Recognizing the loss of many Millennials (18–30 year olds) from evangelical churches, The New Copernicans proposes a solution that will return them to the pews. The author and entrepreneur, John Seel, notes important factors in the contemporary scene: the diminishment of secular humanism; the growth of spiritual practices; the exodus of young people from church; and the consensus that we are in “the post secular age.” Seel’s insights are correct, but they do not make his solution correct; … [Read more...]
A Christian Perspective on Biodiversity: Anthropocentric, Biocentric, and Theocentric Approaches to Bio-Stewardship
Maintaining Biodiversity: A Generally Good End Whatever our assumptions, I think all of us here would agree that, in general, maintaining biodiversity is a good end. None of us would favor the willy-nilly elimination of species, subspecies, varieties, or even distinct populations of varieties of life. Yet I say that maintaining biodiversity is a good end "in general" because there are some limits to this end. Although there are others, I mention here just three. First, I trust that no one … [Read more...]
Global Warming Believers, Take Note: Real Science Doesn’t Shy from Challenges
Guest blog by Mark Landsbaum, reprinted from Barbwire.com with permission Somewhere online yours truly posted a comment about global warming that stirred one of the faithful. Faithful global warming believer, that is. The true believer sent me an email that demanded: Please don’t ever write about a subject you are so hopelessly uneducated in ever again, and if you do, do the courtesy to your unfortunate reader of providing sources. For the umpteenth time I had been shouted down by one of … [Read more...]
Books I’ve Read, 2017—In the Half-Millennium Anniversary of the Reformation
My leading the Cornwall Alliance entails a great deal of reading, all the time, on economic and, especially, environmental issues—from three or four to ten or twenty articles a day, and multiple books every year. But as a former professor of church history and social ethics who also taught systematic theology, reasons for Christian faith, and political theory, and as a church member committed to ministering to the needs of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and simply as a Christian ambitious to … [Read more...]
Is Capitalism Bad for the Environment? The Eighth Commandment Offers a Clue
A common charge by environmentalists is that capitalism is bad for the environment. Indeed, Christiana Figueres, former secretary-general of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, opined that climate negotiations in Paris in late 2014 offered the world its best opportunity to replace the reigning global economic order (capitalism, or free markets) with another (socialism, or government-planned economies). But is capitalism really bad for the environment? One of the Ten … [Read more...]
Do Climate Alarmists Take God’s Name in Vain?
The Cornwall Alliance has produced a series of 23 lectures on the Ten Commandments. How do those relate to our usual focus on environment and development? Lots of ways. This is the third in a series of brief posts exploring some of them. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”—The Third Commandment Here God forbids careless or irreverent use of His name. Elsewhere Scripture enlarges on this. We should show … [Read more...]
You Shall Not Make for Yourself a Carved Image
The Cornwall Alliance has produced a series of 23 lectures on the Ten Commandments. How do those relate to our usual focus on environment and development? Lots of ways. This is the second in a series of brief posts exploring some of them. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous … [Read more...]
You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me
The Cornwall Alliance has produced a series of 23 lectures on the Ten Commandments. How do those relate to our usual focus on environment and development? Lots of ways. This is the first in a series of brief posts exploring some of them. “You shall have no other gods before Me.”—The First Commandment “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says Psalm 19:1, and He will not share His glory with any other (Isaiah 42:8). This is important to both environmental stewardship and economic … [Read more...]
Climate Change and the Christian Faith
Professor Katharine Hayhoe spoke on "Climate and Faith in the Public Arena" in her John Stott London Lecture November 16. Like Dr. Hayhoe, I'm a climate scientist; like her, I'm a Christian; like her, I care about my neighbors and want to protect them from harm; and like her, and I'm committed to stewardship of God's wonderful creation. Nonetheless, for these very reasons I cannot help questioning some of what she has said about climate change. In announcing the lecture, A Rocha … [Read more...]
Have Fewer Kids to Fight Climate Change?
Because “having one fewer child reduces one’s contribution to the harms of climate change,” Travis Rieder argues, “everyone on Earth ought to consider having fewer children.” Rieder confesses that “this is an uncomfortable discussion.” He says he’s “certainly not arguing that we should shame parents, or even that we’re obligated to have a certain number of children.” But on his grounds, why shouldn’t we? If he thinks we’re morally obligated to limit our childbearing, shame would seem the … [Read more...]
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