The Narnia 3 Blog

Global Warming Warning from Evangelical Leaders: Part One

Recently a group of Evangelical leaders has united to speak out on an issue not normally associated with evangelicals or evangelicalism, the issue of Global Warming. The Evangelical Climate Initiative presents the following preamble:

As American evangelical Christian leaders, we recognize both our opportunity and our responsibility to offer a biblically based moral witness that can help shape public policy in the most powerful nation on earth, and therefore contribute to the well-being of the entire world. Whether we will enter the public square and offer our witness there is no longer an open question. We are in that square, and we will not withdraw.

We are proud of the evangelical community's long-standing commitment to the sanctity of human life. But we also offer moral witness in many venues and on many issues. Sometimes the issues that we have taken on, such as sex trafficking, genocide in the Sudan, and the AIDS epidemic in Africa, have surprised outside observers. While individuals and organizations can be called to concentrate on certain issues, we are not a single-issue movement. We seek to be true to our calling as Christian leaders, and above all faithful to Jesus Christ our Lord. Our attention, therefore, goes to whatever issues our faith requires us to address.

Over the last several years many of us have engaged in study, reflection, and prayer related to the issue of climate change (often called "global warming"). For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority. Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough to offer the following moral argument related to the matter of human-induced climate change. We commend the four simple but urgent claims offered in this document to all who will listen, beginning with our brothers and sisters in the Christian community, and urge all to take the appropriate actions that follow from them.

As they note, "climate change" or more commonly "global warming" is a major issue in the policies of governments around the world. There was a world-wide conference in 1997 and a treaty agreed upon, called the Kyoto Accord which sought to address the issue of "human-induced climate change."

First of all, "global warming" is the concept that human activity, mainly industrial and commercial activities (but also including such diverse things as automobile usage and the raising of large herds of dairy cows), have led to increased levels of "greenhouse gasses" which, in the atmosphere have the effect of breaking down the ozone layer that protects living things from the harmful effects of solar radiation. The advocates of this position believe that the earth is slowly heating up and the increase in global temperatures is causing changes in the climate. Those changes, if left unchecked, they claim will be catastrophic for the planet.

Thus far, the United States has wisely refused to ratify the Kyoto Accord, essentially rendering it useless. The accord itself and all of the social, political, environmental and economic engineering it would entail has been discussed and shown for what it is in a multitude of forums and is not our concern here.

The notion of "global warming," despite the assertions of the "evangelical leaders" to the contrary, is not a universally recognized scientific fact. For instance there are a number of contrary articles at Junk Science.com where scientists evaluate the reports and their underlying methodology. The advocates of "global warming" naturally base a large portion of their conclusions on weather measurements. However, accurate meteorological measurements with scientific instruments only go back about 150 years (and for enormous parts of the globe there is only accurate data that goes back 50 years or less). For data of earlier times conclusions must be derived from the interpretation of secondary information (such as tree-ring measurements, ice-coring samples, etc.) and anecdotal records of personal observations in various written sources.

What sort of temperature increase are we talking about? Well, about one degree above normal in the last decade and about two degrees higher on average since 1880 (when accurate records began to be collected). Is the world now warmer at any point since its creation? No. While the estimates are that the last part of the 20th Century were the warmest in the last 1,000 years the studies generally admit that there were warmer times in previous millennia. It is also dutifully noted that the ten warmest years on record have occurred since the 1990's. Remember, though, "on record" means the meteorological records in the civilized world since about 1880 and the rest of the world since about 1950. There is simply no precisely recorded information available before that. Claims that accurate meteorological data can be "reconstructed" back to the early middle ages (only in the northern hemisphere, BTW) is wishful guessing at best.

But, what of the climate before that? There are at least two significant climate shifts that are also recognized which were much more severe than the current trend. There was apparently a significant warming trend from about 890-1170, which, among other things melted off enough glacial ice to make Iceland inhabitable and enable Greenland to be populated. After about 400 years of relative climatic stability, from 1580-1850 the "Little Ice Age" enveloped much of the Northern hemisphere. And since 1850 there has been, on average, a two degree increase in world-wide temperature. Neither the earlier warming period, its end nor the nearly 300 year "Little Ice Age" can possibly be attributed to human activity of any kind.

Now, in all honesty, I must admit that my own training is not in science; it is in Theology, Biblical Studies, Church Consulting, as well as Information Science. However, I am an amateur meteorologist and a volunteer weather spotter for the National Weather Service (ID #LAC473). My own environmental stance is generally towards the "green" side of the ledger. I was a member of Green Peace in my earlier days (before the movement was taken over by folks who thought that seals were just as important as people and that property destruction and violence were an acceptable form of protest).

My concern is not whether or not this is an issue of political concern that is beyond debate. Personally, I trust that the United States and other countries will be able to continue their efforts reduce pollution and clean up messes left behind by those who both did not understand the significant damage they were doing, primarily in reducing the amount of habitable and useable ground. However, I trust they will be able to continue those efforts without derailing the very economies that the Third World Nations depend on for needed assistance for their people. In this regard the essay by Iain Murray (not that Iain Murray BTW), Beware False Prophets, is must reading.

My consideration here is whether or not "global warming" is really a proper "evangelical issue." All evangelicals, regardless of their eschatological position, typically agree that someday, as the Scriptures declare, "the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up" (2 Pet 3:10). The earth is, as John MacArthur, puts it, "a disposable planet."

Peter goes on to state: "Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of person ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells" (2 Pet 3:11-13).

Around the 1900's theological liberalism combined with social, political and economic liberalism to, in many quarters, replace the Gospel of Salvation, with the Social Gospel. It infected the mainline conservative denominations and "evangelical doctrine" suffered a general decline in importance (As an aside, see my essay on Charles Spurgeon and the Down-Grade Controversy, for the theological side of the infection).

The same "liberal fork" is at work again. Social, Political, and Environmental activism in the name of "evangelical Christianity." This combination has always been deadly to the church, turning focus away from the Gospel that saves to assorted efforts of works, which as J. Vernon McGee used to state, "amount to little more than polishing the brass on a sinking ship."

Our next entry will examine the statement itself, the philosophy it puts forth and its relationship to historic evangelical theology.

Posted by Narnia3 at February 10, 2006 8:37 PM | TrackBack