I began this train of thought before I attended Pristine Harmony this weekend, (September 23, 2006) which was encouraging and inspiring.. it brought a renewed passion for USING the knowledge I have. It needs to be shared... or what use does it have? So here are some thoughts on the Loving dispute of caring for creation...
"There are some people who think: 'It's our duty to destroy the earth so that we can be saved. We are instruments of God's will when we go through the drive-through, to make the world uninhabitable so that He will return.'" Hearing himself say this, Roberts shakes his head, as if to dispute it."
I dispute it also. But Mr. Roberts, founder of Legacy chocolates and profiled in this delicious article, is getting those ideas from somewhere. I am realizing I am beginning to have an apathy for this argument and becoming more impassioned with the core issue-- the gospel. God reconciling humanity to himself through His son IS the hope for the earth. God created the earth and everything in it, and cares so deeply about the wayward hostile people (or, as in the Hebrew, the COSMOS.. think about that) on it that He sent Jesus Christ as flesh to die for our sins, that we may now have right standing before God and live to glorify Him.
Some ideas on why the gospel is at stake in caring for creation:
1. Loving your neighbor
The tangible effects of selfishness on the land are seen in a country like Kenya. Say a wealthy landowner cuts down 20,000 acres of trees that once shaded a creek that feed the village well. Now there is serious erosion entering the stream, fish deaths due to temperature change, air pollution due to increased carbon dioxide, etc. etc. Taking Jesus' words seriously means asking "who is not my neighbor?" umm.. silence. Well, is no one, or conversely, is it everyone? Might loving my neighbor in China mean buying products and clothes that I know have been manufactured under safe conditions and with fair wages? It might mean buying less and giving more, and it might mean asking the Holy Spirit to guide and convict you in these issues...
2. Praying for those who persecute you
I have seen the anger from liberals and conservatives over environmental and social issues. There is a difference, in my mind, between politics and truth. There is a distinction between loving a brother and sister in Christ regardless of their identification with elephants, donkeys or greens. There is a difference between essential and non-essential issues. May the faithful take serious heed to ways in which their speech and actions demonstrate so clearly how they are not loving their "enemies." Christ commanded this.
3. Loving mercy
Micah 6:8 says: and what does the Lord your God require of you, but to seek justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Justice, mercy, and walking humbly reek of going against the world order.
4. Love is patient
This is one of the most annoying misconceptions for me personally: the Christian's duty to speed up Jesus' coming. (the only way I know is through Matthew 9:27!! Amen). It's not our duty to destroy the earth anymore than it is our duty to destroy our bodies so we die and go to heaven! If your child is sick you bring them to the doctor to treat their illness-- you don't deny it so the end comes quicker! Jesus taught us to pray "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done." Perhaps our emphasis could be less on Maranatha and more on ushering in HIS kingdom.
Oh, let the church and its members wake up to the light of the glorious gospel-- how it leads us to care for our neighbors and his creation. After all, if God created it, how can't we care about it?
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Saturday, June 24, 2006
The surrender
This article was encouraging-- I especially identified with the themes in bold. The point Collins mentions-- it's like a point of surrendering. I truly know that my moment of surrendering, of conversion, was the work of the Holy Spirit. It was not done through arguments or books, it was through His Word. What a beautiful thing.
The Sunday Times - Britain
June 11, 2006
I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome
By Steven Swinford
THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.
Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.
His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,” said Collins, 56.
“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”
For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.
“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.
“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”
Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”
Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had a creator. “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details,” he said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and put on trial in 1633 for the “heresy” of claiming that the earth moved around the sun.
Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further.
“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the way,” he says.
“Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.”
Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.
“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.”
He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.”
His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”
Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.
The Sunday Times - Britain
June 11, 2006
I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome
By Steven Swinford
THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.
Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.
His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,” said Collins, 56.
“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”
For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.
“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.
“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”
Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”
Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had a creator. “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details,” he said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and put on trial in 1633 for the “heresy” of claiming that the earth moved around the sun.
Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further.
“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the way,” he says.
“Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.”
Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.
“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.”
He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.”
His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”
Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
The Dig
Did you ever boast that if you dug through the back yard and end up in China? That's not quite right. More like the Inidan Ocean :) Now you know.
This useful peace of information brought to us by Google Maps and my GPS class.
This useful peace of information brought to us by Google Maps and my GPS class.
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