Why do Christians pray? Well, whatever our reasons, the fact that we pray doesn’t distinguish us from most other people everywhere and all the time. As the Encyclopedia Britannica points out, many scholars describe prayer as “religion’s primary mode of expression.” It is “to religion what rational thought is to philosophy.” That is, just as there’s no philosophy without rational thought, there’s no religion without prayer. It has been an element of all religious practice through all human … [Read more...]
The Hazards of Lending Books on Climate Change
Today my good friend Dr. Tom Sheahen, a physicist and head of the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology (ITEST), wrote to say, Already this morning a friend sent me the "Patriot Post" rendition of your article ["Senator Whitehouse, Your New Wardrobe Is Ready"] that quotes me at length. Thank you very much. The "sackcloth and ashes" wardrobe line was really clever. I didn't see that coming at all. I just wish some members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church would … [Read more...]
Senator Whitehouse, Your New Wardrobe Is Ready
One of the things I most appreciate about Joe Bastardi's book The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won't Hear from Al Gore---And Others is the long historical perspective he brings. Again and again he quotes alarmists about manmade global warming claiming that this or that event, or this or that series of events, or this or that period in this or that place, is "unprecedented" and therefore obviously due to human-induced warming---and then he opens up the history records and … [Read more...]
Why You MUST Read Joe Bastardi’s The Climate Chronicles
The 38th through 41st chapters of the Book of Job are among the most majestic, awe-inspiring passages in all literature, inside and outside the Bible. I cannot read them and not feel small, humbled by the omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience of God. They record questions God hurls rapid-fire, “out of the whirlwind,” at Job to impress on him his utter inability to control or even to explain the day-to-day events of the world. Here are a few, from Job 38:4–20: Where were you when I laid … [Read more...]
The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church
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...]
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