Ever since we arrived at our little church here in Fort Collins, we've been an anomaly. We're reformed, just like the rest of the congregation, but we're environmentalists. We've studied the Bible for years, but we sometimes come to different conclusions on what it's saying. (Our Sunday school lesson two summer's ago on taking the Lord's name in vain is a perfect case in point. It was an entire hour in which I felt like no matter what Rob or I said, we might as well have been in a sound-proof box because no one seemed to hear us. To my great delight, you can now read some of the things that Rob and I were saying in our new pastor's blog (even though he wasn't in that Sunday school class to hear us say those things).)Though Rob and I will bring up our differences of interpretation on occasion (like when we explain why we bike to church with our family when we can, rather than drive), we try not to make a big deal out of it. But in March of 2007, I decided that there was one difference of opinion that, while I still didn't want to make a big deal out of it, I did want to address. After an unexpected outburst about how silly global warming is, I felt compelled to address the issue--not global warming in particular, but the whole topic of the environment and the role of Christians regarding it.
So I started reading books. I read saving God's green earth, by tri robinson. I thought it made a very well reasoned case as to why Christians should be concerned about the environment and so I recommended it to the session (which is the ruling group for the church -- the pastor and the elders). All I ever heard back from the pastor was that the elders had quickly shot the idea down. But he suggested that perhaps we could read Francis Schaeffer's book, Pollution and the Death of Man, instead. So I read through that and, while I liked the book, it seemed rather thin compared to the other book I had already started reading at that point, Redeeming Creation: The Biblical Basis for Environmental Stewardship, which took Schaeffer's same ideas but fleshed them out much better. But I knew that I couldn't suggest that book to the session because it talked too specifically about issues and I didn't want to go there until we could all agree that the Bible had something to say on the topic first.
By this point I realized that none of the books I picked up were going to reach the intended audience very well. The only book that had a chance of making an impression was the Bible. So I started searching for Bible studies on the topic. I found a few, but to put it bluntly, they all sucked. So I decided to write one myself. (Hopefully it doesn't suck.)I wrote specifically with an audience in mind that reflects our congregation: reformed, conservative, and leery of anything that smells even a little bit liberal. I know that liberals have taken up the environmentalist banner and waved it gleefully. But just because liberals wave that banner doesn't, in my mind, mean that conservatives can't also be concerned about many of these same issues. No one wants their children to be poisoned by toxins in their foods. No one wants to die of a disease caused by air pollution or water contamination. There are points we can all agree on. And the Bible speaks not only to these points but to many other environmental concerns as well.
I recently finished putting together 10 chapters focusing on various topics for study. I pulled from multiple resources including not only my own studies of the Bible, but also from the books mentioned above and even a Teaching Company class on the book of Genesis (which I highly recommend, by the way. And it's even on sale right now.)
I've uploaded the study book to Lulu.com, where you can download or order a copy. But though it's written, and it's even on Lulu, I think it could still use a thorough editorial review. So I thought I'd invite anyone who is interested to get a copy (I'd actually be happy to order one for you so you don't have to pay for it. But you'll need to send me your address (in a PM).) and go to town on it. Tell me where I'm not clear, where I don't make my point very well, where my typos are, etc. You don't have to be a Christian, nor an environmentalist, to try doing the study. You do, however, have to keep in mind who the intended audience is and tell me when you think I'm missing my mark in addressing them. (You don't even have to have a Bible. The Bible Gateway is an easy way to look up the verses.) 
If you're not interested but you know of someone else who might be, please send them a link to this post. If the study can't stand up to serious scrutiny, then it's really not worth me suggesting to the session that we study it at some point. In fact, if it can't stand up to serious scrutiny, then I might as well throw it in the trash bin. The last thing the world needs is another piece of junk. But I do think it'll (mostly) stand up to scrutiny and so here I am, setting it on the firing line. Fire at will!
Edit: (1 June 2009) The second edition of this Bible study is now out. I've fixed several typos and a wrong Scripture reference and while I was at it I gave it a new cover (thanks to Lulu's handy premade cover themes). ------>
If you're not interested but you know of someone else who might be, please send them a link to this post. If the study can't stand up to serious scrutiny, then it's really not worth me suggesting to the session that we study it at some point. In fact, if it can't stand up to serious scrutiny, then I might as well throw it in the trash bin. The last thing the world needs is another piece of junk. But I do think it'll (mostly) stand up to scrutiny and so here I am, setting it on the firing line. Fire at will!Edit: (1 June 2009) The second edition of this Bible study is now out. I've fixed several typos and a wrong Scripture reference and while I was at it I gave it a new cover (thanks to Lulu's handy premade cover themes). ------>
Episcopalian bishops to adopt green covenant
ReplyDelete"SEATTLE -- The possible health risks of plastics has some Episcopalian bishops campaigning against bottled water.
The western bishops of the Episcopal church have written to the delegates of the church's national convention, encouraging them not to buy bottled water. Instead, they're urging the faithful to bring metal or ceramic water bottles to refill with tap water.
"We wanted to try to find a way that every person feels they're making a difference," said Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel, bishop of Olympia.
Rickel hopes the church's efforts attract more people to the church.
"People 35 and under. They want to see us engaged in this issue," he said.
The effort is a part of the church's "Genesis Covenant," a pledge to cut church greenhouse gas emissions by half in the next 10 years. The western bishops plan to adopt the covenant at their summer convention.
If we don't cut, the bishops warn, we will see "more droughts and floods, severe storms, a rise in infections diseases, desperate shortages of fresh water and millions of environmental refugees."
"If we don't do our share, then how we can ask our political leaders to do what they need to do?" said Pastor Peter Strimer of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Seattle.
Members of Strimer's church are installing a new water-efficient dishwasher in the dining hall. They're also replacing a 52-year-old boiler with a much smaller high-efficiency model, and switching to energy-saving light bulbs. In the dining hall alone, the bulb switch alone will save 2,000 watts every time someone flips the switch.
St. Andrews is also putting in an organic garden with hopes of growing a year-long supply of produce for its church dinners and programs to feed the hungry. It's also trying to keep as much out of the landfill by composting as much as it can."
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/44513742.html
our church has so much land we could do something like this. but the elders think grass is the best way to go. :-\
ReplyDeletethere's definitely a growing movement within "the church" (as in, the larger church body throughout the states) to go green. and there's some great books on the topic. but the churches that are particularly right wing (which is a horrible thing to say, because churches really should be a-political or heavenly-political or something like that) are still quite anti-environment. not just apathetic, but anti.
it's with issues like this that sometimes i want to reach over and see what they're holding in their hands because the bible they're reading doesn't seem to be the same bible i'm reading. :-(
Is that a refusal to align with anything remotely liberal or part of the "it's ours" mentality?
ReplyDeletei suspect that covers it pretty well.
ReplyDeleteif a liberal says it, it must be wrong.
except when they're talking about the poor. then they're ignorant and misguided. ...and wrong.
i think it goes both ways, though. i've met some rather liberal christians who refuse to listen to anything the right-wingers say because they're just wrong.
all "sides" have some things spot on and some things totally screwed up and we'll get farther along by listening to each other, teaching each other, and learning from each other than we will be focusing on building fences and walls and stocking our arsenals against each other. :-P
i think we can build a lot of bridges by studying the bible together. that's why i decided to write a bible study instead of writing essays or a book.
Beginning from an agreed point of view.
ReplyDeleteSeems it'd be easier for "anti-liberal conservatives" to work with the concept of a liberal if they think in terms of a broken clock being accidentally correct twice a day. Though, a conservative, who is disagreeing based on something other than reason, is probably the more stuck in the mud sort to begin with.