The Christian and "Global Warming"

In the huge debate over what is popularly known as “climate change” or “global warming” what should be the Christian’s position?

Why should this issue even be a dilemma for the Christian? Well, because it seems to call into question some biblical truths as well as non-biblical assumptions. The real problem for Christians is that it is difficult for all of us to separate our assumptions about truth from truth itself. Let me offer an example from some comments left by a reader of an article on global warming found on the Christian news service, (OneNewsNow). The reader says in part,”…the Great Creator is in control of all things, including His beloved earth, and His Beloved Creation, the Church [italics added].” The writer assumes that God’s earth is beloved, perhaps because at one point in its history God did love the earth; according to Genesis 1:31 He considered it very good. What the reader fails to understand though, is that God cursed the earth after the fall of Adam, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee” (Gen. 3:17-18a, emphasis added). The earth is no longer beloved by God, at least not in the way this person assumes. The reader has not really separated Biblical truth from his own assumption about that truth. But he does point out one thing that was and still is true, when He says, “…the Great Creator is in control of all things.” This much is true. We know that primarily from the Bible (for instance, in Neh 9:6) and secondarily from history and lastly (but with obvious limitations) from our own personal experience.

So the first apparent obstacle presented to the Christian by climate change or global warming is the seeming threat to God’s control—His sovereignty—over His own creation and all His creatures. At no place in Scripture are we led to conclude that God is not in control of all existence, including His earthly creation. Hence, many Christians infer that we cannot—or should not—worry about or try to fix problems like global warming because it denies God’s sovereign will as well as His sovereign ability. But this is not real truth, it is half-truth at best. We are told in Genesis that God put the man He had formed from the ground into the Garden of Eden, “to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15, KJV). As well, when, after the fall, God drives Adam out of the garden, it is still to cultivate the land, just not in the Garden, “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken” (Gen. 3:23, emphasis added). What we deduce (by good and necessary consequence) from these verses is that God expects a certain kind of caring for or stewardship of the land. That was always Adam’s responsibility, both before and after the fall. And since Adam was our federal head as well as our progenitor, it is our responsibility as well. This means that we still have a God-ordained responsibility to care for the earth and to make it productive and fruitful. God nowhere relieves us of that duty of obedience. In this God has not relinquished His sovereignty, He has rather demonstrated it by commanding us to do His will.

We have a God-given responsibility to care for the earth, even in her fallen, corrupted nature after the manner of the gardener who cares for his garden. But if the science of global warming is true, it is not true in a vacuum. If global warming is causing pain or suffering, we must approach the problem on that basis. The earth is cursed. People are suffering because the earth is cursed; “in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (Gen. 3:17b). The cause of the curse is sin. These things are true and irrefutable. This being the case, it should not matter to the Christian if global warming is a man-created problem. We have never taken care of the earth as we ought to have done, our sin has seen to that. Global warming (if it really exists) can only be understood as another consequence of sin. Nor does it deny God’s sovereignty. God is in sovereign control but we cannot use that proposition to deny the reality of sin, however much we may wish to. God in His sovereign omnipotence and omniscience allowed the fall and therefore sin to happen. If we are so concerned about God’s sovereignty, why do we continue to disobey that sovereignty through our rebellious sin?

The globe appears to be undergoing dramatic climatic shifts, the like of which humans have not experienced (or at least recorded) before. I can’t imagine a person denying that. This could be part of the naturally recurring climatic patterns over geologic time or it could be a result of increasing green-house gas emissions caused by humans. It really doesn’t matter for Christians because we have our marching orders and our obligatory duty: subdue the earth, but care for her in doing so.

The second big problem for the Christian is that global warming is the result of burning “fossil” fuels. The existence of fossils seems to lend credence to the notion of evolution along with the refutation of the six days of creation. But here again, we are not separating out the truth from our assumption of the truth. The problem is that Christians deny global warming because they assume that to accept this proposition is to accept evolution and therefore deny creation. But really, this issue is much simpler than that. Oil, natural gas, coal and such like are in the ground. That is fact. In the context of the environment, it simply doesn’t matter how the fossil fuels got into the ground. This is not a theological issue. These fuels can be burned to release energy and so make it available for other uses (such as running our cars and trucks, as well as making the roads we run them along). That too is unavoidable fact. Dramatic climatic change because of CO2 emissions from burning such fossil fuels as oil or coal could very well be fact. (On the science of this I admit a large degree of ignorance.)

A third reason why Christians (in North America anyway) have not become involved in the issue of global warming, except largely to dismiss it, is the fact that the argument for global warming has been delineated as a political issue, specifically, it is a cause which has received greatest support from left-leaning non-Christians. This has acted as a dis-incentive for more conservative Christians, influencing them to either stay uninvolved or to take an opposing position from the perceived ungodly secularists on the left. But this is merely to bow the knee to those very same secularists. The problem is that Christian leaders have dropped the ball. They have let the secularists define the rules of the game and to frame the argument. As a consequence, Christians have been forced to be reactive rather than proactive (on this, but also on other issues such as homosexuality, abortion and the like).

On the other hand, ultra-conservative Christians have—in some ways—actually taken a more honest, biblical position in their refusal to become involved in this debate. They see themselves as sojurners and strangers on this earth, waiting for the fulfillment of their redemption, first in Heaven, then on the re-created new earth after the final judgment. The problem with this position is that it ignores the simple fact that we are all on this earth now and are called to be in the world though not of it. Moreover, the pietistic position is simply irrelevant to the greater, more vocal debate being carried on. These ultra-conservative, biblical Christians should rather be acting as a counter-point to the secularists, preventing them from high-jacking the issue as they obviously have. The mainstream church is completely ineffective in this as in all things. (I believe the future of the true Church is in the hands of these modern day Puritans and radical Biblicists. The mainstream church has simply caved in to the worldly agenda. It is no longer a church in the pure sense of the word.)

Given our God-ordained obligation not only to rule the earth but also to care for her, I’d say that the avoidance of Christians to take a clear position on stewardship of the earth because of political or possible theological implications is nothing more than grossly irresponsible. There are no theological implications other than those which are the result of the Fall of Man. Nor should Christians be averse to getting involved in political issues, especially those which pose a threat to our God-given mandate, in this case the stewardship of the earth, from which we came. There is a problem. We have a responsibility to mitigate the problem. Let’s get on with it! We as Christians must be concerned with mitigating the obvious physical symptoms of this problem. To do otherwise is simply to excuse our own sinfulness.