Bible Open

Churches Adopt Environmental Religion to Fill Empty Seats

compiled by Lewis Loflin

  
  

As many progressive churches abandon God they either create new gods/goddesses or focus on political causes. In the case of environmentalism, they adopt a goddess often fused with left-wing politics. Liberal and progressive churches alike are losing members. See Why Liberal Christian Churches are Failures.

Here are some small examples and why they seem to hate traditional churches. In Pew poll in 2008 as much as one-third of self-proclaimed members of these denominations believe the Bible was an invention of man. This earth-goddess nonsense really is a man-made creation to cover a loss of faith. It's known as pantheism, a type of atheism where nature is spiritualized and even deified.

Al Gore sums it up well that it's not about science, reason, or even policy:

"when we rise, we will experience an epiphany as we discover that this crisis is not really about politics at all, it is a moral and spiritual challenge..."The climate crisis also offers us the chance to experience what very few generations in history have had the privilege of knowing: a generational mission; the exhilaration of a compelling moral purpose; a shared and unifying cause; the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the restless human need for transcendence; the opportunity to rise... When we do rise, it will fill out spirits and bind us together. Those who are now suffocating in cynicism and despair will be able to breathe freely. Those who are now suffering from a loss of meaning in their lives will find hope."

Quoting Nature 440, 136-137 (9 March 2006) Special Report Church joins crusade over climate change:

Evangelical leaders have called on the United States to step up its efforts to control greenhouse-gas emissions. But can they force action where others have failed, asks Amanda Haag. Fire and brimstone are coming to the aid of US science, as evangelical scientists and their allies in the religious community embark on a battle against climate change."The time has come...for destroying those who destroy the Earth," says Calvin DeWitt, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, quoting from the Scriptures...

Ref. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7081/full/440136a.html.

To quote, "This is the text of a sermon by Peter Laarman preached at the First United Methodist Church of Los Angeles on February 11, 2007. The sermon texts were Luke 6:17-26 and Jeremiah 17.5-10."

No More Crusades: Tom Hayden "It's good to see 500 progressive Christians becoming organized in response to the high-jacking of the faith by right-wing Christian networks. The fact that voters turned away the agenda of social and religious conservatives in the Nov 2006 election is a sign of the times.

...When I chaired the Natural Resources Committee in the California Senate, I noticed that the clergy never testified against the destruction of species, forests, clean air and water, the wellsprings of life itself...The environment thus is valued as a utilitarian resource, a giant storehouse of raw materials for the use of humankind. Right-wing Christians like Reagan's former interior secretary James Watt have argued against preservation of the environment in light of the Second Coming.

Liberals have argued for environmental stewardship, often citing the "dominion" reference in Genesis as justification...The scriptures place us in this role to underscore our special, sacred status above the lesser world of living things and ecosystems. As stewards, we become the plant managers for the absentee owner...

"...That day is coming but it will take great soul-searching, in theology and practice, for Christianity - and other faith traditions as well - to make the adjustment. I agree with Al Gore who wrote that "when we rise, we will experience an epiphany as we discover that this crisis is not really about politics at all, it is a moral and spiritual challenge."

...I am not sure that the theological and institutional adjustment can be made. We are living on borrowed time. But I believe we can rediscover a Lost Gospel of the Earth, an indigenous and mystical sense of the cosmos buried within all our religious traditions as evidence of past religious wars. It is there in the rainbow covenant between God and earth itself. It is there when Isaiah speaks of the holy mountain and the earth being full of the knowledge of the Lord..."

This garbage has nothing to with science. That is what is behind these so-called "liberal" churches that have abandoned a traditional Christianity and have remapped modern socialist and New Age themes (social gospel) into their theology. So-called "progressive" Christians are no more Christian than Christianity is Judaism.

Ref. http://www.progressivechristiansuniting.org/2007/02/



From religionnewsblog sums this up:

Global Warming: a Religious Perspective

Some very insightful and thought-provoking analysis of global warming, written by Josie Appleton...which provide a fantastic perspective by which to think critically about the whole global warming phenomena...Far more interesting is her cultural analysis, which shows that concern with global warming has become a functional pseudo-religion, driven by a fear and dislike of the modern world, with all the irrationality that implies.

In short, the attraction of the global warming issue has little to do with environmental problems. Instead, global warming appears to provide answers to life's big questions, offering a new kind of historic mission and a new structure for personal morality. Global warming has become a religious crusade, full of a righteous call-to-arms, and of moral lessons for humanity.

Global warming has become a foil for a whole series of political and moral agendas, a way of discussing everything from the sins of consumerism to human arrogance. [Last, but not least, I would add, it provides a sense of moral and intellectual superiority, which is a prerequisite for the modern liberal!

This is the main reason I reject these eco-doomsday theology that others "more enlightened" and superior to rest of us believe in. I want verifiable scientific proof, not a secular-religious remapping of the Bible. Just because one is an atheist or agnostic doesn't mean they are unreligious. To continue:

...The solution to global warming involves a sense of guilt, a sense of repentance, and a sense of the moral failure of the modern lifestyle. We must have a quieter, slower, calmer life, overcoming the problem of human hubris and the restless desire to dominate and control. We will live locally, we will be thankful, we will make do.

Children would be able to play in the street again; airports would be converted back into forests. Global warming is not so much a problem to solve, as an issue around which to reorganize society. This is a religious story like Noah's flood, and the lesson is in the sins of hubris, selfishness, and consumerism...
...Only in the 2000s have scientists been pumping out models (computer prophecy) that predict catastrophic change. The cause for this shift in mentality: social shifts that predispose us to a more dangerous view of the world and a discontent with our current situation. Our social anxieties today - a fear of change, a sense of the fragility of things - guide the questions that scientists ask, and the kinds of theories that ring true to the people who hear them.

From http://www.frankfuredi.com/index.php/site/article/159/. Frank Furedi Professor of Sociology at University of Kent, and author of Politics of Fear, Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?, Therapy Culture, Paranoid Parenting and Culture of Fear.

In search of eco-salvation: Many religions are now more likely to preach about saving the planet than saving souls. To quote,

"These days, moralizers find it easier to make people feel guilty about their impact on the environment than about committing one of the seven deadly sins. Not surprisingly, many religious institutions are busy reinventing themselves by promoting ecological virtues and preaching against the eco-sins of polluters."

This I have seen this myself in public schools:

"The appeal of eco-spirituality to so many different religions is a testimony to the powerful influence that environmentalism exercises over contemporary culture. At a time when traditional institutions find it difficult to connect with popular concerns, environmentalism is still able to transmit ideas about human responsibility through appealing to a sense of right and wrong. That is why the authors of children's books and school officials also use environmentalism as a vehicle for socializing youngsters."

What happened to separation of church and state?

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