Don’t fear climate change; fear the climate’s Creator
Fear about global warming compelled President Biden to summon 40 other world leaders to an international Climate Summit on Earth Day, April 22.
The same fear drove activists to dump wheelbarrows of cow manure near the White House on the same day. Their act was a judgment on the summit: Words are so much dung, we need action.
I am an evangelical Christian who happens to agree our climate is changing, but not for the reasons the climate commandos tell us. When I compare current events with the Bible, I think God is using the climate as a mirror to reflect our strained relation with Him. The climate is one way God gets our attention and gives the world another chance to believe the truth.
For this reason, our wild weather can be an amazing opportunity for evangelism. If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then our message is a stark contrast to the global doomsayers: Fear not climate change, but the climate’s Creator.
Wrong conclusions, wrong actions
The climate fearful insist we must change our ways because we are destroying the earth and will destroy it, otherwise. Explaining the wheelbarrow demonstration at the White House, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion said “the well-being of the human species and the richness of life on earth is at stake.”1 Al Gore, former Vice President turned climate champion, insists “It’s up to each of us to solve this crisis.”2
What a burden to strap on us: The world is in our hands, both its destruction and its salvation.
This is a burden that is not ours to bear. God, who created the earth, has reserved its destruction for Himself. Salvation, therefore, also belongs to Him. We did not create the earth, we will not destroy it, nor will we save it.
This is not to say, however, that we can either go on blithely or slight the present because “it’s all going to burn in the end, anyway.” Accountability and stewardship do not allow either course.
No accounting leads to no good
When there is no accounting for the Creator, lifestyles run amok. We see it in the general population, as summarized in Psalm 10, and specifically in the history of Israel.
The psalmist catalogs greed, pride, deceit, oppression, murder and more—all of it attributed to this conviction
God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see. —Psalm 10:11
To Israel, God on the one hand rewarded obedience with astounding wellbeing, including this:
The LORD
will open to you His good treasure, the heavens,
to give the rain to your land in its season,
and to bless all the work of your hand. —Deuteronomy 28:12
But he warned of many repercussions if they strayed, among them:
The LORD
will strike you with...scorching.
And your heavens shall be bronze,
and the earth shall be iron.
The LORD
will change the rain of your land to powder and dust —Deuteronomy 28:22-24
Talk about climate change! The cause and effect are apparent:
- God controls the climate;
- How we live affects the climate, because
- God holds us accountable. There are no weather gods, but there is a God of the weather who uses it to “serve as a sign and wonder for you and your descendants as long as you live” (Deuteronomy 28:46).
How to respond
Accountability to God requires a very different response than what the climate commandos preach. Such an accounting compares how we live with how God tells us to live, as prescribed both in His laws and, ultimately, in the life He Himself lived among us in Christ. Take, for example, this complaint God had about Israel shortly before Christ came:
I'll come near to you for judgment. I'll be a witness, quick to speak against sorcerers, against adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who defraud the laborer of his wage, against those who defraud the widow and the orphan, against those who deprive the alien of justice, and against those who don't fear me —Malachi 3:5.
Accountability asks, How do I stack up in these and other ways that God spells out? How would God grade our culture when it comes to marriage, sexuality, race relations, integrity? Where there are gaps, God appeals: Repent.
In terms of climate change, repent means stop thinking you will destroy the earth and stop thinking you will save it. The earth indeed will be destroyed; Jesus said it will pass away (Mark 13:31) and Peter tells us the very elements will melt (2 Peter 3:10). And the better world you long for? It is coming, but not because you drive an electric car or shrink your carbon footprint. God promises a new heaven and earth, which He will create. Whether we are in that new earth goes back to how we live in the current one and how we respond to His appeals.
Our future depends on accountability to God in the present.
A charge to keep
God made us keepers, but whether it is Adam and Eve with the garden, Cain with his brother Abel, Israel with God’s laws, the disciples with Jesus in Gethsemane—we have not been good stewards.
Climate change proves we still aren’t.
I have balked at the notion we are destroying the earth, but the data says we are and the Bible affirms it. Jesus warned our very survival will be threatened in the end (Matthew 24:22) and the Apostle John was shown that God will “destroy those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18, emphasis mine).
The words John used for how the earth is being destroyed are significant. They describe shriveling and withering until the fruit is spoiled and thoroughly rotten. Our world is shriveling in dramatic ways: Snow packs are melting, species are disappearing and land masses are shrinking as oceans rise. We are withering in record hot summers. Ruin is afoot.
For good reason, the climate commandos are demanding better stewardship. We who know God should be demonstrating this stewardship and insisting on this even more fervently. This climate—physical, social and political—is ideal for reminding the fearful,
This is my Father's world: O let me ne'er forget That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.3
The rule of God and the heart of our Father require us to examine our stewardship in light of His command to tend and to keep this earth (Genesis 2:15). Tend and keep express stewardship that entails work and protection; the earth needs our care because there are those who don’t care. Christians should not be among them.
This begs many questions.
What kind of steward am I?
Do I ignore or contribute to the destruction—the shriveling, withering and rotting—that John describes in Revelation?
Is the world’s clamor for better stewardship a result of my shirking this responsibility? Jesus said, “the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8). Is this true about how we care for the environment?
Exchange gloom for gladness
I console myself more and more that this world is not my final home, but it still is home and I admit I have been content to leave its care to those who think they have nothing but this world. As I write, I see the environment as a forum where believers can again exert influence, where we can contrast the foreboding forecasts with the truth of the Gospel.
Climate change terrifies many; we can hold it instead in the light of Psalm 55:19
Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.
The frightened are afraid of the wrong thing. A proper fear of God is what will change how we live so that God can bless this land again. A healthy fear of God will curb our fear of each other. A renewed fear of God is an answer to prayer for God’s will to be done on earth, as in heaven.
God help us witness to this fearful generation,
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King, let the heavens ring!
God reigns, let the earth be glad!3
- From Extinction Rebellion, https://rebellion.global/
- https://people.com/human-interest/al-gore-says-we-have-the-solutions-we-need-to-solve-the-climate-crisis-on-earth-day-2020/
- This Is My Father’s World, Maltbie D. Babcock