One of the critical issues of concern at the Christian Research Institute and the Bible Answer Man broadcast is discernment. Put another way my concern is that Christians have the discernment skills to separate wheat from chaff, heat from light. In that vein I put together a new booklet on global warming not just to give you my perspective but to provide you with a basis for rightly thinking for yourself about issues like this.
It’s crucial to learn to ask the right questions and then to learn to ask the right questions in the right sequence. We need to also carefully consider the cost if we have our eyes on the wrong ball. We must also be mindful, that whether or not global warming is the catastrophe it is popularity characterized as being, we are called as Christians to be stewards of God’s creation.
What I attempt to do in this booklet titled, How Should You Think About Global Warming?, is to boil global warming down to its irreducible minimum. In other words I’ve chiseled my impromptu answers on global warming until only the gem emerges. Additionally, the booklet provides you with an interview that I did with Dr. Jay W. Richards on the Bible Answer Man broadcast regarding global warming.
So it’s my prayer that when you’ve finished reading the global warming booklet you’ll be able to cut through the fog and clearly understand the essence of a highly controversial and politicized issue. My point is not just global warming; it’s to give you discernment skills in general. As I said I want you to be to cut between wheat and chaff, heat and light.
This issue is even more prevalent in light of the fact that the two candidates running for president of the United States have made some pretty significant statements about global warming.
Barack Obama on August 4, 2008 at Lansing, Michigan in what was billed as A Bold New National Goal on Energy Efficiency said, “We’ve heard talk about curbing the use of fossil fuels in state of the union address since the oil embargo of 1973. Back then we imported about a third of our oil, now we import more than half. Back then global warming was a theory of a few scientists. Now it’s a fact that is melting our glaciers and setting of dangerous weather patterns as we speak.”
John McCain was even stronger when on May 12, 2008 at Vestas Training Facility, for wind power in Portland, OR he said, “Among environmental dangers, it’s surely the most serious of all, whether we call it climate change or global warming, in the end we all left with the same set of facts.”
Former Vice-President Al Gore is equally emphatic in his view; he says that global warming is the single greatest threat facing our planet. Ellen Goodman of The Boston Globe puts global warming deniers on part with Holocaust deniers. Prominent Baptist pastor Oliver “Buzz” Thomas has gone as far as to castigate spiritual leaders for failing to urge followers to have smaller families in light of this global catastrophe. Says Thomas, “We must stop having so many children. Clergy should consider voicing the difficult truth that having more than two children during such a time is selfish. Dare we day sinful?”
Well as I’ve mentioned I have 12 kids now so I guess according Oliver” Buzz” Thomas, I’m in a lot of trouble so as this global warming rhetoric continues to boil over, what should we as Christians do?
Well as I mentioned earlier we need to be so familiar with how to think about these issues that we can discern between wheat and chaff and heat and light.
To equip yourself with this information you can obtain this new booklet by going unto our website at www.equip.org or by calling us at 888-7000-CRI and supporting this ministry and allowing us to continue to equipping people to have discernment skills they need now more than ever.
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5 comments:
Hank, I fear that you might be lacking discernment on this issue. Maybe you should contact Sir John Houghton, fellow Christian and chairman of the IPCC:
http://www.creationcare.org/resources/climate/houghton.php
Hank,
I believe that you are making losing your ministry focus by taking about global warming. This is not a biblical issues and scripture doesn't say that there will or will not be global warming. I believe that you are trying to gather the Christian masses to unite for a political opinion that is not essential for salvation, the gospel or for the kingdom of God.
Discernment is the ministry of CRI, and thank God for it. The global warming craze is just another secular attempt at religion. Al Gore is their messiah, and all followers must repent and go green. Those who reject their ten year "save the earth" gospel must face social and enconomical penalties. Discernment does not end at systematic theology, or cults. Discernment is required everywhere. Christians are making real life choices based on this situation, and that is why it is the business of CRI and every other believer to distinguish the truth of the matter from the money making lies.
It looks like the political savior is now Barack Hussein Obama, and his twelve disciples are: Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Saul Alinsky, Louis Farrakhan, the lovely Michelle Obama, Rashid Khalidi, George Soros, Frank Marshall Davis, James Cone. It's a muddy Marxist mixture.
Hank,
I agree that Christians should not panic over global warming. That does not mean it is our duty to defend the status quo.
There are two difference between global warming and the Y2K scare:
1. People who use the Bible a a book of divination were finding prophetic significance in the potential problem, and made hysterical exaggerations of the dangers.
2. Part of the reason the problems with the Y2K bug were so few is that computer programmers spent a year or more fixing the problem and preparing for the date.
I haven't read your booklet yet, but I did hear the interview with Jay Richards. The most he proved is that the science is uncertain regarding the potential damage that would result from global warming. If the science is uncertain--it could be worse, it could be better.
I do find two other flaws in Dr. Richards' argument:
1. He questions the motivation of those who want to reduce carbon emissions in an attempt to mitigate the danger of global climate change. I think it is valid to consider the motivation of people advocating any cause. But I don't see the logic of his criticizing Al Gore for investing in something he believes in (i.e. safer energy). Further he ignores the fact that the Cheney administration redacted the reports commissioned by the EPA. Why doesn't he question the administrations alliance with the coal and oil industry?
2. His economic assumptions could be dead wrong. He says money spent on new technology would be lost forever. Money circulates. Most of the money invested in building windmills in Kansas (for example) will go back into the local and national economy. Very little of the money sent overseas to corrupt dictatorships to feed our current addiction to oil will return though. As T. Boon Pickens says, it will be the largest transfer of wealth in history. The Bush-Cheney administration wasted 8 years denying global warming and wishing they could drill in Alaska, when they could have been encouraging conservation and alternative energy sources.
NASA administrator Michael Griffin said some people have made the cause of global warming almost a religion. But he also said that doesn't mean we should do nothing He added,
"I was in downtown Beijing a year ago, and their air quality is an example of what happens when you don't make any decision."
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming/2008/03/17/80933.html
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