Gerry Wagoner
The topic is not a particularly cheerful topic. There are things that I would rather talk about such as Dolly Parton’s wedding anniversary — which is also my birthday. But, I’m going to talk about the relationship between environmentalism and evolution.
And you may ask yourself, what does this environmentalism have to do with me – if anything? I hope to show you that environmentalism in its current incarnation is not so much about a clean healthy environment — but ultimately about a clash between life, love, truth and human freedom. And we are called to fight for truth until Jesus comes, and we get to rest under the shade of those trees in Revelation 22.
I preface my remarks with a verse of Scripture—Acts 16.
And at midnight Paul & Silas prayed and sang praises unto God. And the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors opened, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself. He thought the prisoners had escaped.
In 2010 in the city of Goya in Argentina, Francisco Lotero, and Miriam Coletta ate a meal with their two beautiful children. A precious two year old son and a darling 7-month old daughter. Not long after the meal, that same day, Francisco and Miriam committed suicide leaving this little girl orphaned. Suicides are something that leave us shaken and wondering, those of us who are healthy and prospering, We wonder at the fragility of life, and how like a vapor human beings are. This world is often painful and filled with a thousand slings and arrows. If we are honest with ourselves, we feel keenly the madness, we see the struggles, we feel the heartache, and that might entice one to do the unthinkable. Still we wonder why it is that they did it. The Philippian jailer that I quoted above was driven to think that suicide was an out. You remember that Jesus Christ Himself was tempted by Satan to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple. We hold them at bay – such wicked thoughts—as we live by the grace of God.
Sarah Irving, Toni Vernelli and Francisco Lotero. Do any of these names mean anything to you? If you have heard these names before today, it is probably because you have taken the time read about environmentalism and the green movement. Each of these people have in one way or another recommended considered or committed murder and suicide. And they rationalized their choices on the basis of perceived environmental problems.
Most young girls dream of babies and marriage, but Sarah Irving had nightmares over the perils of global warming. The loss of animal species and the destruction of wilderness, perhaps prompted by teen fears led her to the extraordinary decision to never have a child. Sarah explained her ethic as follows: I realized that a baby would pollute the planet and that never having a child was the most environmentally responsible thing to do.” Sarah’s latest boyfriend Marc, says “Sarah and I live as green a life as possible. We don’t have a car. We bicycle everywhere instead, and we NEVER fly. We recycle, use low energy light bulbs, eat only organic locally produced food. In short we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child. That’s why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of the earth.”
Mark & Sarah, who is a regular columnist for the ethical consumer magazine, have very colorful, thought-provoking morals and ethics. But they pale next to the human blowtorch that is Toni Vernelli.
Vernelli is an attractive 30-something and like the aforementioned Sarah she cares so deeply for the trees and animals that she has denied herself children for the sake of the planet. About 13 years ago she aborted her first child. It wasn’t that she was too busy in her job, coordinating the European ops for the animal rights group PETA, she just “passionately wanted to save the planet––not produce a new life that would only add to the problem.” Eleven years ago she ended the life of her second unborn child, and finally managed to track down a doctor who would agree to sterilize her (though she was only 26 years old). She now enjoys what she considers a satisfying vegan lifestyle. She claims to have a very small carbon footprint, and she has no children. Her only frustration is the occasional person who fails to appreciate her impregnable (pardon the pun) perspective. “When I tell people why I don’t want or have children, they look at me as if I was planning to commit murder!”
One cannot help but feel sorry for the victims of the propaganda put out by vicious people like Toni Vernelli. According to environmentalists—in fact, according to almost everybody that you read in the media today—the state of the world becomes ever more precarious. Whether most people realize it, the underlying philosophy guiding these “ethical” decisions that I have described is environmentalism—which invariably teaches that nature is sacred, and intrinsically valuable. It teaches the disastrous collapse of the biosphere because of humans and it believes in the kinship of all life. Many (though not all) environmentalists are hostile to humanity because they think of people as a threat to the natural world—which they see as best left untouched by human hands.
And we find ourselves, especially the younger people who are growing up in this Social Justice generation, conditioned by the idea that somehow Mother Nature always knows best. They forget entirely that according to their worldview we are part of nature—nothing more than part of nature. Sin for environmentalists is interfering with nature, but subduing and ruling nature is that which God actually commands us to do (Genesis 1:28).
Well. Despite the doom-saying, human welfare—in a host of categories—including health and education and wealth, is actually improving. This is largely because of the continual improving of the earth by mankind, resulting in cleaner air, water, better food, less starvation, and so on. So you might be asking yourself the question—as I asked myself—what should one make of the green movement then? It sounds in many cases, good. Certainly the dues-paying rank & file members of environmentalists groups—and there are many well-heeled environmentalists groups—are probably well-meaning. Many profess faith in Jesus Christ, they care deeply about the world in which they live. They should.
But unfortunately, in our age of fast-moving pictures, the public image of environmentalism is fuzzy bunnies and baby polar bears and attractive celebrities from Hollywood, and they easily deceive soft-hearted folks, sometimes even knowledgeable Christians.
Baby Lotero
I count among the victims of the green propaganda, the green Argentinian Lotero family. What I refrained from telling you before, Francisco Lotero and his wife first shot their two children, and then they killed themselves. In a note left on the kitchen table, they explained that their suicide was prompted by their fears of global warming. Their toddler son died from a gunshot wound to the back. By God’s grace their seven month old daughter survived a gunshot wound to the chest after the bullet missed all the vital organs. She had to stay there for three days before she was found in her own blood. It’s a terrible thing to think about.
One can only imagine the fevered discussions around their kitchen table and the probably painful conclusion that the only way out, the only way for them to reduce their carbon footprint and have a role in saving the planet was to kill their children. I mention these examples to make the point that ideas have consequences. Every one of these adults demonstrated by their actions that they feel morally constrained by their devotion to Mother Earth to behave & believe as they do/did.
They are not irrational in the sense that they have depraved opinions and reach them thoughtlessly. It’s not willy nilly—they have come to these decisions as the product of a very clear ideological stance. They have deeply held religious convictions. All three of these people are deeply religious. In the end, if you think about it – they loved death. Religion is the root of any culture and environmentalism has become a fully-fledged religion.
Environmentalism
The word environmentalism comes from the French – meaning surroundings. That means everything. It means literally everything-ism. And it explains why environmentalism is so inherently totalitarian in its impulses. Hug the earth. Kill the humans.
Why do the Toni Vernelli’s of the world believe this? What message should one gain from their words? Not just to be shocked – but what is their message? I’d like to answer by pointing out the ubiquity of these ideas in present society. They are everywhere in our current culture.
These ideas are in the classroom to the movie theatre to the church pulpit (in fact, very heavily in the pulpit). And—of course—in modern day Gomorrah, Hollywood. I’m not recommending movies, but James Cameron’s sci-fi extravaganza Avatar suggests that humans are a kind of universal filth – infecting the entire cosmos. Cameron said of his movie “Look, at this point I’m less interested in making money from the movie and more interested in saving the world.” This begs the question “From what exactly—or from whom—is he trying to save the world?” The theme of the movie (which has humans as evildoers and tree worshippers as the good guys) may give you a clue.
Prince Philip, the president of the worldwide fund for nature and husband to the queen, the head of state for the UK–makes the message a little bit clearer. “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”
Let’s consider another person with influence—Stanford professor Paul Erhlic, (whose name means ‘honest’ in German). He is a close acquaintance with previous president Obama’s science czar Dr. John Holdren. Ehrlic agonizes over a changing wild landscape while writing
“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells. The population explosion is an uncontrolled explosion of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer.”
Are you getting the message? He wants less people.
Question for you. Do you think that we humans are special creatures in a class of our own, quite separate from—and superior to trees? (Matthew 10:31.)
What is the message that environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Sierra club, Earth First, the Pope and others consistently preach? According to the founder of PETA, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” Is that clear enough, friends? Clear as mud.
Such esoteric egalitarianism teaches that no one, least of all humans, should get all hoity-toity and act as if they are better than anything else. That’s the message that we are hearing as it relates to animals.
Let me quote it in another way from the founder of the Sierra Club.
“Nature’s object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them—not the creation of all for the happiness of one. Why ought man to value himself as more than an infinitely small composing unit of the one great units of creation?”
When you begin to think like this you ask questions like, “Is it worse to cut down a tree, or to murder a human? To a philosophically conscientious and consistent environmentalist—“It depends.”
The late Carl Amery, the catholic philosopher who founded the German green party, summed it up like this
“We, in the green movement aspire to a cultural model in which the killing of a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal that the sale of six year old children to Asian brothels.”
Yet ironically, in spite of all the hype (particularly since the 60’s) population growth is one of the least problems facing humanity. Rapid aging followed by depopulation not seen on a scale since the fall of the Roman Empire threatens the modern world. See David Read’s article A Culture of Death.
Philip Longman writes in his book “The Empty Cradle” the startling forecast that amidst the demographic collapse that faces the (western world) America’s Christians are going to be the ones breeding themselves into a position of global dominance. For the most part, western culture has turned its back on God, resulting in mortal existence which is intolerable without the promise of immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53-54). Animals breed and foster their young out of instinct. Mankind does so out of love. That is how we exercise the God-given desire to be fruitful and have dominion. We hope that something of our mortal existence survives to continue our family, our culture, our faith.
Perhaps now you can grasp why suicide is seen as good by those who have no hope, or who have misplaced hope. Why it is seen as a legitimate response to fears of environmental disaster? To them it is the end of the world. There is nothing more.
As David Goldman writes in his book A Father’s Love
“The world faces a danger far worse than the worst green imaginings. The environmentalist who wants to shrink the world’s population to reduce carbon emissions will spend her declining years in misery, for there will not be enough Europeans alive a generation from now to pay for her pension and medical care.
For the first time in human history, the birth rates of the whole developed world is well below replacement. And a significant part of it has passed the demographic point of no return. The Toni Vernelli’s of this world are in for a shock. And knowing this, that there is a demographic collapse pending (it has already started in Japan and certain countries in Europe) knowing this helps answer the question: What are the foundations of the green movement? What are the foundations of the religion of environmentalism?
In part 2 we talk about Evolution.
In Part 1 we looked at environmentalism as a worldview, a system, and ultimately as a religion—for so it is. In this part we will explore the foundations of the green movement. This is where the idea of human evolution becomes so important. Modern environmentalism and Darwin’s dangerous ideas are coupled like a nest of snakes that are writhing together.
Evolution
If we take seriously the idea that man is an animal it is not long before we understand what the author of Green Rage wrote,
“Charles Darwin’s origin of species had already undercut the metaphysical underpinnings of anthropocentrism by displacing the notion of the scala naturae - the great chain of being which situated mankind in a privileged station above the lower life forms in a divinely instituted world.”
Evolutionary theory denies the existence of a hierarchy of beings, declaring that there is only genealogical similarities & differences rising out a 3.5 billion year saga of organic inheritance in which we are only minor players. Taken seriously he says, evolution means there is no basis for seeing humans as more advanced or developed than any other species. Homo sapiens are not the goal of evolution, for as near as we can tell evolution has no telos (goal, purpose). No meaning. It simply unfolds, he says. Life form after life form. Elephants are no more developed than toadstools. Fish are no less advanced than birds. Carriages have as much ecological status as kings. Darwin invites humanity to face the fact that the observation of nature has revealed not one scrap of evidence that mankind is superior or special or even particularly more interesting than, say, lichens.
The Bible tells us that the world was made especially for man. Environmentalist dogma contradicts the Bible in every way. This is because of a kind of green-for-spiritual-flaws which I will again summarize.
First is the belief in the sacredness and second, the intrinsic value of all life. Thirdly is the inevitable disastrous collapse of the biosphere because of humans. And fourthly is the kinship of all life (this is the essence of progressive spirituality—the fuel in the Emergent Movement tank, and the current darling of ultra-progressive Adventism.
1) Sacred
2) Intrinsic value
3) Collapse (due to civilization)
4) Kinship of all life
Environmentalism is broad enough to capture not only the overtly religious but even atheists who sense with an awe and wonder the power and invisible qualities of God revealed in His creation (Romans 1:20). Evolutionary biologist and belligerent atheist E. O. Wilson would woo Christians to see the possibilities of such a union.
A kind of grand unifying theory is what he has in mind. In his 2007 book the creation he identifies science & religion as the two most powerful forces in the world. Wilson concludes that science and religion must work together to achieve salvation of man and nature. And he suggests in his book – policies that can lead to what he calls a sustainable new world order. For example Christians should stop following the teachings of Christ and rather work to reduce the human population to acceptable levels. E.O. Wilson wants Christians to grow up and evolve, and compromise a little. He writes “What are we to do? Forget the differences, I say. Meet on common ground.” Wilson is himself—though he is an evolutionary biologist—somewhat of a mystic, as a Salon Magazine article quotes him saying “Spirituality in my mind is a sense of awe and wonder combined with mystery that comes from the perception or belief in something that exists in the world that is very important to us.”
He believes if evolutionary pressures require some kind of god hypothesis then why can’t we all agree to a more convenient god than the historical God of the Bible. That’s what E.O. Wilson would like very much. When he was asked if such an evolving faith would emerge to re-sanctify the earth, make it holy again, Wilson replies
“It’s easy. Through the secularization of traditional religions, already most of them already accept the idea of evolution. Already most of them accept that the human mind really does have a physical basis. And furthermore most of the Abrahamic religions: Islam, Christianity have shown themselves very prone to the conservation ethic when information is made available to them. There’s a very strong green movement in sects at the present time. So that is part of the evolutionary process.”
Bill MCkibben
Evolutionary thinking, without a shadow of a doubt, is at the root of environmental philosophy—teaching that all life is bound together and therefore sacred. Methodist environmentalist Bill Mckibben writes “But the earth and all its processes - the sun growing plants, flesh feeding on these plants, flesh decaying to nourish more plants, to name just one cycle—gives us some sense of a more enduring role.”
The consequences of the evolutionary worldview he sees are brutal. He can’t handle it and he offers in exchange some sweet incense of vedantic hope.
Flesh will grow old—yes he acknowledges this—it will decay and fade away, but the earth in her timeless rhythms, he says, continuously evolve in the fertile womb of a venus of some sorts, and will allow us to live on in the atoms forever.
God’s word suggests exactly the opposite. It is the Word of the Lord that endures forever (1 Peter 1:23). But the earth will wither like the grass and fade away (vv 24-25). According to the environmentalist fantasy, when the nether realms of the earth absorb our flesh we will engage again and again in the creative cosmic cycle of reduce-reuse-recycle and turn into the new & improved evolutionary model. Reincarnation, Sir.
Mckibben urges his readers to be aware of and attuned to these wonderful ancient rhythms of nature. Rhythms, he believes, with power to help one find fulfillment—a sense of meaning and a place in the world. And he is pushing this very heavily amongst many, many churches.
Carl Sagan
“We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.”
That’s from atheist space physicist Carl Sagan in his award winning government-funded documentary “Cosmos.” Some of you may remember this from the early eighties. He’s trying to make church bells peal in the minds and hearts of the people he is speaking to, though he was a hard-core materialist atheist. This speaks of human beings as unimportant specks—Atomic specks on a pale blue dot adrift in a cold cosmic sea of space and time. That doesn’t compete very well with Mckibben’s much warmer emphasis on “mother” earth the nurturer. Nonetheless, the atheist and the environmentalists and the theistic environmentalist both cling to the skirts of some kind mother figure that birthed them in their mythology – via evolution.
Each April 22, the United Nations celebrates what its general assembly terms International Mother Earth day (my wife and I were in DC for this event in 2012). I know it’s hard to believe – it not called Earth Day anymore—it’s now called Mother Earth Day. It’s now clear that “We don’t own the planet. We belong to it” (from the Bolivian president (at the 2011 UN Earth day 2011)). Similarly, the United Nations secretary general urged “government businesses and citizens of the world to give our mother earth the respect and care she deserves.” Not content with mere symbolism, the United Nations debated a draft in international treaty giving mother earth the same rights as humans (2011). Let that sink in for a moment. Some Spanish provinces, Germany and New Zealand as well, already grant legal rights to—wait for it—apes. Switzerland gives plants human rights. Bolivia gives humans rights to plants, bugs, and eco systems.
And now the UN is debating a resolution giving Mother Earth human rights. The same rights that people have…
In 2011, President Obama’s regulatory czar Cass Sunstein predicted that we will SOON have laws that allow animals and plants to sue humans for violating their sacred rights. Watch out what you eat, because the government may eventually have lawyer ready to take the case (although some of that has been rolled back under the current administration, it will likely rise up again in the next 8-10 years).. These ideas are very closely connected—in the sense that “We’re all humans now.” Actually we’re not, the Bible makes a clear distinction between humans and animals (Matthew 10:31).
Concerned about the health of the planet president Obama appointed his science czar John Holdren who writes that a healthy planet requires coerced population limitation and redistribution of wealth” (his 1977 textbook Ecoscience). He believes that “If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility.”
You get the picture. And it’s not a pretty picture…
The Earth Charter
In our day, the United Nations Earth Charter codifies the sacredness of the earth. The Earth Charter of the UN which is being implemented in various ways in cities around this country through the United Nations agenda 21, forms the green replacement of the Ten Commandments of the Bible. In fact, they have a bunch of commandments that they carry around in an ark.
Steven Rockefeller—the head of the earth charter commission—coordinated the drafting of the deeply religious document. It uses connotation language which gullible Christians might find laudable. It argues that protection of the earth is a sacred trust. It argues that human beings must identify themselves with “the whole earth community.” You need to think about these things carefully – what is wrong with identifying yourself with the whole earth community? We to understand exactly what they are saying. My children are not trees. Yours aren’t.
He says that we should learn to live with “reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature. Stop thinking that humans are so important.” Not only do many atheists, pantheist and professing Christians support these ideas but so does the 1000 US member conference of mayors and other politically influential entities. Buddhists and Baha’i do too. Jews through Jains all support this. But in a world of sinners I ask you, is this what the Scripture teaches, where everything is sacred or holy, therefore worthy of reverence? In that kind of world, nothing is sacred.
The view that ordinary existence is holy in itself has become popular in all major religions and it is a plural, I believe, of the world’s spirit. And it flows from the evolutionary belief in the connectedness of all things. In fact, evolution requires death as a positive force for hope and change. Environmentalism adds to this the corollary—that the death of humans is especially desirable. Scripture states that death is an upheaval against the natural order that God originally intended. Death is unnatural and ugly (Great Controversy, Why Were Sin And Suffering Permitted?).
The Great Controversy
Jesus knew it better than we do, better than we could, because He was there in the beginning when Adam sinned and brought that curse upon the planet. And more than this, He came himself to die—to pay the wages of sin, “for the wages of sin is death.” And so we can understand then why Jesus wept when He beheld the grave—of sin and this world—holding the corpse of Lazarus whom he loved. Adam’s disobedience and rebellion, not evolutionary fairy tales—is what brought calamity to the world. It is the Great Controversy.
Thus the primary direction of influence is not the earth on man, but man upon the earth. And this is so because our relationship to the earth is mainly religious. God first cursed Satan for his role in the fall, and then Adam and Eve and all of their posterity. The curse extended to the entire cosmos, affecting all of its living creatures. God did not curse the watching righteous angels, as they are chiefly observers in this cosmic theater. And though Satan himself also sinned, there was no general curse on the Earth for Satan’s sake. The earth was not cursed for Satan’s sin, but rather for man’s. Satan bears his own guilt, but he passes none on to any other creature (as illustrated in the Scapegoat—Leviticus 16). So why then did God curse the Earth? It (the Earth) did not cause Adam to sin—it could not be blamed. Neither did the other birds or beast, yet He cursed all, not only the serpent. It was because of man that the cosmos was cursed. And this displays ever so clearly man’s relationship to the Earth and to the rest of the cosmos and created order. Moral responsibility accrues to man alone.
The cosmos—Earth in particular—on which man lives in the drama of creation, fall and redemption is the stage which God uses to reveal this plan. We call it the Great Controversy. And even though it was but the stage in which man acted out this original disobedience, it too must become marred and broken. Now if the cosmos had some kind of voluntary consciousness as many environmentalists claim—if the beasts did have some—then their guilt would be real. For if they had some moral consciousness, why did they not rise up and smite that demon-possessed serpent, or sound the alarm? They were passive because this is their nature — they are not moral agents. So nobody blames the Earth. It has no moral agency and no guilty conscience. Yet it suffers a punishment. We don’t blame cows or goats do we? And yet they must die too. Why? Because of man.
Man’s exalted position compels the Earth to share in the consequences of our first parent’s actions. But neither to the Earth nor to the beast that died because of the sin of Adam, is there any attribution of guilt. None. This is no consolation—there still is death, but at least there is no guilt. This is something that is unique to human beings. This is laid upon Adam and his wife. Each of us knows the burden of a guilty conscience. Why? Because we are altogether different from the beasts. And we are altogether different from the Earth.
Scripture proclaims Adam & eve sinners because they were, unlike the creatures, moral agents. Their sin was the transgression and lack of conformity to God’s Law. Eve didn’t just break the Law by eating the forbidden fruit, she positively encouraged her husband to do likewise, and he—loving her more than God—willfully and willingly disobeyed his Creator. Remembrance of this tragedy is surely one reason Jesus warned his contemporaries just several thousand years after Adam.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother wife and children brothers and sisters, yes and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).
Nothing should be above Him. A radical all-consuming passion for God is His design for the lives of each person created in God’s image. Anything less is not worthy of God.
Adam was not worthy and God cursed him and his posterity to a life of misery and suffering here on Earth, followed by death. “Through one man’s offense, judgment came unto all men resulting in condemnation, and by one man’s offense many died” (Romans 5:18).
But environmentalists teach instead an eco-centrism, everything revolving around the environment, erasing thereby any meaningful distinction between man and nature (Romans 1:25). Why? Because (in their view) all of life is fundamentally one. When Al Gore calls for an eco-centric view to the be the central organizing principle of a new society, he is calling for nothing less than what Nietzsche the philosopher wrote
“We no longer after Darwin derive man from spirit, from godhead, we have put him back among animals. He is by no means a crown of creation; every being along with him is at an equal stage of perfection.”
If this is true then, every living thing is also the image of God. But it’s not true! The Bible tells us otherwise. God no longer took pleasure in Adam. And this alone—if you can get into the mind of Adam—should render him inconsolable. Separation from God. The grief of having sinned against his Father.
We don’t know if God brought a creature and slaughtered it before a horrified and sickened Adam & Eve. We don’t know that, but we do know that God killed a creature, at least one. It was a creature that he had made, and Adam and his wife had to bear on their bodies the rotting skins, torn from the bloody flesh of these creatures. The opening death recorded in the history of the cosmos is that of an innocent beast. And by this sign we learn that their nakedness—a strong awareness of their newly earned depravity—was to be covered at the expense of life. The heavens the earth and all the creatures great and small received the brand as it were, with the mark of Adam’s condemnation. God wanted Adam and all of us to ponder this point very carefully.
It explained how the entire cosmos was defiled as a result of sin. God didn’t explain to the beasts, but he explained to man alone. And this is plain from God’s first approach to Adam—while he was hiding—God called to him. And then the Lord interrogated Adam as the federal head of the human race. Then Adam blamed his wife, and while he was doing this, God questioned her. But He didn’t question the serpent. There was no need to, because to the devil he would hold out no hope of pardon. In the animal skins, Adam received visible tokens to contemplate the wrath of God in the spoken curse. He also experienced a change in his fundamental nature through the loss of original righteousness and holiness (innocence) in the visible marring of the cosmos, and in the death of the animal whose skin he wore.
You can only imagine what despair filled his heart. But in the midst of this, God brought to him a precious promise to ponder. Though Satan be a fearful enemy, yet the seed of the woman would eventually crush his head. And all of this made Adam look ahead with hope to the day of fulfillment of Gods promise. And this is the great difference between man and beast.
Animals do not reflect on the distant future or have present enjoyments diminished by the intellectual prospect of their impending death. They don’t worry that they are not living up to the ways of their ancestors. Goats do not fret over global warming, or worry that their kids have a purpose-driven life. Unlike the beast, who only feel the effect of Adam’s depravity, human beings are also able to meditate on these things and engage the world in bringing its ideas into contemplation of God, and arranging them and comparing them with reflection and abstraction. Animals don’t do any of this.
Ancient pagans—if you go to Greece you see there, that they believed that there were spirits on every side. There were spirits in the wood and trees. They ascribed spiritual qualities to all of nature. But most still remembered somehow that they were themselves the children of God in some way.
Modern environmentalists cast back into a time to what environmentalists imagine is the deepest of the deep. They cast away God and instead they reel in a beast (dragon) as a parent. They commune with a tree or the sky because they do not understand that man’s prime relationship is vertical—upward to a personal God. Environmentalists see fellowship with the beast because they see the beast as a fellow creature. Certainly God created animals as well as humans, but environmentalists fail to see that the Spirit elevates man above the beasts. God created man in the image of God with a capacity for love and communion with Himself. As Blaise Pascal wrote
“I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who condemn him, and those who live for themselves alone.”
The fact is we are not angels, neither are we animals. Nor are we devils. Environmentalism’s slogans feature planetary salvation, buts its way of salvation is dangerously out of touch with the most basic of human emotions. It is harmful to the environment and humans, particularly the poor. Many people will claim that we need to be environmentalists to help the poor and yet in fact, environmentalism is particularly harmful to the poor (more about that later).
Because of sin, we need to ask ourselves how it is that we make decisions. How is it that we live and what moves us?
Unfortunately, because of sin, we humans often have an ethic which is less animal like and more devilish, in fact.
Remember Toni Vernelli? Recently she was working in Canada for Greenpeace, and there she was quoted as saying
“Fish in many ways are similar to us. A lot of cichlids that live in Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika have amazing parental capabilities. They keep their eggs in their mouth and look after them protecting them from predators. Even once they are hatched the minnows seek protection in their parent’s mouth. “I find that quite incredible. It’s a tenderness most people wouldn’t associate with fish.”
Actually it’s a tenderness that one doesn’t associate with Toni Vernelli. I would that she had in her heart animal tenderness for her young (several abortions). In her, we see how an idea—a hopeless lie, once it has been ignited can easily lead to suicide and death.
Unreasoning animals unlike humans are totally immersed in the moment. It’s all about the moment, for animals. The great grey wolf shot dead high on a ridge is a case in point. Before the green fire in his eyes died out he had been attuned to the scent carried by the breeze. The wildness of the world and his part in it, he didn’t care to meditate on the meaning of it all. But he was alive to the immediacy of each moment, every nerve tingling to the nervous energy coursing around and through him. At least that’s what environmentalists of all stripes urge for humanity—getting in touch with your inner beast. They believe—at some irrational animal level—that all creatures share a collective consciousness with all matter and energy. They think that we need to get in touch with that inner beast. It’s a sense of feeling way beyond reason. But it seems to me that environmentalists place upon animals a burden that they are incapable of carrying. They are not reduced humans—they are beasts. We are not evolved animals—we are the image of God.
The narcissistic impulses of modern civilization (which is enamored with Hollywood style religion & light) find momentarily satisfying this green religion of self. That’s what it really is about. This is what it boils down to—unreasoning animalistic mystical communion with an unrevealed and unknowable God. Call it Buddha. Call it baby Jesus. Call it Gaia, or just plain old Mother Nature. This demands the star & naval-gazing that brings a communicate to good old number one.
In the end, the new religion of environmentalism that greens embrace boils down to the temptation in the Garden of Eden. To be number one. To do it my way! To see God as an idealized image of myself.
Summary
In summary, the material creation is neither divine nor eternal.
1) It is not sacred.
2) Not of intrinsic value – nor in unity with mankind in any spiritual sense. Science gives no support for such ideas. Christ and the Bible teach that fallen man is a creature of God whose ancestry is not animal but divine through adoption. And that God made the earth for man, not vice-versa.
3) Creation will not collapse due to civilization, in spite of current Climate Change paranoia. It will be destroyed by God Himself at His Second Coming, to make way for its recreation as the Earth made new (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1).
4) The Earth was not created for our kinship. God has called us to a relationship with Himself, and other people. Let us share the Everlasting Gospel with as many people as possible.
In closing I would like to read again from Acts 16:20-21
“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. [26] And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed. [27] And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. [28] But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. [29] Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, [30] And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? [31] And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
For those who have lost hope, like that jailer, suicide seems to make sense. Christians can and should speak out to the bleak despair flowing from the environmental worldview. Scripture shows us that the proper response to hopelessness—upon hearing the gospel—is to go down trembling onto our knees. Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do thyself no harm.”
Environmentalism is by its very nature a religion of death. Those who have vigorously argued that man is a naked ape (an animal borne on by cosmic tides) they are toying with a deadly creature; they are playing with serpents.
Or is the serpent playing with them?