 November 19, 2008
Dear Friend, As you read this week's WeGetIt.org Wednesday Bulletin, please be thinking of friends who would benefit from it, and then forward it to them. Thanks for your support! Obama addresses global warming summit by video
Speaking to a climate change summit yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama put a high priority on fighting global warming. “Few challenges facing America–and the world–are more urgent than combating climate change,” Obama said by video. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security. His words echo discredited claims of global warming activists for over twenty years. They also fly in the face of mounting evidence against manmade, catastrophic global warming, mounting numbers of scientists who reject the hypothesis, and mounting economic studies showing that money spent to fight warming will be wasted. The rate of sea level change is no faster now than it was before industrialization, which is (and was) extremely slow. Severe weather shows no correlation with global average temperature; in fact, northern hemisphere tropical cyclone activity was lower in the last two years than in the previous thirty. If the President-elect wants to increase America’s energy independence, he should actively support policies that encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants, the development of clean coal technologies, and the expansion of domestic drilling. Innovation, not government intervention, will bolster our economy and strengthen our national security. A Biblical view of the world Modern scientism says the world is a mere mechanism. That view makes the providence of God nonsense. But For Biblical writers, everything was pregnant with God's presence. For them, thunder was God's voice, lightning His arrows, wind His breath (Psalm 18). We might find storms more exciting, and less frightful, if we thought of them that way. For them, God "laid the earth's foundation, . . . marked off its dimensions, . . . stretched a measuring line [the horizon] across it." They believed God had "shut up the sea behind doors, . . . made the clouds its garment . . . fixed limits for it . . . [and] said, `This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt.'" They understood that God gave "orders to the morning" so that the dawn would "shake the wicked" out of the earth (Job 38:1-13). The New Testament conveys this world view, too: all things in Heaven and on Earth "hold together" solely because our Lord and God Jesus Christ holds them together, consciously sustaining their order and existence (Colossians 1:15-17). Want to learn more about how to view God's creation with Biblical eyes? Read Tim Morris and Don Petcher's Science & Grace: God's Reign in the Natural Sciences. What on Earth are we waiting for? Christians hold a variety of views about eschatology, particularly with regard to the future of Heaven and Earth as revealed in 2 Peter 3. Will they be annihilated and remade from nothing, as some understand verses 10-13? Or will they be transformed, as some infer from comparing verses 10-13 with verses 5-7? We don't propose to settle that debate here, though we are convinced that neither view supports a careless attitude toward creation stewardship. But on this all can agree: The delay in God's judgment is no evidence that He is "slack concerning His promise." Rather, it shows that He "is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (verse 9). How are you using your time on this present Earth? Are you communicating the gospel to the lost? Now, please forward this message to your pastor, other Christian leaders, and friends and urge them to sign the WeGetIt.org Declaration, too! The more people sign, the stronger the message our leaders will hear that Biblical principles and factual evidence, not media hype about speculative fears like global warming, should guide our care for the environment and the poor.Gratefully,
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