Why Creation Care Matters to Our Faith

Why Creation Care Matters to Our Faith from Northland Church on Vimeo.

Dr. Joel C. Hunter speaks to Central Florida's faith community on May 4 at Leu Gardens. Sponsored by Central Florida Energy Efficiency Alliance (CFEEA).

FAITH IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE: CREATION CARE

Part 6 in a series of teachings from Dr. Joel C. Hunter about how to approach today’s issues biblically, respectfully and effectively.

US Evangelical churches pray for Gulf Coast communities

By Michelle A Vu, Christian Post

Evangelical churches across the US, including several megachurches, joined in a national day of prayer for the Gulf Coast community on Sunday.

The National Day of Prayer for the Gulf, sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Evangelical Environmental Network, brought Christians together in praying for the residents of the Gulf Coast impacted by the BP oil spill.

Organisers had planned to pray for the oil to stop gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, but now that the new containment cap seems to be stopping the oil leak, the prayers focused instead on the long-term recovery process.

“I do think the shift in emphasis will be how do we ask God for His help and the help of the church in the long-term recovery process both in nature and in terms of people’s livelihood,” the Rev Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed near Orlando, Florida, told The Christian Post on Friday.

Hunter, who is an NAE board member, said he plans to talk to his congregation on Sunday during “family time” about the oil spill and ask them to pray for the affected Gulf Coast communities.

Somewhere between 94 and 184 million gallons of oil have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since the April 20 drilling rig explosion, according to government estimates. BP was able to stop the oil from gushing into the Gulf for the first time on Thursday after nearly three months.

Experts are still analysing the pressure in the well to determine if there is a leak elsewhere. The pressure as of Friday was 6,700 pounds per square inch, which means there could be a leak or that so much oil has spilled that it will take time to build up pressure, according to CNN. A pressure higher than 7,500 psi would indicate a low chance of a leak.

The Rev Mitch Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network, was in several Gulf Coast states this weekend to pray with local Christians for their communities.

He recalled memories from his trip to the Gulf Coast in June.

"I think the most poignant was putting my hands in the oil and just seeing how it stains all of creation – the grass, the water, and even the animal – and hearing the people tell their stories how they can no longer shrimp or get oysters out of those waters, and that their whole life was destroyed,” Hescox said.

The evangelical environmentalist said the feeling among the people he met in the Gulf Coast is that it will take decades to clean up the devastation from the oil spill. Yet despite the great obstacles they see ahead, Christians in the area remain hopeful that God will “correct the problem”, he said.

“God is the source of their strength,” said Hescox, who will be in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana this weekend to pray with the Gulf Coast communities. “When someone would start talking negatively, others would jump in and say God will deliver us we have to keep hope and have to trust in God.”

Churches in the Gulf Shores, Alabama-area held an inter-denominational sunrise service Sunday on the beach at Gulf State Park.

The Rev Leith Anderson, president of the NAE and senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, said the leaders of the seven Sunday services at his church would lead congregants in prayer for the Gulf Coast communities.

“America has a long tradition of calling for prayer when we face national challenges,” Anderson told The Christian Post. “The Gulf oil spill is a major national challenge. We are just doing what Americans and evangelicals have been doing throughout our history.”

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/us.evangelical.churches.pray.for.gulf.coast.communities/26307.htm

Oprah.com: Interview With Pastor Joel Hunter

Environmental journalist Simran Sethi interviews Pastor Joel Hunter about the ways the green movement and religion intersect—and why it should be such a natural fit.

Dems put faith in religious right to help boost party agenda

By Alexander Bolton - 05/17/10 07:13 PM ET

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) have turned to evangelical Christians in a last-ditch effort to move immigration reform and climate change legislation.

Democrats are making a direct appeal to the GOP base by turning to evangelical Christian and other religious leaders, and there’s some evidence that the talks could be fruitful.

“We’re encouraging Southern Baptists to reach out to senators and congressmen to encourage Democrats and Republicans to quit playing politics and deal with immigration reform in a fair way,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

“The political will to deport 12 million people isn’t there,” he said, referring to the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the nation.

The effort comes after Schumer and Kerry spent months negotiating with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to build GOP support for two of President Barack Obama’s top initiatives.

Despite those talks, both were forced to unveil legislative proposals in the last few weeks without any Republican co-sponsors.

Republican leaders have told their colleagues not to sign on to any Democratic proposals before clearing it with the entire GOP conference, but some of the country’s staunchest conservatives want to see action in Washington on climate change and immigration reform.

Schumer called Land last week to ask if he could join a conference call with evangelical leaders on immigration reform, according to Land.

“He asked if he could have three minutes to be part of the conference call,” Land said, referring to a call leaders held last week to promote a pro-immigration reform newspaper ad taken out by the National Association of Evangelicals.

The ad called on Congress to pass bipartisan immigration reform that included several principles, such as respecting “the God-given dignity of every person”; respecting the rule of law; guaranteeing secure national borders; and establishing a path toward legal status or citizenship for those who qualify and wish to become residents.

White Southern Baptists are considered among the most conservative voters of the electorate. And with more than 16 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is a powerful force in Republican politics.

Kerry has also reached out to evangelical leaders to spur Republicans to support his 1,000-page climate bill.

“It’s been unusual, but these are what we see as two very moral issues that have a lot of implications for a lot of families and definitely affect the vulnerable,” said Dr. Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland, a mega-church in central Florida.

Hunter, a Republican-turned-independent who delivered the closing prayer at the 2008 Democratic convention, said Kerry approached him to build bipartisan support for the bill.

“They came to me,” said Hunter. “This has been a more recent pattern with the Democrats — they’re really broadening and including the voice of faith communities to build a consensus on these moral and biblical issues.”

Democrats hope evangelicals can persuade Republicans such as Graham and Sens. Richard Lugar (Ind.) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) to support an energy and climate bill.

Some evangelicals are more allied with the GOP than others, and some don’t see eye to eye on all the issues.

Land and Hunter, for example, agree on the need to pass immigration reform, but Land does not support a proposal to limit carbon emissions. Still, while Land has not endorsed Schumer’s proposal, political observers are surprised they’re even working together.

“It’s very surprising,” said Hunter. “These are times of interesting coalitions.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made subtle appeals to faith-driven voters by invoking the language of evangelical leaders when calling for passage of climate change legislation.

“I think it is essential to the health of our children that we reduce emissions in the air,” Pelosi said at a recent press conference. “And for those of us who believe — and I think most of us do — that this is God’s creation, we have a moral responsibility to preserve his creation.”

Land said he has noticed Pelosi invoking God’s name more often.

“I’m all for it,” he said.

The Rev. Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network said addressing climate change follows the teachings of Jesus to minister to the poor.

“We call being an environmentalist creation care,” said Ball. “God is the creator and we’re called to steward or take care of his creation. When it comes to the issue of climate change, it’s primarily about the poor, because the poor are going to be impacted the hardest.”

Burns Strider, a former aide to Pelosi, has kept in touch with evangelical and Christian groups around the country, such as the Christian Coalition of Alabama.

Randy Brinson, head of Alabama’s Christian Coalition, said he talks regularly with Strider, who is trying to build support for climate legislation.

Brinson said his group does not support the cap-and-trade proposal passed last year by the House but could get behind a modified plan.

“We’re trying to be reasonable arbiters,” he said. “We’re trying to bring the two extremes to a more reasonable position.”

Democrats have made sporadic efforts to reach out to evangelical Christians over the years.

Those efforts became more serious when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean took over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2005.

Some skeptics speculate that Democrats turn to evangelical voters when their political fortunes drop, but Dean dismissed that theory.

He said the new efforts by Schumer and Kerry are part of the party’s evolving relationship with Christian voters.

Dean said he was essentially forced to hold clandestine meetings with Land and other evangelical leaders when he first took over at the DNC.

“We would have to meet at hotels and arrive and leave at different times,” Dean said. “It’s not like it was really clandestine, but they wouldn’t come to the DNC. We would have to go to Capitol Hill Suites and did have to agree to come and go five minutes apart from each other.”

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/98289-dems-put-faith-in-religious-right-to-help-boost-agenda

Let There Be Light

IPL National Conference Keynote — Rev. Joel Hunter from Interfaith Power & Light on Vimeo.

Pastor Hunter gives the keynote speech at the Interfaith Power and Light National Conference in Washington, DC, May 3, 2010.

American Power Act Announcement

Dr. Joel C. Hunter stands with government officials and power company executives in support of The American Power Act, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions at the country’s biggest polluters including power plants, heavy industry and transportation.

DR. HUNTER'S COMMENTS AT THE ANNOUNCEMENT (37 minutes in):
"Added to the obvious practical benefits of this package is its moral aspect. It is never too early or too late to do the right thing. All religions and non-believers alike have a sense that being a good steward of the earth and atmosphere is the right thing to do. The Bible, the Koran, the Vedas of the Eastern traditions all say that to protect the earth is to honor God. In Genesis 2:15, God orders us to cultivate the earth and keep it. That means we have to balance protection with production. We are not just interested in fighting pollution but poverty as well, 'green' should mean a growing economy as well as healthy environment.

"And the time for action is now. It is the business of those with a political perspective to calculate success, but legislative success is not the standard for moral action. I don't want to be standing before God on Judgement Day saying, 'I would have worked to protect the earth and the poor but I didn't think we had the votes.' It's never too early or too late to do the right thing."

Pastor: God Communicates through Word and Nature

God communicates with people through the written word and through nature, said a Florida megachurch pastor on the eve of Earth Day.

Pastor Joel Hunter of Northland, a Church Distributed, in Longwood, Fla., cited Romans 1:20 Wednesday evening at the Hope for Creation event. He said like the Bible verse, which says God’s invisible qualities can be seen through creation, God allows people to understand Him through nature.

“The word of God is really both nature and Scripture but in Scripture it commands us to do exactly what we are doing tonight, and that is to guard God’s creation,” said Hunter, who co-hosted the Hope for Creation event with Dr. Matthew Sleeth, the founder of Blessed Earth and the visionary behind the event.

Tens of thousands of people from some 40 countries attended the first-ever global simulcast for a church-based creation care event. The townhall-style conversation about creation care was broadcast online from Northland Church.

“This is a historic event. A conversation of global consequences and what I believe can be the tipping point for the church to take the lead that says today we stop the generational sin of pollution,” said Hunter. “Today we stop making the future generation sick because we have misused the great gift of God’s creation.”

During the event, Sleeth fielded questions sent in by people watching online and those in the audience at Northland Church.

He told those who wonder why creation care is important to being a follower of Jesus that the first job assignment God gave humans was to care for the Earth. Sleeth also gave a 90-second sermon on trees in which he highlighted that in the Bible trees usually symbolize God, such as the tree of life, the burning bush, and the vine. And he noted that Jesus’ father was a carpenter and worked with trees, Jesus died on a tree, and Mary mistakes Jesus as a gardener.

Sleeth stated that trees appear more in the Bible than any other living thing except humans.

“As followers of Christ we can’t go out into the world and make disciples while simultaneously destroying the water and air and creatures that God loves,” Sleeth said. “If we don’t respect the world around us we are missing a major part that God commanded us to do. Simply put the Great Commission is a green Commission. It is time for the church to take a leadership role in what God tells us to do.”

Sleeth left his job as a director of an emergency room after realizing that the biggest problem the world is facing today is that the world is dying. Around the time he realized this problem he also became a Christian.

The ER doctor-turned-creation-care minister encourages Christians to make simple lifestyle changes that include recycling, using energy efficient light bulbs, and purchasing sustainable products.

“We are a country of churches and together tonight we are gathered with a church (simulcast) that extends around the planet,” said Sleeth. “It’s my prayer, and it has been my fervent prayer, that tonight would be a beginning of our church working together in the United States and around the world in understanding the influence, power and responsibility we have to be part of this conversation and part of the solution.”

Hunter shared that in an effort to be better stewards of the earth his church has carried out waste, water and energy audits in order to set benchmarks to measure against. Though not mentioned, Northland also hosted the first-ever Creation Care Conference (C3) in 2008 and participated in a “green day of recycling” in January 2009. During the green day of recycling, congregants brought old items to the church where they were donated to charity or properly recycled.

“This (creation care) should be our subject,” Hunter said emphatically. “But people are all freaked out when you start talking about the environment. You got to defuse the whole thing and put it back in a biblical context. This is a matter of obedience.”

Blessed Earth, as described by the Sleeths, is an educational non-profit that helps churches and schools learn what the Bible says about caring for the Earth. The ministry serves as a “bridge” between those who love the Creator but do not know about creation care and those that love creation but do not know the Creator.

Michelle A. Vu Christian Post Reporter

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100422/pastorgod-communicates-through-word-and-nature/

Learning From the Sin of Sodom

Dear Friends,

There is a great article in today's New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, who has written about what a huge mistake it would be not to channel government money through faith-based organizations for international aid. Read below or at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html.

Blessings, Pastor Joel

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Learning From the Sin of Sodom

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”

Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.

A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.

“What sickened me most was this question: where was the Church?” he writes. “Where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the Church should have been caring for these ‘orphans and widows in their distress.’ (James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion?

“How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?”

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

Some Americans assume that religious groups offer aid to entice converts. That’s incorrect. Today, groups like World Vision ban the use of aid to lure anyone into a religious conversation.

Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.

A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.

USA Today: Activists who redefine "evangelical" call for Haiti debt relief

The crisis of biblical proportions in Haiti has brought out the full spectrum of the faithful to offer emergency aid. Now, a start-up group of progressive Protestants is launching itself with a campaign to erase Haiti's debts so the crippled nation can focus on rebuilding.

The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good -- led by marquee activists, academics, seminar profs and pastors such as Rev. Richard Cizik -- was originally going to launch later this month but stepped up to the publicity megaphone to call attention to Haiti's need beyond emergency relief. Their release says, "We believe that Jesus calls us to work together to set free those who are held captive by debt."

You remember Cizik from headlines in 2008, when the long-time head of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals resigned under fire for hinting support for gay unions in a radio interview.

Evidently, Jesus doesn't call people who disagree about the Bible to work together on issues. Cizik's outspoken concern for global climate change issues had already made him a target with big name conservatives such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. But, in recent years, the e-word (evangelical) banner, once owned by Christians with conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality, has become a flag flown by any Protestant with a social justice focus and a contemporary focus on the Gospel.

Partnership executive director Rev. Steven Martin, formerly with Partnership co-founder David Gushee's group, Evangelicals for Human Rights, says they didn't want to wait to campaign for debt forgiveness. Although two thirds of Haiti's debt, held by other governments and major institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, has been forgiven already, the remaining billions could cost Haiti as much as $50 million a year to service. That's money Haiti needs for rebuilding, says Martin.

Their release quotes Gushee calling the Partnership, "a new way to bear witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ. We have yearned to offer a better model for how Christians address public issues; to be known for always standing up for those whom God loves but the world or the church often mistreat or neglect."

Don't look for Dobson or any other megawatt megachurch conservatives (with the exception of Rev. Joel Hunter, of Northland Church in Orlando, who also serves on President Obama's Council for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships) on the list of signators.

The Partnership's website's includes its stands -- often written with highly nuanced phrasing -- on hot issues such reproductive rights, gay marriage and environmentalism. For example:

We stand against the collapse of marriage and for stronger family life. We are involved in efforts to strengthen the fading institution of marriage and thereby protecting and enhancing the well-being of children. We do not believe that denigrating the dignity and denying the human rights of gays and lesbians is a legitimate part of a "pro-family" Christian agenda, and will work to reform Christian attitudes and treatment of lesbian and gay people.

This time, no one's going to shove Cizik out the door for saying so.

Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/topics/post/Events+and+Awards/In-depth+Coverage/Haiti+Earthquake/16364.blog/1