World Climate Summit
While all eyes are turned
to the UN Climate Summit COP26 in Glasgow, I miss an official statement from my
church on the agenda being discussed there. World leaders are trying to find a
way to reduce global warming to 1.5 degrees so that life on this planet is not
extinguished. The major churches are participating in the discussion. Everyone
is aware of the urgency. Now action is required, not just words.
I would have liked to
hear at least some words from my church leadership, which seems to be saying
goodbye to the world at the moment. The imminent end of the world at Christ's
return is being preached, but the preparation for it seems to be limited only
to doctrinal proclamation. If the world will be destroyed by fire at Christ's return
anyway, to be recreated by God, it is no longer so important to many believers
to save this old world, even though God gave humans the task of taking care of
creation.
While I was pondering
whether I had missed something, an article was published in Spectrum Magazine
(Volume 49, Issue 4)[1] by David F. Garner in
which he examines SDA attitudes toward ecology. Although Adventists have always
promoted a simple, nature-centered way of life, eschewing meat even in their
diet, they have never been particularly vocal about conservation. Commitment
was left to the individual.
The church focused on
preaching its doctrines and did not see it as its primary task to advocate
environment conservation, even though the message of the first angel in
Revelation 14:6-9 calls for worshiping the Creator who made heaven and earth.
Even today, much emphasis is placed on these three angels' messages. That the
first message relates directly to the Creator, and that His worship is directly
related to how we treat the environment is rarely considered.
When the environmental
movement took off in the 1970s, the church was not opposed to it but felt that
being a small church with limited resources it could not make much of a
difference. That may have been true at the time, but today the SDA church has
more than 20 million members worldwide, which is a considerable size. Moreover,
it would no longer be alone in its commitment, when governments and churches
are calling for action to be taken.
Since Adventists are
interested in the health message, it seems odd that they would distance
themselves from the environmental movement. Celeste Ryan Blyden put it well,
" Of all God’s people, it seems odd that we would be so silent on the
issue. Yet I have not heard one sermon, seen one magazine or Adventist
television program, or read any Sabbath School lessons on the topic."[2] As to stewardship, the
church seems to be mainly concerned only with finances. The Bible is clear,
however, that what matters to God is environmental stewardship: "The time
has come ...... for destroying those who destroy the earth" Revelation
11:18 NIV.
A recent United Nations
report concluded that faith communities can have an "immense" impact
on sustainable living and development. Why then are Adventists not at the
forefront of sustainability and environmental protection? It is encouraging,
then, that on February 22, 2021, the two German Unions called for
"Sustainable Faith" and committed to it in their administrative work.[3]
Almost 30 years ago, on
October 12, 1992, the Executive Committee of the General Conference of
Seventh-day Adventists issued a statement on environmental issues at the annual
council.[4] It reads as follows:
Seventh-day Adventists are committed to respectful,
cooperative relationships among all persons, recognizing our common origin and
realizing our human dignity as a gift from the Creator. Since human poverty and
environmental degradation are interrelated, we pledge ourselves to improve the
quality of life for all people. Our goal is a sustainable development of
resources while meeting human needs.<
Genuine progress toward caring for our natural
environment rests upon both personal and cooperative effort. We accept the
challenge to work toward restoring God’s overall design. Moved by faith in God,
we commit ourselves to promote the healing that rises at both personal and
environmental levels from integrated lives dedicated to serve God and humanity.
In this commitment we confirm our stewardship of God’s creation and believe
that total restoration will be complete only when God makes all things new.
Adventists have so much
to contribute to sustainability. The article in Spectrum Magazine points out
how much our philosophy of life is in harmony with environmental protection.
However, we could reduce our ecological footprint even more if we were more
intentional about it. In this day and age, we could raise our voices to work in
unison with environmental activists to save the world. Surely that would be a
timely message we could proclaim despite the imminent expectation of Christ's
return.
We hear lots of words.
Good words. These words need to be said, but as the Queen said, "The time
for words has given way to the time for action." We are seeing the
consequences of climate change. Maybe we are finally learning from all the
disasters we are experiencing that climate change is not a hoax, even though we
may not be directly affected by a disaster right now. We will all have to pay
the price one way or another. We need to take better care of what God has entrusted
to us.
UK Government -
https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/cop26, OGL 3,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99448137
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