CHRISTIANS AND CLIMATE

The "Evangelical Climate Initiative" is an important and urgent statement about how Christian discipleship relates to care of the planet. Followers of Christ in the Western world have often not considered how climate change affects the poor and vulnerable more than it does others, but the ECI helps us see this clearly. What's more, I found the stated reasons for the necessity of an active response by Christians to climate change to be both persuasive and compelling:

• "Christians must care about climate change because we love God the Creator and Jesus our Lord, through whom and for whom the creation was made. This is God's world, and any damage that we do to God's world is an offense against God Himself (Gen. 1; Ps. 24; Col. 1:16).
  
• Christians must care about climate change because we are called to love our neighbors, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and to protect and care for the least of these as though each was Jesus Christ himself (Mt. 22:34-40; Mt. 7:12; Mt. 25:31-46).
  
• Christians, noting the fact that most of the climate change problem is human induced, are reminded that when God made humanity he commissioned us to exercise stewardship over the earth and its creatures. Climate change is the latest evidence of our failure to exercise proper stewardship, and constitutes a critical opportunity for us to do better (Gen. 1:26-28)."

The Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College recently hosted a lecture series on "Global Climate Change: A Faithful Response," in which Dr. Duane Litfin, President of Wheaton College and a signer of the ECI, was a participant. Wheaton's CACE also offers a brief review of the documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth."

May the Lord grant us wisdom and courage to face these enormous challenges!