eChurch Blog

JTA

To the Editor:

Re: the David Brog Op-Ed, I have read many such articles and letters about Christian support for Israel making some Jewish people uncomfortable. Many people like myself, who are Jewish and try to be practicing Jews, are deeply appreciative of the actions of Christians like Brog.

I laugh at those of my people who do not fully realize what a blessing it is to have Christians who take their faith and the Bible as an obligations to support and protect the State of Israel to the extent that they can.

To the members of the Tribe that may question our Christian brothers sincerity to Israel because of the long historical tragedy of Jewish-Christian animosity, I ask that it be remembered  that not all Christians looked upon Jews as enemies, We must judge men upon their individual acts today and not upon the past of their fathers.

It is most important that all Christians who stand with Israel in its never-ending battle for existence do not forget that many Jews feel tremendous gratitude for Christian support.

Kenneth Ellman
Newton, N.J.

Hat-tip Rosh Pina Project:-

Cross post from Calvin L Smith. Previous relevant posts; here, here and here.

This Kind of Language is Unhelpful

15 February 2010

An Anglican priest who recently attended a Palestine conference organised by the Federation of Islamic Student Societies today blogs of his participation in the conference. Revd Stephen Sizer also refers to the Jerusalem Declaration, a document he helped draft and which he says “repudiates Christian Zionism as a deviant heresy”.

This is strong language indeed. Of course, it is no secret Revd Sizer has widely publicised his intense dislike of Christian Zionism, which he has every right to do. But surely labelling millions of fellow Evangelical Christians deviant heretics goes too far. Those destructive false teachers repudiated in the New Testament usually have a major trait in common. Whether the Galatian heresy which denies the power of Christ’s salvific work through the cross, the Colossian heresy, incipient Gnostic dualism in the Johannine writings, or the heretics Jude warns against who “deny our master the Lord Jesus Christ”, the heresies roundly condemned in the New Testament tend to deny the person and work of Jesus Christ. In short, they Christologically defective. Thus, it is quite one thing to challenge particular doctrines and teachings, including Christian Zionism, but quite another to state millions of fellow Christians who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal saviour are deviant heretics, a label generally reserved for those whose teachings in some way deny the person of Christ.

It is also language which is unnecessarily polemical and polarising in nature, rather than the biblical language of gentle reproof and reconciliation as a first port of call for resolving disputes, theological or otherwise, within the Church. Drawing on this kind of language is also ironic, given how reconciliation is a central feature of the Jerusalem Declaration. Jesus tells His disciples they will discern what is good and bad by the fruit it produces. Unfortunately, the fruit of polarised language and the very public and pejorative denunciation of fellow Christians over their response to Israel has brought not only ecclesial division, but also little hope of much-needed reconciliation between Christians over the thorny issue of how to respond to the Middle East crisis.

Repudiating Christian Zionism somehow as a monolithic movement also lacks nuance. Which version of Christian Zionism is referred to here? The British variety, which tends to be more covenantal than geographical in nature, or perhaps the US variety, which includes (but is not limited to) a more apocalyptic and political expression? Meanwhile, some Christian Zionists espouse an Eretz Yisrael Ha-Shlema (Greater Israel) much like Israel’s Likud party, but others simply believe the Jews should be allowed to return to the land of their forefathers, less concerned with the exact borders or the political structures in place. Between these positions are various theological shades of Evangelical Christianity over responses to the Jewish people and modern Israel, highlighting how current Christian responses to the issue are quite complex. Yet the language of polarisation both masks these complexities and the at times weak arguments of those who would rather seek to promulgate a black and white, dualist narrative that demands an equally polarised response: “You are either with us or against us”.

It isn’t helpful when this desire to repudiate Christian Zionism leads to expressing those views in ways or situations which some Christians might argue are unsuitable. I find it deeply ironic that the Jerusalem Statement opens with the Scripture, “Blessed are the peacemakers”, yet Revd Sizer has chosen to share a platform with a speaker who has condoned suicide bombings and another who openly salutes the terrorist organisation Hamas.

Finally, the Jerusalem Statement arguably lacks a strong hermeneutical and theological basis, engaging in the very mining of the Bible for supporting prooftexts which its authors condemn Christian Zionism for doing. After all, using the Bible this way allows you to make it say whatever you want. The Statement does precisely this, engaging in a typically liberationist decontextualisation of 2 Corinthians 5:19, recontextualising it in the context of the Palestinian milieu. Thus, hundred of years of Protestant hermeneutics emphasising authorial intent are discarded in favour of a postmodernist reader-driven interpretation which is subjective and relativist. Actually, in 2 Corinthians 5 the apostle Paul is not promoting the dissemination of a message of reconciliation between men and peoples, but rather a message of reconciliation between God and Man. In other words, Paul’s message and ministry of reconciliation is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

An extensive, genuine, fair, theologically and biblically-sound, and, importantly, united Christian approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict will never be achieved without respectful dialogue, eschewing the language of polarisation, or refraining from denouncing fellow Christians as heretics or sharing platforms with people who damage our credibility and even condone violence towards innocents. Admittedly, these and other approaches may secure plenty of back-slapping from among those we agree with. But shouldn’t the Christian way of doing theology move beyond preaching to the choir in a bid to win over our fellow Evangelical Christians in gentleness and truth?

I never realised that the “Jerusalem Declaration” states:-

We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.

This is simply unhelpful at best.

This is the link for the declaration:-

The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism

It’s a bit of a wake up call for me personally, as I know that some very prominent Anglican conservative evangelical groups (here in the UK and abroad) adhere to this declaration and loudly trumpet the fact.

Worrying.

Just for a larf:-

Stuff Christians Like:-

I shouldn’t be writing this one.

I shouldn’t be putting this on a blog, especially not on a day like Monday.

But there might be others out there who need this information. There might be other people who will benefit, greatly, from this. You’ll need to lean in close though, because I’m only going to say it once:

I’m part of a secret Christian underground at work.

I know, I know, it’s pretty exciting. I’m not sure how it started, but it’s true. For the last year or so I’ve become deeply immersed in a covert society of Christians that operates in the shadows. (I really feel like I should get a cloak of some sort as a member of this world, but no one agrees with me yet on this point.)

If you’ve never personally been involved in a group like this, there are a few things you need to know:

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Hat-tip to Polycarp for alerting us to the upcoming: “Gerry Adams does the Bible”:-

Times:-

I know why Judas betrayed Jesus, says Gerry Adams in Channel 4 documentary

Ever since Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus with a kiss 2,000 years ago theologians have argued about his motives. But one British academic has now given credit to Gerry Adams, the Sinn Féin leader, for a new insight into one of the most controversial passages of the Bible.

The man who spent a lot of his youth “on the run” from the Army in Belfast yet still swears that he has never been a member of the Provisional IRA, believes that Judas was turned informer by the Roman security services of the time in Palestine, just as many of his former comrades in the Republican movement were induced to spy.

Mr Adams’s views will be shown in a Channel 4 documentary The Bible: A History on Sunday. But even before it has aired it is creating a storm of controversy among many victims of IRA violence.

Victor Barker, whose 12-year-old son James was killed in the 1998 Omagh bombing, said: “Asking Gerry Adams to speak about love and forgiveness is like asking Myra Hindley to lecture on child-minding. I think it’s a big mistake and completely misguided. Channel 4 is being used by Mr Adams. It is offering him a platform for doing what he does so well, of coming across on camera as a genuine, peaceful person who wants to promote peace and love.”

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Comment on this Times article by a keen observer:-

Mark Goodacre – It’s actually quite a lazy article in The Times; they clearly have not seen the documentary itself because it does not mention Judas. They have simply picked up on a six weeks old piece in Bible and Interpretation by Helen Bond and have extracted a line from it.

Helen Bond- Senior Lecturer in New Testament Language, Literature and Theology University of Edinburgh:-

Jesus through the Eyes of an Irish Republican

Recent historical Jesus study prides itself on the diversity of participants: Jews, Christians, and secularists from a range of (first world) nationalities and backgrounds. But how diverse are we really? Despite apparent variety, we all share the same basic training in biblical languages and historical criticism, the same basic commitment to scholarly enquiry, and, broadly speaking, a similar social status in our respective settings. It was with some curiosity, then, that I travelled to Israel last month to make a TV program on Jesus for UK’s Channel 4 with Gerry Adams, leader of the Irish Sinn Féin party.

For readers not entirely up to speed on British/Irish politics of the last few decades, Mr. Adams is a man of some notoriety in Britain. Although he has always denied being a member of the IRA, he and his family were clearly central participants in “the troubles,” to the extent that his voice could not be broadcast in the British media during the 1980s (a ban the BBC overcame by having his words spoken by an actor). Gerry is an intelligent man, educated at a grammar school, but without higher academic training; his outlook is deeply shaped by his Irish Catholic and republican upbringing. His questions are not honed by generations of academic discourse (he doesn’t wonder if Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet or a sapiential sage), but by real life experience and struggle.

My role in the program was to act as Gerry’s mentor, to accompany him on his trips (including one dark evening when we found ourselves paddling in the Sea of Galilee in a thunderstorm discussing Jesus’ miracles), and to discuss the days’ findings with him every evening. We spent hours arguing whether first-century Galilee was “occupied”; the meaning of “democracy” in ancient societies; high priestly “collaboration” (and alternatives); and whether Jesus foresaw his own death. I’ve not often had the chance to discuss these things with a man who has been on the run from political authority, who has experienced internment, who has been shot at (and still bears the scars), and who is now protected from the “real IRA” who regard him as a traitor – and I have to say that I learned from him too.

Most importantly, I suppose, I realised how academic and intellectual my approach to the historical Jesus has become. On the subject of Jesus and politics I can rehearse the views of Brandon and his detractors and cite alternatives (Jesus was against imperialism, Jesus was a social rather than a political revolutionary, etc.). The names of Crossan, Horsley, and Fiorenza flow from my pen as shorthand for a variety of views and complex positions. I know too that religion and politics were inextricably intertwined in ancient Israel, that to talk of the “Kingdom of God” in a land ruled by an emperor was dangerous, and that subject peoples will keep their hopes and dreams alive though folklore, ballads, and the names they give to their children. But I had externalized all of this and kept it at arm’s length (in what I thought was good scholarly detachment). It was only when I thought about these things in the complexity of modern Israel, when I heard the views of Jewish scholars brought in for the program, and when I saw things through Gerry’s eyes that I began to feel how Jesus’ message might have been heard in first-century Galilee and Judaea. How could talk of a kingdom have been anything other than a threat to the existing rulers? How could the presence of twelve men, representing the twelve tribes of Israel in its glory years, have been anything other than a powerful symbol of national restoration to people with a strong sense of self-respect and identity? How could Jesus’ words and actions not have reawoken long held hopes, and dared his hearers to envisage another reality? And even if Jesus condemned violence and expected God himself to inaugurate the new age, there would always be those who misunderstood him and thought that God needed a helping hand.

Judas’ betrayal was another area where Gerry’s perspective helped me to see things rather differently. Once again, I’ve always approached Judas intellectually, asking why he betrayed Jesus, what motivated his actions – greed, disillusionment, an attempt to force Jesus’ hand? Gerry, however, instinctively understood the defection of a “gang member.” “Yeah, that’s what happens,” he said, “they got to him.” I had thought of Judas’ betrayal as something active, something he chose to do, rather than a situation he was forced into, perhaps (and quite likely) under duress. Of course, the whole Judas story is probably colored by the betrayal of David in 2 Samuel 15, but the general outline of events is historically plausible, a historicity made even stronger by its clear resonance with the way groups (on both sides) were infiltrated and betrayed in Belfast.

It is always dangerous to import modern experiences too easily into an ancient setting, despite broad parallels between Northern Ireland and first-century Judaea. Yet Gerry’s background helped to illuminate for me certain aspects of Jesus’ life in a way that discussions with academics often has not. I’m not advocating giving up reading scholarly work, but true diversity of participation in Jesus studies involves discussion with a far greater variety of perspectives than are currently heard.

Different.

This is a cross-post from David over at Anglican Samizdat and covers the shameful, cringy and just plain wrong plan to fast carbon for Lent.

Carbon evangelism

Or how to be a Christian pain in the arse.

Kairos is suggesting a Carbon Fast for Lent; it even has a calendar of suggestions.

Among them are (with helpful study notes):

Observe heat use at school or work and make a suggestion for increased energy efficiency.  - Don’t mess around with underlings: take your concern straight to the top. When you go to collect your weekly dole, make sure you walk.

Reduce the idling time of your vehicle to a minimum or speak of your concern to someone who is idling excessively. - Make sure you point out the excessive carbon footprint of the next idling police car you see.

If you have two cars, discuss becoming a one-car family. Resolve not to travel in a car for one day or one full week, whatever is a challenge for you. - Convince your wife that she doesn’t need her car.

If you have children in your life, inventory their toys with them. How many do they actually use? Discuss, at an appropriate level, the negative effects of over-consumption.  - Good plan: blame global warming on your children. They’ll thank you for it later.

Arrange for KAIROS to give a Carbon Sabbath Initiative (CSI) workshop at your church. - This will stimulate church growth: by comparison, it will make the vicar’s sermons seem really interesting.

Inventory the amount of time you spend with loved ones. Decide to spend at least two days a month in 2010 enjoying activities that will bring you closer together. - This could be tricky: after doing all the other suggested activities you probably won’t have any loved ones.

The BBC yesterday covered the fact that churches in Devon are going to try to cut their carbon footprint for Lent:-

The policy, which has been agreed by the Diocese of Exeter, means turning lights off and heating down.

I was emailed yesterday a piece about Christian Aid and climate change. It’s a long piece but very revealing:-

Climate Change Policy of Christian Aid: Nothing inherently Christian about it!

This is all an example of one religion morphing into another.

Lovely piece by the neurosurgeon and scientist Dr. Charley Gordon over at The BioLogos Foundation:-

[.....]

My question is this—what else are we missing? As a medical student learning about how the body works, I thought it fascinating to understand how we fight off disease, how the brain responds to stress and how we reproduce, how we perceive vision and memory—the list goes on and on. These, too, are miracles in plain sight. Regardless of how you believe these everyday miracles came about, they speak to an underlying order and bedrock physical principles that we can only contribute to an eloquent genius. Without the predictable, physical laws that order our universe, none of these miracles could happen. In fact, we would not happen. But how soon we forget the mystery of beauty and the joy of being able to breathe and to think! Like the thousands of people hustling by the “Young Archer” for decades, we scurry past God’s most wondrous creations on display every day. And in doing so, all too often we miss the miracle hidden in plain sight.

God, the Artist

In Romans 1:20, we are told, “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal purpose and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse.” In other words, God’s invisible qualities show up in the visible universe. This is really amazing when you think about it. We can learn about God by studying nature? Yes, it is true and biblical. The more we learn about our universe, the more examples we find of physical laws that mirror spiritual laws. There are these consistent physical laws and principles that allow us to exist, all of which are orderly and consistent. The Bible teaches us that the spiritual world and the natural world are inter-related, and as we learn more about the natural world, we better understand its Creator.

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You might be forgiven for thinking that St Valentine was an imaginary saint made up by the greeting card and florists’ industry to boost trade. Valentine was a popular name in Rome in the second and third centuries and no one is sure which particular Valentine the day is dedicated to. There are at least three St Valentines mentioned in Papal papers dating from the fifth century listing early Roman Saints. St Valentine was given a feast day on 14th February during the fifth century, but even then was listed as “one of those whose acts are known only to God”.

So how did this mystery man come to be associated with all thing romantic? The answer lies in the Middle Ages, when the belief was that all birds chose their mates in the middle of February. St Valentine’s Day simply happened to fall at the right time of year to provide an excuse for amorous happenings. It is a sign of how important celebrating love is for many people that the feast has continued to be celebrated for many hundreds of years. We might know nothing about St Valentine but I hope we all know something about love and know it is something to celebrate.

Marguerite Hutchinson.

CyberBrethren has some more on St. Valentine and below is the Islamic reaction.

Jihad against love around the world

Indonesian Muslims told don’t mark Valentine’s Day

Saudi religious police see red on Valentine’s Day

RELIGIOUS leaders in Bahrain have attacked the annual Valentine’s Day celebration, saying it has diluted Islamic principles and values.

Speakers at a seminar titled “Increasing Western influence on our Civilisation” have criticised the Valentine’s Day that has been introduced by the west through their agents in Pakistan to destroy the cultural and religious fibre of Pakistan.

LAHORE – It is very strange we are showing enthusiasm to the festivals of the aliens at a time when the nation is besieged with manifold crises.

Hat-Tip CyberBrethren

Cardinal asks dialogue partners if an ecumenical catechism might work

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican official has floated the idea of a shared “ecumenical catechism” as one of the potential fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches.

“We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils,” Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told representatives of the churches.

Opening a three-day symposium at the Vatican to brainstorm on the future of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper said it is essential “to keep alive the memory of our achievements” in dialogue, educate the faithful about how much has been accomplished and prepare a new generation to carry on the work.

He said the members of his council “proposed an ecumenical catechism that would be written in consultation with our partners,” but “we do not yet have any idea how such a catechism could be structured and written.”

One thing for sure, he said, is that there is a need for “an ecumenism of basics that identifies, reinforces and deepens the common foundation” of faith in Christ and belief in the tenets of the creed. The churches may hold those positions officially, but if their members do not hold firmly to the basics of Christian faith, the dialogue cannot move forward, the cardinal said.

Cardinal Kasper, a theologian who will be 77 in March and has led the council for nine years, also said that ecumenical dialogue “is perhaps in danger of becoming a matter for specialists and thus of moving away from the grassroots.”

He called for “a people-centered ecumenism” that would support and give new energy to the theological dialogues.

The symposium was a follow-up to the publication in October of “Harvesting the Fruits,” a book complied by Cardinal Kasper and his staff summarizing the results of 40 years of official Catholic dialogue with the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

As for questions that still must be tackled in order for Christians to reach full unity and be able to share the Eucharist, the cardinal identified two basic areas: a common understanding of the church and its structure; and a common approach to applying the Gospel to modern social and moral concerns without falling into relativism.

Ethical issues, such as homosexuality and women’s equality, not only divide churches, he said, they raise more fundamental questions for modern and post-modern society, such as, “What is man, and what does it mean to be a man or woman in God’s plan?”

In the area of church structure and ministry, he said, the dialogues have seen progress toward a common agreement on the sacramental nature of ordination and on apostolic succession in the ministry of bishops, and have taken initial steps toward discussing the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the pope.

But on a more basic level, the dialogues must get into “not only what is the church, but where is the church? Has God given his church a specific structure or has he left the church to find its own structure, in such a way that a pluralism of structures is possible?” Cardinal Kasper asked.

The cardinal said the Vatican needs to better explain to its dialogue partners the Catholic conviction that “the Catholic Church is the church of Christ and that the Catholic Church is the true church,” even while “there exist many and important elements of the church of Christ outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church.”

The Catholic Church does believe “there are deficits in the other churches,” he said. “Yet on another level there are deficits, or rather wounds stemming from division and wounds deriving from sin, also in the Catholic Church.”

Ecumenical dialogue is the place where all Christians “learn to grow and mature in their faithfulness to Christ,” he said, and as each moves closer to Christ, they naturally will move closer to each other.

Regular readers will know that I view “man-made climate change” as akin to a religion. Some may even know that I am not a great fan of Christian Aid and so the following article which was emailed to me (thanks Rajan), cynically meshes very well for me personally.

Rajan

Climate Change Policy of Christian Aid: Nothing inherently Christian about it!

Small acts, Big Impact’ is an animation  video produced by SEEDS, a Christian Aid partner in India as part of an educational programme that is targeted to reach 10,000 schools all over the country. Watch it here.

If each school is assumed to have student strength of 1,000, then this programme could easily reach a whooping 10 million school children. This is apart from their teachers, parents and siblings. That’s how large this programme is designed to reach.

The storyline is simple enough. A camel in the desert is shown shivering while an equally bewildered yak on top of a mountain demands to know why the snow has melted. Both phenomena are blamed on humans and the remedy is to embrace solar and wind energy!

The Morphing of Christianity to the Religion of Climate Change

All Creation Mourning (2007), a climate policy document of Christian Aid admits that Climate Change is neither mentioned in the Bible nor has it been an integral part of contemporary systematic theology. Consequently, Christian Aid needed to evolve an approach to climate change that is rooted in the ‘wider theology’ and ‘ethics of development’ to frame climate change as their policy.

Interesting as this video reflects the offspring of such a marriage. The climate change theme is kept largely secular but cleverly laced with Christian religious nuances – ‘planting seeds, harvest, mission, save the world, let’s make God happy‘. Christian Aid as their name suggests, is supposedly one of the most influential development arms of the Protestant Church in both Britain and Europe.  So the use of Christian nuances may not be startling from this sense.

But don’t get fooled. At the core is nature worship and not Christ. The late Michael Crichton, internationally renowned science fiction writer, was of the opinion that certain social structures remain the same irrespective if society changes; religion being one of them.  Not known very well was Crichton as an anthropologist by academic training. Providing insight to the climate change ideology in his book, State of Fear, he opined:  ‘It’s a holistic ideology; shot through with religious sentiment…it is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.’

In the UK, all religions are experiencing a downswing in terms of  active membership. and practice. Though the 2001 Census, found 71% of the population had categorized themselves as Christians (with around 16% atheists), a research by another UK Christian charity, Tearfund revealed that between 1979 and 2005, half of all Christians stopped going to church. Attendance of Sunday church services plunged well below 10% – a trend that aligns tightly with the continued secularization of British society that nevertheless is in line with other countries in mainland Europe.

Among the earlier strategies used by the Church to stem this membership drift was the popularization of Liberation Theology that was strongly moulded by a Marxist-Trotskyist philosophy.  This somewhat worked for some time but after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, they found that they needed a new adhesive. They found one through the re-invention of environmentalism as Climate Change, based on a theology that addressed a secular issue with Christian religious trappings.

Seen within this context, religious nuances in the video then becomes a mere tool deliberately employed by Christian Aid to stem the drift away by sizeable sections of their original core constituency. The wrap up line of the video is designed to create the impression with whatever Christian Aid exhorts children to do in the name of Climate Change  ‘God will be happy‘. But God in this case becomes a proxy for Nature at the sub-conscious level  The effect is created by skillfully blurring the distinction between the two – God and Nature The video’s basic plot blame humans for climate changes (sin) and in order to save the Planet they needed to act. The concept of sin is further equated to carbon indulgence.  However Christian Aid disguises all this in a complex web of theological rhetoric:

“If climate change crisis is to be addressed, the concept of structural sin urgently needs to be highlighted. In relational terms, while individual seeks to heal……the relationship between society as a whole and the natural world must be urgently addressed.”

This edifice of the borrowed ‘wider theology’ is no different from those followed by typical environmental groups such as Greenpeace whose founding meeting incidentally also took place at the basement of an Unitarian Church in Vancouver.  Jonah Goldberg in a paper called this the birth of Church of Green and further elaborated its significance:

‘Environmentalism’s most renewable resources are fear, guilt and moral bullying. Its worldview casts man as a sinful creature who, through the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, abandoned our Edenic past. Salvation comes from shedding our sins, rejecting our addictions (to oil, consumerism, etc.) and demonstrating an all-encompassing love of Mother Earth. Quoth Al Gore: “The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity‘

Michael Crichton commented in a similar vein:

‘There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe. Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday–these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs.’

The chapter on Sin: The Breakdown of Relationships in Christian Aid’s Climate Change policy document, All Creation Mourning, takes to quoting from the Al Gore book, ‘Inconvenient Truth’ clearly indicating that its climate change policy has less to do with the Bible but with Goreism – the wider theology from which Christian Aid seek inspiration from. Though the Bible propounds that while ‘Christ came into this world to give life abundantly‘, this leading development arm of Protestant Church in Britain has chosen to preach the Gospel of Global Doom! From a Christian institution that is expected to reflect hope to all humanity, Christian Aid morphed into an entity peddling hopelessness as illustrated by the title of its policy document: All Creation Moaning - quoting the Bible out of context. What a fall!  It led one Christian theologian to observe: “It has always been a temptation for the Christian Church to slavishly copy the latest trends of the day. While there is a place to present an unchanging message in new forms and expressions, it  becomes a tragedy when it comes at the expense of truth and good doctrine.”

However, a significant bulk of Christian Aid’s funding, even today still comes from a small minority of Church going Christians, many of who are aware that Climate Change is not even mentioned in the Bible. Christian Aid’s climate change policy documents acknowledge that these sections view environmentalism, leave alone, climate change,  with a certain degree of suspicion. They are the types that reason if Earth and its climate system is the product of a Creator, the Perfect Designer, a minuscule change in atmospheric chemistry should not lead to catastrophic climate changes. They even mock the thought that mankind can induce significant parametric changes to the Earth; dismissing it as ridiculous as ole (Viking) King Canute attempts to control the tide.  With all advances in knowledge and technology today, these sections feel that man remain totally helpless in trying to either trigger or stop a Tsunami, earthquake, snow storm or a cyclone.

The more Bible read among these sections remember the commandment in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 – ‘Test all things, hold fast what is good‘ a clear call for Christians to display skepticism as a way of life.  Such a world view inherently put them at odds with Christian Aid’s Climate Change policy which the recent skeptic surge could amplify only further. To these sections, the deliberate insertion of Christian religious nuances in Christian Aid’s videos then becomes an instrument to camouflage the true character of their climate policies.

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