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Separate Theology from Global Warming

Three questions: Does God want people to preserve and clean the environment? Does God want people to change the Earth's climate? And are the two connected?

The answer is yes, yes and yes, according to the New Wine, New Wineskins October conference, "Boiling Point."

All seven conference speakers presented global warming as a human-created catastrophe that mankind must stop. Dr. Paul Metzger said New Wine could find no speakers to offer an alternative viewpoint.

Unfortunately, using a consensus panel to address this topic did not engage a culture so heavily divided over the issue, and it resembled other propaganda machines running on God-says-so fuel.

Speakers such as the Rev. Richard Cizik and Dr. Metzger offered compelling theological arguments for environmental cleansing. Peter Illyn presented worthwhile, practical suggestions for lowering fossil fuel consumption, conserving electricity and reducing waste. He impacted the audience with an exhortation to view "creation care" as another way to love your neighbor and love God.

However, that excellent support for green living should not have been attached to something as theoretical and politicized as the human-caused global warming model. Doing so weakened a good message.

To be frank, anyone claiming that the scientific community has reached consensus on this issue is grossly disengaged with his or her culture. Such declarations, appealing to emotion rather than fact, are unnecessarily divisive and have an insignificant impact on actual environmental preservation.

Boiling Point speakers could have addressed the true costs and benefits of constructing wind and solar power grids on a global level. They should have, at least once throughout the day, acknowledged the real effects of environmental law on the Third World's ability to progress out of poverty.

Nobody seeking to motivate people toward green living should rehash the same old global warming talking points through an evangelical lens, especially with a single-perspective speaker panel. That will always fasten good environmental sense to theoretical predictions and lead to nowhere productive.

Boiling Point, albeit hip to today's hottest political trend, exemplified a perfect way to further polarize communities and trivialize good theology.

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