in and through God's people. The prayer then asks God to meet our needs. This is followed by an appeal for forgiveness and a heart to love and forgive our neighbor. The prayer concludes with an admission of our need for God's strength in the face of temptation and our deliverance from evil which can only come from him.

Scripture also teaches us what it means to be a steward in the kingdom of God. We learn that our creation in the image of God means that we were originally created to live in harmonious, meaningful and joyful relations on four levels; namely, in our relationship to God, to ourselves, to our neighbor and to creation. We also learn that the Fall of humanity into sin destroyed our relationships on all four of these levels. Finally, rejoice in the knowledge that in Christ, all four of these relationships were redeemed and given back to us as precious gifts. Our call as stewards is lovingly to nurture these relationships, remembering the price that was paid to redeem them for us, and how they reflect our created purpose as image bearers of our triune God.

How then should a steward pray? If we apply the pattern of the Lord's Prayer to the four-fold nature of our calling to be stewards of God, we will see a beautiful and powerful prayer-life emerge. Here is what I think it might look like.

The prayer of the steward begins at the first level at the intersection of our praise to our triune God and the acknowledgement that our relationship to God has been bought for us with the blood of Jesus Christ. To be a steward of this relationship should inspire praise, thanks and gratitude. And so we pray in praise to the God who created us, redeemed us and continues to draw near to us as his beloved children. From here our prayer will ask that God's will for us and all creation will become ever more present as we seek to be obedient to his call.

We will continue by praying that God will provide all we need, equipping us that we might remain close to him. 'Our daily bread' in this way might mean our daily devotional time, prayer time and study of the Scriptures. We will follow with a prayer of repentance of all we do that separates us from God and impedes the intimacy he wishes to have with each of us, and we pray for our neighbors who struggle with the same. We close by acknowledging that, left to ourselves, we will repeat the sin of Adam and go our own way. And so we fervently ask God to keep us close to him, to help us resist all attempts by the enemy to lure us away, and to deliver us each day from the trials and snares that lay in our path. The close of this prayer should leave us with a deeper sense of intimacy with God, equipping us to cleave to him daily and live out our calling to be stewards of our relationship at this first and most important level.

The prayer of the steward moves to the second level of our created reality and focuses us on our own self understanding. Following again the pattern of Jesus' prayer, we would begin by praising God for who we are and the way we are made. This simple prayer of praise will already begin to identify struggles we may have with our own self-perception. Whether we tend toward self-absorption or self-deprecation, the prayer of praise will immediately require us to see ourselves as God sees us. When we praise God for who we are and how we were created, we acknowledge his divine purpose for us. We are forced to take more seriously just how fearfully and wonderfully we have been made. And not just made, but redeemed and restored! From praise, our prayer will move to an appeal for God's will to become our will. That every day we may become more and more the person God created us to be. And as we do, God's kingdom will more fully come, and his will be done on earth in and through us. We will also pray for our needs to be met on this most personal level. Here we may need to pray for God to meet us in the midst of our greatest pain, where we question ourselves, carry the burden of guilt, struggle with pride or wrestle with despair. None of these reflect God's intent, and we needs this prayer of supplication if we are to be stewards of our relationship to ourselves.

This will be followed by a time of repentance for the ways we have let distorted worldly views of our self-worth displace the divine view of our immense value to our Creator. Many of us need to seek repentance for allowing ourselves to measure our self-worth by worldly values. These distortions are as caustic to our souls as their counterpart of self-hatred. Both deny our created and redeemed reality as beloved children of the eternal and sovereign God of the universe. Finally, this prayer will lift up those places in our souls where we are most vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy who wishes that we think either more or less of ourselves than we ought. To 'lead us not into temptation' is to ask God to show us those places where we so easily acquiesce to the devil's schemes and slide into either self-exaltation or despair. We need his deliverance from these temptations that we might stay in the balance of a godly self-love and a godly humility. In this way, our prayer will guide and empower us to be stewards on this second level of our created existence.

On the third level, the prayer of the godly steward will begin with praise to God for giving us our neighbors of every form and kind. We cannot be selective in our thanks to God for our neighbor or we will undermine the power of this prayer at the outset. We praise God for all people and we acknowledge in that prayer that God is wise and sovereign in the creation of each. This should cultivate in us a Christian worldview as we seek to live as salt and light amidst our neighbors. Our prayer will move to a focus on God's will and purpose for our neighbor, and our desire that his will be manifest in everyone. This, too, is a prayer that will keep us from either the sin of envy or of rejoicing in the suffering of others.

If we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, then this prayer for God's good and perfect will for our neighbor lies at the heart of what it means to be a godly steward at this third level. Our prayer must also ask that God would meet not only the needs of our neighbor, but the needs we have in order to become a good neighbor. That is, we must pray against our lack of neighborliness and seek after those things that will better fit us for service to one another. How do we cultivate a servant's heart? How do we see our neighbor as God sees them? How do we get around our selfishness with regard to our time and truly be available to neighbors in need? These are the petitions of godly stewards.

Our prayer will then move to our need for forgiveness, and especially our need to be people of grace and peacemakers in our world. Finally, we end this petition with a prayer that God would open our eyes and show us where we are weakest and most vulnerable in our call to love our neighbor. We will seek God's transformation and ask for his deliverance from the evil that comes when we fail to love our neighbor as ourselves. This petition brings cleansing, insight and empathy that must be a part of the godly steward at this third level of our created existence.

Finally, we come to the prayer of the steward for the creation itself. Here we can joyfully praise God for the wonder of his creation and his sustenance of it with each new sunrise. Our prayer will move to the petition that God's will be done in and through his creation. If we believe that God's perfect will and good purposes include his creation, then we will pray that God's will may truly be done 'in earth as it is in heaven'.

We will also pray for the needs of creation. We will grieve over the ecological destruction we see everywhere. How desperately the world needs our prayers! In this prayer we will also acknowledge our own responsibility to be the conduit through which God meets the needs of his created world. To seek God's will for his creation is to seek our own place in meeting those needs. Similarly, our prayers for forgiveness will bring into focus those areas where our own lifestyles have contributed to the destruction of our earth. It will point us to the hoarding of wealth that results in abject poverty, and the over-consumption of our society that causes suffering to both humanity and nature. In this repentance we will seek to be shown where and how we must change in order to better carry out our calling as stewards on this fourth level. This prayer then will move to the naming of those areas that tempt us most, and where we so easily side with the world in the adoration of money and the destruction of God's creation. As we name our weaknesses here, we will pray for God's deliverance and his continued transformation of our lives into truly godly stewards at this fourth level of our created existence.

This is the prayer of the godly steward. If we will commit to pray through all four areas according to the pattern taught us by our Lord, we will find a refreshment, inspiration and re-engagement with the challenges and joys of our vocation as stewards in the kingdom of the triune God of grace. CC

Editor's Note: R. Scott Rodin is a consultant and former President of Eastern (now Palmer) Seminary. His book Stewards in the Kingdom is available at amazon.com.

Preserving God's Presence: Turning up the volume of God's voice in your life

Helen Goody

I've always been a little bit envious of the people in the Bible who have a direct conversation with God. Moses, for instance. . .no one understood God's calling better than Moses. Not only did he have direct conversations with him; he got the "signs" that we all ask for when we seek God's guidance. A burning bush and stone tablets!

Even Job, after suffering horribly and praying consistently, finally got a direct from response from God. His loyalty was rewarded and his role as God's servant was confirmed. Boy, it would be nice just to sit down and a good cup of coffee and have God tell me like it is.

Most of the time, the closest I come to hearing God directly is after something happens to me. I was recently on a short-term mission trip, and I watched an older man become moved to tears after the work we did for him. "Ah-ha," I had said to myself, "the long days of work, the aches and pains on a body that's seen younger days, the mental pushing to finish. . ..this is why I'm here, doing this. God sent me here." But I usually don't realize the direction, the message, until I see the effect. Prior to that, it just an instinct—just something I know I should do.

My lack of clarity often comes from simply not spending enough time with God and God alone. Family, work, sports, and leisure time all tend to nip away at the time I need to stop and listen to God. I'm sometimes so exhausted at night that I fall asleep in the midst of prayer, and then get frustrated the next morning because I couldn't even get in a quick word.

It's why creation care has become such an important aspect to nurture my spiritual growth. There is no time that I feel God's presence more than when I am surrounded by elements of his great design. There's no question to me that God created the cricket or the ocean. And when I turn off the noises of humanity and turn up the volume of the things that God has created since the very beginning of time, I realize that I have opened the communication line with God himself. Better still, if I dedicate just a little more of my efforts to preserving those things that God created, I've not only made myself acutely aware of his presence, I've acknowledged that nothing is more important in my life than preserving his presence in my life. Ultimately I realize that I don't need a conversation over coffee or a burning bush. I have a blade of grass and the song of a mountain bluebird to tell me about the series of miracles that made them and brought them into my life to send me the message of God's love, to tell me to keep my life simple and focused on him. Nothing could be more clear.

And It Was Good

Need some time to focus on God and the wonder of his incredible design? Use this personal, seven-day devotion to dig into the meaning of Genesis and to experience how God's handiwork has a direct connection to your life.

Day 1: Let There Be Light - Set your alarm so that you can awake before just before sunrise (you can do it!). Find a nice spot outside where you can have a good view of the sun as it rises. When light begins to break over the horizon, take note of the signs of life as you see or hear it. Then use a flashlight or candle to read Genesis 1:1-5. How has God brought life into your life? How does his creation reflect God's presence in your life? Pray for more light in your life.

Day 2: The Water and the Sky - Look for a good scientific definition for why the sky is blue (you might try www.wikipedia.org, www.ask.com, or www.whyistheskyblue.org). Then find a sunny day to sit at the side of a pond or pool, dip your feet in, and look for a few minutes up at the sky. Think about the relationship between the sky and water. Read Genesis 1:6-8.Think about why God created that relationship. Think about why God separated the water and the sky, and how the act created a place for you to exist. Think about what God might want you to do in order to remember that relationship.

Day 3: The Land - Spend some time on a trail or a bike path, but stop for about 5 minutes somewhere along the way, and record all of the different species you encounter in that 5 minutes, including both flora and fauna. If you have time, continue your hike and stop and record for another five minutes. Read Genesis 1:9-13, and think about all the creatures that owe their existence to God for creating land on the third day. How is your role as caretaker a continuation of God's work? How do you feel about the land, knowing that when God saw that it was good? How does God use you to "plant seeds"?

Day 4: Night and Day - Take an old sheet of paper from a day planner, or write down the hours of the day on a piece of paper. Write down one element of creation that you can hear or see for each hour. Read Genesis 1:14- 19. Why do you think the Bible refers to night and day as "two great lights"? What's something in creation that goes on during the night that you usually don't notice? During the day? How do you think God wants you to pay attention to him?

Day 5: Creatures of the Sea and Sky - Look out your window and see if you can spot two different bird species (yes, pigeons count!). Close your eyes and compare the two different birds. Why would God make so many different types of animals that could fly? Or swim? Read Genesis 1:20-23. Is God's world simple or complex? How does your life fit in with God's creation? How experiencing the wonders of creation a form of worshipping God?

Day 6: Living Things - Look for a photo of yourself that records a moment with you and your pet or some encounter you've had with an animal. How does your life fit in with God's creation? Read Genesis 1:24-31 and imagine yourself surrounded by all the things that have the "breath of life" in them. How are you similar to other living things? How has God made you different from them? Why does God want you to understand the message you might receive from his creation? Ask God to help you understand your role as caretaker of his creation.

Day 7: Day of Rest - Think of some representatives of God's creation that celebrate the act of rest: A bear in hibernation; a dormant volcano; a tulip bulb in the wintertime, a farmer's fallow field. Read Genesis 2:1-3. Why did God want to rest? Why does God want you—and all living things—to rest? Now read Matthew 11:28. How does Christ's presence in your life make "rest" possible? Take a fifteen minute nap. When you awake, offer a prayer of thanks for the gift of rest. CC

Editor's Note: Helen Goody is a Contributing Editor to Creation Care magazine.

Serve God, Save the Planet

Matthew Sleeth, M.D.

What does it profit my brethren if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? . . . For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. - James 2:14 and 26, NKJV

It was a triple "H" day in the nation's capital—hazy, hot, and humid. A dome of smog hung over the city and extended far beyond the capital beltway. The weatherman told those with illnesses to stay indoors, but eight-yearold Etta and her brother went to a neighborhood playground.

I began my afternoon shift in the ER wing of the children's hospital while Etta and her brother were running through a sprinkler to cool off. As Etta exerted herself, her airways began reacting to the smog. The muscles that line the bronchioles of her airways involuntarily contracted, while the mucous cells began a pathologic overproduction of thick fluid. Within a few seconds, this fluid buildup became what we call an asthma attack.

Etta's brother ran back home for her inhaler, and bystanders called 911. Within a few minutes, a rescue unit was on-site and began treating and transporting Etta. They radioed ahead that things were not going well.

A nurse flipped on the lights in a trauma room, and we assembled there. The doctor in charge of the team called out what he wanted everyone to do. I was given the job of intubating Etta, if needed. The ambulance crew arrived. She was being "bagged," meaning that the paramedic was trying to oxygenate her with a mask over her mouth and nose and an Ambu bag that forced air into her lungs. Her thin, limp body was quickly transferred to our trauma gurney.

Etta's pulse was ominously slow, and her oxygen saturation level was barely readable. The Ambu bag was hard to compress because of the resistance in her clogged airways.

"Matthew, go ahead and intubate. Tammy, get an art [arterial] line in; I want her paralyzed too," the leader called out. I lifted Etta's small hand and held a few endotracheal tubes next to her little finger. Then I selected the one closest in diameter to her finger, a trick I'd been taught for quickly getting the correct size. I paused a second to lean down and whisper in Etta's ear, which is the only way to communicate with a patient in a crowded, noisy room.

"Etta," I whispered, "I'm Dr. Matt. I'm going to put a tube in your mouth and get you breathing right." I looked into her frightened eyes. "I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you, sweetheart," I promised. Her left hand still rested in mine, and I thought I felt a weak squeeze.

Two images from that scene still haunt me. The first was her little finger held next to those plastic endotracheal tubes. That hand was so small and vulnerable in my oversize palm. The second image came thirty seconds after I intubated Etta. The team leader yelled for quiet. He held his stethoscope on her chest. "Give her a breath," he ordered, and I squeezed down on the bag. Etta had on a bathing suit the color of a fluorescent green hula hoop. Pictured on its front was a happy, smiling whale blowing a spout of water into the air. Etta must have loved that bathing suit. One couldn't help but smile at the frolicking whale. Trying to lift that whale by forcing air into her lungs is my second haunting memory. Despite the rescue squad, and despite the best efforts of an entire pediatric emergency department, I broke my promise to Etta. She died of air pollution on that summer day.

A decade ago, I would have told you that our family was concerned about the environment. I would have said that we were true "conservatives," working to preserve nature. That was talk. We have progressed from talking a good talk to walking a better walk. How did we go from saying we were concerned to actually making a difference?

When God called me to this creation care ministry, I was a physician—chief of staff and head of the emergency department—at one of the nicest hospitals in America. I enjoyed my job, my colleagues, my expensive home, my fast car, and my big paycheck. I have since given up every one of these things.

We now live in a house the exact size of our old garage. We use less than one-third of the fossil fuels and one-quarter of the electricity we once used. We've gone from leav- ing two barrels of trash by the curb each week to leaving one bag every few weeks. We no longer own a clothes dryer, garbage disposal, dishwasher, or lawn mower. Our "yard" is planted with native wildflowers and a large vegetable garden. Half of our possessions have found new homes. We are a poster family for the downwardly mobile.

What my family and I have gained in exchange is a life richer in meaning than I could have imagined. Because of these changes, we have more time for God. Spiritual concerns have filled the void left by material ones. Owning fewer things has resulted in things no longer owning us. We have put God to the test, and we have found his Word to be true. He has poured blessings and opportunities upon us. When we stopped living a life dedicated to consumerism, our cup began to run over.

Today I am one of a growing number of evangelical Christians whom the Lord is using to witness to people about his love for them and for the natural world. The earth was designed to sustain every generation's needs, not to be plundered in an attempt to meet one generation's wants.

As I go around preaching and teaching, people share their concerns. Many want a less hectic daily schedule; others long for meaning and purpose, and the security of a rich spiritual life. Still others know what is keeping them from a closer walk with God but cannot overcome inertia to make the necessary changes.

I spoke recently with a group of men. Each described himself as born again, and yet one told how he could not stop himself from buying cars— cars he cannot afford. Another complained of a persistent problem with credit card debt. A third described the pain—both economic and emotional— of going through a divorce. Being born anew in the Lord is crucial, but spiritual growth must follow. Spiritual growth is a journey we must actively seek.

One area we must change is our dependence on foreign oil. Despite what many think, global warming may not be the most harmful outcome of our oil habit. When people's lives become dependent on a substance, we call that addiction. The addictive potential of a substance does not necessarily correlate to the "high" it delivers. A more accurate way to judge addictive potential is to see how willing someone is to go without the substance, or how painful life becomes when it is suddenly withdrawn.

When we are addicted to something, we tend to start denying or overlooking things. We fail to question its side effects. We are willing to lower our standards.

As a Christian and a physician, I'm interested in the moral implications of our fossil fuel dependence as well as its health effects. What does devoting so much of our lives to obtaining and delivering oil do to us as a country and as individuals? The U.S. now sends more than two hundred billion dollars a year to distant lands in exchange for oil. That means that every man, woman, and child in America is sending about $700 a year to foreign countries just to feed our oil habit. One of those recipients officially forbids religious freedom. Its constitution mandates that the earth is flat. It declares democracy a capital crime. And this country is a major, not a minor, supplier of U.S. oil.

Ours is not the first generation to be morally blinded by building a lifestyle based upon energy from foreign shores. Slavery was the importation of cheap energy without regard to its moral cost. States that initially forbade slave energy, such as Georgia, eventually sanctioned it out of envy of the material wealth of their neighbors.

Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, President Lincoln was purported to have said that it was nice to meet the woman who started the Civil War. Stowe's father was among the evangelical ministers who preached the cause of abolition. Other preachers penned eloquent pro-slavery sermons. The church, like the country, found itself split by the slavery controversy. How could church leaders come to such different conclusions while reading the same Bible? Can we draw lessons from this defining moment in our history, or are we doomed to repeat it?

The Golden Rule allows us to see the moral side of many issues, including environmental ones. Love thy neighbor as thyself—one cannot claim to be a Christian and ignore the Golden Rule. It isn't a suggestion or a guideline; it is a commandment from God. What is the connection between the Golden Rule and the environment? Isn't our choice of homes, cars, and appliances just a matter of lifestyle, and therefore not a moral or spiritual matter? Does God care whether I drive an SUV, leave the TV on all night, or fly around the world skiing? The Bible doesn't mention any of these things. They didn't exist in Jesus' time. Yet Jesus taught the spirit of the law, not the letter. From the spirit of the law, and from the example of his love, we can determine the morality of our actions.

When I speak in a church, I bring along a case of efficient lightbulbs to give to people. I refer to the Energy Star Web site (www.energystar.gov) which urges us to consume less energy. Formed by the Environmental Protection Agency under George Bush Sr.'s administration, the Energy Star site states that if every household changed its five most used bulbs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, the country could take twenty-one coalfired power plants off-line tomorrow. This would keep one trillion pounds of poisonous gases and soot out of the air we breathe and would have the same beneficial impact as taking eight million cars off the road. ... Some sixtyfour thousand American deaths occur annually as a result of soot in the air.

Throughout my childhood, I knew of only one schoolmate with asthma. Now on a hazy day, dozens of kids in every school reach for inhalers to aid their breathing. God did not design the air to make us short of breath. It was meant to sustain us. The Harvard School of Health looked at the impact of one power plant in Massachusetts and found that it caused 1,200 ER visits, 3,000 asthma attacks, and 110 deaths annually. Nationally, the soot from power plants will precipitate more than 600,000 asthma attacks. These are just numbers, albeit large ones. For me, those numbers boil down to Etta—one young girl who died because of our poor stewardship of God's creation.

Because of our consumer lifestyle, we are all responsible for Etta's death. Little sacrifices—changing lightbulbs or hanging laundry on the line—are the small gestures that can help us save the next little girl's life. CC

Editor's Note: Matthew Sleeth, MD, is a former emergency room director who now has a full-time ministry devoted to creation-care. This excerpt from Serve God, Save the Planet (Zondervan, 2007) was used with permission of the author. See www.servegodsavetheplanet. org..

Returning to Conservative Roots: How the conservative movement has trivialized the environment

Rod Dreher

Rod Dreher introduces us to a renewed expression of political conservatism: Dreher calls himself a "crunchy con." In this excerpt, he argues that today's conservative movement has latterly abandoned a long-term conservative stewardship ethic in favor of a current stance which considers environmental issues at best trivial, and at worst a threat to the American way of life.

In a world where efficiency is the highest value, honor comes at too high a price. If you think about it, conservatism today often takes on the characteristics of what conservatives say they hate most of all about liberalism: selfinterest above anything else. It is a vision of man as an autonomous being who has only needs to meet and demands to make, no obligations to fulfill. Moral values subordinated to economic ones.

. . .

We weren't always like this. In fact, it is an attitude of relatively recent vintage. Readers of Richard Weaver and Russell Kirk, two of the philosophical fathers of modern American conservatism, cannot fail to be impressed with the profound respect those men had for the natural world, and their distress over the way industrial capitalism saw nature merely as a thing to be exploited.

These traditionalists saw an ethic of conservation as entirely consistent with conservative principle, in part because of conservatism's understanding of human nature. If you believe that man is inherently flawed —what religious people call "original sin" (the only Christian dogma, according to English writer and proto-crunchy con G. K. Chesterton, that can be proved by recourse to the daily newspaper) — it follows that man, if left to his own devices, will tend toward ego-driven disharmony. Traditionalist conservatives know that absent the restraining hand of religion, tradition, or the state, there is nothing to prevent human beings from acting in ways contrary to their own best interests, or those of the community.

For a true conservative, that community includes men and women yet to be born, and for whose sake we are morally obliged to be good stewards of the world we have been given. "In America especially, we live beyond our means by consuming the portion of posterity, insatiably devouring minerals and forests and the very soil, lowering the water table, to gratify the appetites of the present tenants of the country," Kirk wrote. He demanded that Americans behave more prudently, to honor "the future partners in our contract with eternal society."

What can that mean to a society and a government putting its children and children's children in hock to foreign creditors to keep the great smoking engines of consumption pumping — and the politicians, including Republicans, who profess conservatism, in power by pandering to voters? Can today's conservatives even understand what Kirk was talking about?

Perhaps the best-known fictional explication of the traditionalist conservative perspective on the right relation of man to the natural world can be found in The Lord of the Rings. J. R. R. Tolkien's epic novel was taken to the patchouli-scented bosom of many a sixties counterculturalist, largely for its environmentalist worldview. But Tolkien was a deeply conservative Roman Catholic and a Tory to the marrow. In Tolkien's fictional world, the artisan elves and the agrarian hobbits showed the right way to live in harmony with nature, making use of its bounty while respecting it. In contrast, the wizard Saruman and his wicked master of Mordor represent the allconsuming drive to exploit nature, and eventually destroy it.

You don't have to look to political philosophers and artists of the right to find historical precedent for a conservationist ethic. Perhaps the only true conservationist we've had as our president was Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican who greatly expanded the national parks, and who passionately loved wild things (especially shooting them). He believed that conservation was a moral and a patriotic issue, because America could not be strong if it did not prudently steward its natural resources.

. . .

It's true that Reaganism, for all the good it did, also mainstreamed a kind of conservatism that viewed environmentalism with contempt. Scorning environmentalists as tree-hugging kooks became a way of proving one's right-wing bona fides. The role the reactionary liberalism of environmental activists played in empowering conservative ideologues can hardly be overstated. They reacted to every defeat by becoming ever more strident and absolutist in their rhetoric. By the year 2000, a poll by the market research firm Environics found that 41 percent of those surveyed thought of environmentalists as "extremists, not reasonable people."

Conservatives pride themselves on being hardheaded realists, but our lack of serious concern about the environment does not match reality. Despite the presence of ideologically driven junk science, the evidence for global warming caused by human activity is so overwhelming that conservative columnist John Leo likens right-wing deniers to tobacco company executives who claim there's no solid link between smoking and lung cancer. Even if the evidence were inconclusive, given the catastrophic results of a global temperature rise — including fiercer hurricanes, flooding of coastal cities, the loss of vast inhabited and cultivated regions to desertification or frost— would compel the prudent conservative (which used to be a redundant phrase) to act as if the worst was likely. The price of being wrong is incalcula- ble — especially considering the century or more scientists estimate it would take for the earth to rebound from global warming even if we slashed carbon emissions virtually to the bone tomorrow.

"Man's power now enormously exceeds natural limits, and we can now do things that were inconceivable only a few generations ago. So it's a new problem, and these are grave new challenges," said Matthew Scully. Global warming is the most serious crisis overtaking mankind as the result of our refusal to live within our means, and to use our immense power wisely, but it is not the only one. In the spring of 2005, a worldwide coalition of 1,360 scientists, under United Nations auspices, issued the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a report that its authors called a "stark warning" to the world. Two-thirds of the world's natural resources have already been used up by humans, the report said, and the pressure we are putting on the natural world — the rain forests, the wetlands, the fisheries — is so unrelenting and harmful "that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted."

The report called out the "dangerous illusions" harbored by the rest of us, who think of nature as something separate from our daily lives, a place we go visit on the weekend or watch on Discovery Channel nature documentaries. In truth, mankind relies on nature to recycle the air we breathe, the water we drink, and much of the food we eat. Man is not an island.

. . .

The problem is that most of us think about global warming, the depletion of fisheries, and the eradication of the rain forests as "environmental" problems. In truth, they are far more than that. They are economic problems. They are national-security problems. They are public-health problems. They are "family-values" problems. They are religious problems.

In their iconoclastic 2004 essay "The Death of Environmentalism" liberal environmental activists Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus leveled this indictment against the leadership of the nation's environmental groups, saying that their near-obsession with the environment as a standalone issue is one big reason the environmental movement has lost so much political power in the last twenty years.

This is the kind of thing they were talking about, and which conservatives appreciate: to the paper-mill worker in south Louisiana, "saving the environment" is an abstraction that appeals to elites; he's worried about putting food on the table for his family. It's very easy for business interests to paint environmentalists as the kind of do-gooders who are going to cost him his job by hurting the mill with costly regulation that will force the mill owners to relocate to Mexico. If that's the trade-off, no wonder the mill worker is going to fight environmentalists.

Consider, though, that the same mill worker may be coming home from work most days with nosebleeds from harmful chemicals in the air. (This is not a hypothetical situation; it really happened to a close relative of mine, a staunch Limbaugh-loving Republican.) Consider that the mill's owners threaten the union with moving south of the border, which is a lot easier to do under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), if the union pushes for safer working conditions. Consider also how much support environmental crusaders might have gotten from churches and ordinary conservative working folks if they understood the genuine fear these men would have of losing their jobs, but also the natural concern they would have about cancer and other diseases they might acquire from dangerous working conditions, and which would leave their families fatherless. To have made those kinds of connections would have required the environmentalists to rub shoulders with dittoheads like my relative. And it would have required dittoheads to accept that they can have something in common with liberals. CC

Editor's Note: Taken by permission from Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical freerange farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party) by Rod Dreher, published by Crown Forum, New York, 2006. Rod Dreher's blog is: beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon

My Soul's Dark Night: The best evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this battle

Chuck Colson

I am a product of the best in evangelicalism: converted 32 years ago in a flood of tears after hearing the gospel, discipled by a strong prayer group, taught by great theologians. I know the strength of evangelicalism in bringing people to an intimate relationship with Jesus.

But what happens when you have relied on this intimacy and the day comes when God seems distant? What happens in the dark night of the soul?

I found out this past year. Weeks after finishing The Good Life, my son Wendell was diagnosed with bone cancer. The operation to remove a malignant tumor took 10 hours—the longest day of my life. Wendell survived, but he's still in chemo.

I had barely caught my breath when my daughter, Emily, was diagnosed with melanoma.

Back in the hospital, I again prayed fervently. Soon after, my wife, Patty, underwent major knee surgery. Where was my good life?

Exhausted from hospitals, two years of writing The Good Life, and an ugly situation with a disgruntled former employee, I found myself wrestling with the Prince of Darkness, who attacks us when we are weakest. I walked around at night, asking God why he would allow this. Alone, shaken, fearful, I longed for the closeness with God I had experienced even in the darkest days of prison.

An answer came in September. I was standing alone on the deck of a friend's home in North Carolina, overlooking the spectacular Smoky Mountains arising out of the mist. I was moved by the glory of God's creation. It's impossible not to know God as the Creator, I realized, for there is no other rational explanation for reality. God cannot not be.

It struck me that I don't have to make sense of the agonies I bear or hear a clear answer. God is not a creature of my emotions or senses. God is God, the one who created me and takes responsibility for my children's destiny and mine. I can only cling to the certainty that he is and he has spoken.

I'm not sure how well the contemporary evangelical world prepares us for this struggle, which I suspect many evangelicals experience but fear to admit because of the expectations we create. At such times, we can turn for strength to older and richer theological traditions probably unfamiliar to many—writings by saints who endured agonies both physical and spiritual.

Teresa of Avila was a 16th-century Spanish mystic and author of The Interior Castle. Teresa, who suffered from paralyzing illnesses, wrote, "For his Majesty can do nothing greater for us than grant us a life which is an imitation of that lived by his beloved Son. I feel certain, therefore, that these favors [sufferings] are given us to strengthen our weakness."

John of the Cross, persecuted and thrown into prison, wrote the classic The Dark Night of the Soul. "O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation," John wrote. "If you knew how pleasing to God is suffering and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything, but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord."

In the evangelical heritage, we could draw on spiritual forebears like the Puritans and Charles Spurgeon. "When thy God hides his face, say not that he has forgotten thee," Spurgeon once wrote. "He is but tarrying a little while to make thee love him better, and when he cometh, thou shalt have joy in the Lord and shalt rejoice with joy unspeakable."

The point of these older traditions is that faith becomes strongest when we are without consolation and must walk into the darkness with complete abandon.

Faith isn't really faith if we can always rely on the still, small voice of God cheering us on. A prominent pastor once told me he experienced the Holy Spirit's presence every moment. Contemporary evangelicals regard this as maturity. Perhaps it is—or maybe it is a form of presumption. True faith trusts even when every outward reality tells us there is no reason to.

As theologian Michael Novak explains, true faith says, "Let this be done, Lord, according to your will"— even if we don't know what "this" is.

Evangelicals must rely on more than cheerful tunes, easy answers, and happy smiles. We must dig deeply into the church's treasures to find what it is like to worship God, not because of our circumstances, but in spite of them.

Following the events of 2005, my faith is deepened. Countless times over the years I've experienced God and his providence, but I've also known the dark night. God, I've realized, is not just the friend who takes my hand, but also the great, majestic Creator who reigns forever. CC

This article first appeared in the December 2005 issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of the author

Winter 2007

Table of Contents

From the Editor

The Creation: Reinstating Its Awesome Meaning in Science, Society

Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why Tactics of the Religious Right Won't Fly with Most Conservative Christians

Saving God's Green Earth: How the church can lead the way in caring for creation

Making the Connection

Sharing Christ in Your City

Sharing Christ Abroad

The Lion, the Curse, and the Evangelical: No longer can Christians remain silent on issue of the environment

Jesus and the Earth: Understanding serious words on creation from the Savior

The Zero Carbon Christian: How ECI is helping believers reduce their carbon footprint

Understanding the Ins and Outs of Carbon Offsetting

Cooling Our Future: Young evangelicals take powerful message to U.S. Congress

Ben Lowe, Wheaton

Kate Hagborg, UNC-Chapel Hill

Ali Illyn, Western Washington Univervisty

EYCI Beyond the Classroom: Creation Care Study Program provides students new perspective

How Does A Steward Pray?

Preserving God's Presence: Turning up the volume of God's voice in your life

And It Was Good

Serve God, Save the Planet

Returning to Conservative Roots: How the conservative movement has trivialized the environment

My Soul's Dark Night: The best evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this battle