Climate Crisis: The Challenge of the Decade

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade! Yes, I know that technically a new decade starts with 1 rather than 0, but still, the 2020s began on January 1 so I am referring to this week as the beginning of a new decade. This article is about what I am calling the challenge of the decade that has just begun.

From Global Warming to Climate Crisis

I first mentioned global warming in “The World in 2100,” my 2/19/10 blog posting, and the title of my 2/5/11 posting was “What About Global Warming?” Ten more articles bear global warming as one of the labels.

In these past ten years, I have often insisted that the words “global warming” are preferable to “climate change.” The latter, of course, could refer to cooling as well as to warming. But the current crisis is definitely linked to global warming.

Since, however, there could be global warming but no crisis, I have come to see “climate crisis” as the best term to use as we face “the challenge of the decade.” 

Tom Toles in The Washington Post (1/2/20)

Steps in the Wrong Direction

In the brief space of this blog article, I cannot possibly detail why the world now is facing a climate crisis. There is a wealth of information about that, and if you need to bone up on some of the issues involved, I recommend the following.

“Understanding The Science Of Climate Change” is a well-done (but now a bit dated since it was made in 2015) video made in consultation with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and world-leading climate scientists. You can watch that informative video on YouTube by clicking here.

What I can do briefly is to indicate some of the steps that are being taken in the wrong direction and others that are being taken in the right direction.

DJT and his administration, unfortunately, have been taking steps in the wrong direction. His formal initiative last November to withdraw from the Paris Agreement was a major setback for dealing with the current climate crisis.

Altogether, the Trump administration and the Republican Congress have taken more than 130 actions since 2017 “to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures” (see here).

A November 5 article by Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Nation was titled “Trump’s Greatest Dereliction of Duty—His Disgraceful Denial of Climate Change.” I agree. DJT’s actions relative to the climate crisis are probably the most egregious errors of his administration.

Steps in the Right Direction

Thankfully, there are some steps in the right direction. For example, just about a year ago the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis was established and at the end of March they are scheduled to publish a set of public policy recommendations for congressional climate action.

More broadly, on December 10, the World Council of Churches Interfaith Liaison Committee presented the UN’s climate change summit (COP25 in Madrid) with a declaration of its commitment to climate justice.

These are just two of many examples that might be considered.

What Does This Have To Do with the Eternal?

In my December 31 blog article, I stated that in this new year I want to spend more time thinking about eternal/spiritual matters rather than temporal/political concerns. In reflecting on this, I have come to realize that care for the environment is not just a temporal concern.

Since I believe that the world is God’s creation and am trying to understand Richard Rohr’s idea (in The Universal Christ) that God’s first incarnation was at creation, not at the birth of Jesus, then caring for the world is a spiritual task, not just a political one.

The climate crisis, at root, is a theological issue, and I want to work to help solve the climate crisis not because I am a LWLP (left-wing liberal progressive) in Star Parker’s words (in Necessary Noise), but because of my faith in the Creator God.

TTT #10 For Christians, Jesus Must be Lord as Well as Savior

In the ninth chapter of Thirty True Things . . . (TTT), I emphasize that Christians must be careful when they call Jesus “Lord,” but the following chapter accentuates what seems to be just the opposite: Christians must be careful to call Jesus “Lord” and to mean it. In other words, for Christian believers, Jesus must be Lord and not just Savior.

Confessing Jesus as Savior

For historic Christianity, nothing in all the world—or in the world beyond—is more important than being “saved” by Jesus. Although there are differences in interpretation and implementation, confessing Jesus as Savior has been the fundamental basis for Christianity through the centuries.

Beginning in New Testament times and continuing to the present, salvation in Christianity has regularly been interpreted as the redemption of human beings from the punishment of sin (eternal death, Hell) and the gift/promise of everlasting life (in Heaven).

While the Catholic Church has interpreted salvation as the result of receiving, willingly or otherwise, the sacrament of baptism, the Protestant tradition has emphasized personal confession of faith in Jesus as the means of salvation.

In both cases, though, the result of salvation was essentially the same: escape from eternal torment which awaited all the “unsaved” at the time of death.

Objecting to Jesus as Savior Only

Especially in much traditional evangelical Christianity, salvation was (is?) largely presented as a type of “fire insurance.” It was/is a very good policy to have so one will not “fry when they die.”

When I was a boy attending a conservative Baptist church, many of the revival preachers I heard were related, religiously, to the legendary “fire and brimstone” evangelists who did so much to expand the membership of evangelical churches in England and especially in the United States from the 1730s through the 20th century.

They were quite successful in expanding the number of Christians—but they were also responsible for fostering a limited view of what salvation really means.

The revivalists, as well as many (most?) local evangelical pastors, preached effectively about the certainty of escaping Hell and going to Heaven through faith in Jesus Christ. Their main message was almost exclusively individualistic and otherworldly; that is, it was about the salvation of individuals from damnation upon death.

The emphasis was mostly on Jesus as Savior. Little, if anything, was said about the importance of Jesus being Lord now. Similarly, there was hardly any emphasis on the Kingdom of God. Its presence in the present world and the necessity of Christians being a conscious part of that Kingdom was seldom mentioned.

Confessing Jesus as Lord

It was the more liberal churches, and church organizations, that began emphasizing the Kingdom of God and the Lordship of Christ in ways that were largely absent in the conservative, evangelical Churches. That contrasting emphasis led to the formation of competing world organizations of churches.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) was established in 1948, and the World Evangelical Fellowship was established in 1951 and its name changed to World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) in 2001.

Through the years, the WCC put more and more stress on social justice issues, but the WEA continued to emphasize that the central mission of the church should be for the primary purpose of evangelism in the traditional sense, that is, saving people for eternal life in Heaven.

As I point out in a later chapter in TTT, the best choice, in this case as in most others, is both/and rather than either/or. That is why I like the following diagram—and why I think emphasizing Jesus as Lord is important for moving traditional evangelical Christians toward the middle. 

[Please click here to read the tenth chapter of Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT) upon which this article is based.]

Observing World Children’s Day

As you may know, today (November 20) is World Children’s Day. At least the World Council of Churches (WCC) has been promoting today by that name. Since 1954 the United Nations has been calling Nov. 20 Universal Children’s Day—a different name with the same basic emphasis.

The Appeal

The WCC asserts that today is “a time for world community and churches to express their dedication to children’s wellbeing” (see here). Surely this is an appeal that most of us can respond to positively.

UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund) also calls today World Children’s Day and encourages thought and action for the sake of the children of the world (see this link).

The Problem

A sizeable number of the world’s children are in dire straits. While the numbers have, thankfully, significantly lessened in recent decades, still according to WHO there are around 15,000 children under five who die every day. Perhaps as many as two-thirds of these deaths were/are preventable.

So perhaps at least 10,000 children under five needlessly die every single day because of hunger and because of malnutrition-related and other health issues that could be remedied by inexpensive medication.

In addition, according to a UNICEF report issued a little over a year ago, nearly 50 million children worldwide have been uprooted from their homes due to violence, poverty and other factors out of their control.

Here is a picture of Rohingya refugee children reaching out for food in a refugee camp in Bangladesh—and these are better off than many Rohingya children are now. 

This is just a partial look at the problems many of the world’s children are facing at this time.

Our Response?

What can people of goodwill do for the sake of the world’s suffering children?

1) We can become more aware of the deep need of so many of the world’s children. That is one major intention of today being designated World Children’s Day—and one of the main purposes of this article.

2) We can seek, over time, to elect politicians who are concerned about the welfare of people, especially children, worldwide rather than focusing on making America “great again”—especially by such things as enacting tax reform (or “deform”) that benefits primarily the wealthiest in the land. To a large degree, the suffering of so many children, here and abroad, is a political problem—in both the narrow and the broad senses I mentioned in my previous blog article.

3) We can examine our own lifestyles and buying habits in order to see if there are ways we can share more generously to help alleviate the serious needs of some of the world’s children.

Some charities endeavor to support needy children by seeking monthly gifts to help individuals. World Vision is one organization that does that, and years ago June and I sponsored children through that organization. I have recently learned about a similar group: Kids Alive International, which has an excellent rating by Charity Navigator.

Perhaps it is better, though, to see the “big picture” and work for societal change by supporting organizations such as UNICEF (which doesn’t have a very good Charity Navigator rating), Bread for the World, or Water.org. (The latter two organizations are not just charities for children, but children benefit greatly from their activities.)

So, on this World Children’s Day, I am asking each of us to consider what we can do to help the suffering children around the world. 

And many of us have to grapple with this difficult question, especially during the upcoming holiday season: Why do my children or grandchildren need so much when there are so many children who have so little?

Can the Korean Peninsula be United Again?

Last Tuesday marked the 72^nd anniversary of the end of the Pacific. That same day, August 15, 1945, has been celebrated ever since by both South Korea and North Korea as Liberation Day. The two Koreas, however, have long been divided. Can they ever be united again?

The Liberation of Korea

The Korean Peninsula was basically under Japanese rule from 1905 until the end of the Pacific War. The Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. One spinoff of Japan’s victory in that war was the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905, which made Korea a protectorate of Imperial Japan.

Then with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, Japan formally annexed Korea and the latter was completely under Japan’s control until August 1945. With Japan’s defeat, Korea was finally freed from Japanese rule.

It is not surprising that August 15 is celebrated as Liberation Day in what soon became two Koreas.

The Division of Korea

Provisional military governments were set up in Korea after the peninsula’s liberation from Japan. Korea north of the 38^th parallel fell under Russian control, the U.S. had command of Korea south of that line of demarcation.

Since no agreement could be reached on establishing a unified government, two nations emerged. After the May 1948 elections in the south, on August 15 the Republic of Korea formally took over power from the U.S. military, with Syngman Rhee as the first president.

In September 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the north. Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current “supreme leader” of North Korea, became premier. 

The Reunification of Korea?

Kim Il-sung began the Korean War in 1950 in an attempt to reunify the entire peninsula—and we know how that turned out. An armistice was signed in July 1953 but no peace treaty was ever signed—so the two Koreas are technically still at war.

Among Koreans, perhaps especially among Korean Christians, there has long been a dream for the reunification of the two countries. This past Sunday (Aug. 13) the World Council of Churches was joined by the World Evangelical Alliance in a “Sunday of Prayer for the Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Peninsula.”

Fervent prayers for reunification were very prevalent twenty years ago. I remember being in Korea in 1997, at a time when there were strong prayers for, and the hope of, reunification in the “Jubilee Year,” the fiftieth year after the division of 1948.

Sadly, such unification seems less likely now than it did twenty years ago.

Kim Jong-un would doubtlessly agree to unification if he were allowed to be the head of the unified country. But there is no way South Korea would accept Kim’s remaining in power over all of Korea.

Similarly, there is no way Kim would give up power in order for there to be a unified Korea.

So, no, it doesn’t seem that the unification of Korea is possible short of a regime change in North Korea—but more than anything else the fear of such an attempt is fueling Kim’s frantic attempt to develop nuclear weapons.

Kim’s fear of being attacked is likely far greater than most fears in this country of being attacked by North Korea.

The U.S. strategy toward North Korea should focus on containment, on negotiation, as well on financial and technical aid for producing more food and services for the North Korean people—anything but “fire and fury.”

Can the Church Ever be United?

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to preach at the Rosedale Congregational United Church of Christ (RCC) in Kansas City, Kansas. As RCC is currently without a pastor, I was asked to preach each Sunday this month, and I much appreciate their invitation. (It will be the first time for me to preach at the same church four Sundays in a row in 50 years.)

As you may know, the United Church of Christ (UCC) was formed in 1957. It was the result of a merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches. RCC was formerly a part of the latter.

The vision of the UCC is a great one—but one that is unlikely to be actualized anytime soon. Of course, this is not the first time an effort has been made to unite the Church, doing away with denominations.

In the 1830s the vision of Thomas Campbell, along with his son Alexander and others, led to the formation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). But now that Church, as well as the UCC, is just another denomination.

The history of Christianity is a history replete with divisions, great and small. The first major division occurred in 1054 when the Eastern Church, centered in Constantinople, separated from the western Church, centered in Rome.

The second great division took place with the Protestant reformations in the 16^th century—and then very soon there were divisions among the Protestants. In January 1527 Felix Manz, whom I wrote about here, was martyred in Zurich, the first Protestant to be punitively killed by Protestants.

Since the beginning of the 20^th century there have been attempts toward great unity among Christians. The 1910 World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh, was an important step in that direction.

Then after the disastrous divisions caused by two world wars, the World Council of Churches (WCC) was formed in 1948. And that ecumenical body, composed of Protestants only, has in recent years reached out to greater cooperation with the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

But, alas, the WCC has been largely rejected and is often criticized by conservative Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., has through the years remained aloof from the WCC.

Conservative Protestants formed the World Evangelical Fellowship in 1951, changing their name to the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) in 2001. While recently there has been some fruitful interaction between the WCC and the WEA, greater unity is highly unlikely.

The disunity of these two Protestant groups is largely between fundamentalist/conservative understandings of Christianity and moderate/liberal understandings, which differ seriously—and maybe irreconcilably.

Recently, referring to J. Greshem Machen who made a similar assertion in his book Christianity and Liberalism (1923), Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, said, “Rather than representing two points on a spectrum of Christianity, evangelical Christianity and liberal Protestantism are different and competing religions” (see this article by Bob Allen).

As much as I hate to say so, I’m afraid he’s right.

While I hope and pray for Christians to move from the extremes (and errors) of both fundamentalism and liberalism and to the “radiant center,” as I propose in my book “The Limits of Liberalism,” I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

While in the years ahead there may be greater unity among conservative Christians and especially greater unity of moderate/liberal Christians, I think, sadly, there will be little movement toward or formation of a truly united Church of Christ.

World Week for Peace

Many Christians across the U.S. have little interest in, and perhaps not much knowledge of, the World Council of Churches (WCC). Some Christians are even quite critical of the WCC. 

Nevertheless, the WCC is involved in many very commendable activities. Their sponsorship of World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel (WWPPI), scheduled from Sept. 21 to 27 this year, is a good example.

WWPPI is an initiative of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum of the WCC. That group is described as “an international, inter-church advocacy initiative for peace in Israel and Palestine.” 

Israeli and Palestinian Flags with Peace (salaam/shalom) in Arabic & Hebrew

Certainly Israel and Palestine are places in the world badly in need of peace, as you know well. On July 8, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.

A ceasefire has been in effect since the last week in August. But seven weeks of Israeli air strikes and Palestinian rocket attacks left more than 2,100 people dead and over 10,000 wounded, most of them Palestinians—and a majority of them civilians.

While conservative Christians, as well as those who are conservative politically, tend to be strong supporters of Israel, the WCC tends to be more on the side of the Palestinians—as I think they should be.

That is one reason some are critical of the WCC—and some may well be critical of my position as well.

Certainly neither the WCC nor I support the violent activities of Hamas. But it seems quite clear that the Palestinian people as a whole have long been the victims of grave injustice.

More and more of Palestinian land has been taken by Israeli force. For example, on Aug. 31 Israel’s government made its largest appropriation of occupied West Bank land in a generation, taking some 1,000 acres that legally belonged to Palestinians.

For many reasons, materials for the WWPPI declare, “It’s time for Palestine.” One piece includes the following statements:

• It time for Palestinians and Israelis to share a just peace.

• It’s time to end more than 60 years of conflict, oppression and fear.

• It’s time for freedom from occupation.

• It’s time to stop bulldozing one community’s homes and building homes for the other community on land that is not theirs.

• It’s time for people who have been refugees for more than 60 years to regain their rights and a permanent home.

• It’s time to be revolted by violence against civilians and for civilians on both sides to be safe.

• It’s time to reunite the people of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

• It’s time to seek forgiveness between communities and to repair a broken land together.

• For Palestine, for Israel and for a troubled world, it’s time for peace.

This year the International Day of Prayer for Peace is scheduled for Sept. 21. In the week that follows, church organizations, congregations, and people of faith are being encouraged to participate in worship services, educational events, and acts of advocacy in support a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians.

I hope that, at least to some degree, this will be done in the churches across the U.S. and around the world.

At the very least, I hope that on Sunday in addition to the usual prayers for people in the congregation who have health needs there will be some fervent prayers for peace in Palestine and Israel.

It’s high time for peace and justice there.

Swords into Plowshares

World Sunday for Peace was this past Sunday, May 22. Did your church observe it? Neither did mine. But it wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

The World Sunday for Peace was part of the World Council of Churches' International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) which ends today, May 25, in Kingston, Jamaica. The IEPC marks the culmination of the WCC’s “Decade to Overcome Violence: Churches Seeking Reconciliation.”

Among other places, about a month ago the World Sunday for Peace was announced on “Swords into Plowshares,” the blog of the Peacemaking Program and the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations of the General Assembly Mission Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

As is found on numerous other websites the Presbyterian blog gives this prayer that congregations, communities, and individuals were encouraged to use on the World Sunday for Peace. The first part of that prayer goes like this:

God of peace and possibility, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier: We approach you to ask once again for your mercy, forgiveness and a fresh start. We ask you to help us give peace a chance, in this world. We want to give peace a chance, yet we have already missed so many opportunities. We have sabotaged so many initiatives; instead of overcoming evil with good, we have stood by while good was overpowered. Forgive us, Lord. Dona nobis pacem: Give us peace, we pray.

The words “swords into plowshares” come from the Old Testament, as most of you know well. They are found both in Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3.

You also likely know about the “Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares” statue on the east side of the U.N. Headquarters in New York City. That remarkable sculpture was done in 1957 by Evgeniy Vuchetich (1908-74), a Soviet sculptor.

Just recently I saw another remarkable work of art portraying the same idea. This is the “Plowshare Sculpture” done by Arlie J. Regier (b. 1931) and presented to Clay County (MO) in 1990. Even though I have lived in Liberty for several years now, I just happened to see this sculpture (pictured below) for the first time last month, and was quite impressed by it.

Of course, modern battles are not fought with spears, and not many people now even know what a plowshare is. Still the message should be clear to all: weapons of war badly need to be converted into purveyors of peace. That was what lay behind the slogan “atoms for peace,” and it was not a bad idea. But it is a very difficult idea to implement, as the damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan, so sadly remind us.

There are a number of peace activist groups who use plowshares (or ploughshares) in their name. One such group is “Project Ploughshares,” which was established in 1976 as an agency of The Canadian Council of Churches “to give practical expression to the fulfilment of God’s call to bear witness to peace, reconciliation, and non-violence and to contribute to the building of a national and international order that will serve the goals of peace with justice, freedom, and security for all.”

That sounds like a good “mandate” to me, and I pray that it increasingly becomes the conscious goal of each of us as individuals, of our communities of faith, and even of the countries in which we live.