Two summers ago I traveled from Maine to England to participate in the Lambeth Conference. Held every 10 years at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the conference gathers more than 800 Anglican bishops from countries all over the world. In conversation with fellow bishops from many developing countries and places where global warming is effecting rapid and dramatic change in the environment and in the fragile lives of citizens, I saw with new eyes the way we are contributing to the problem.
In my Bible study group was the Convener of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, the Archbishop of Canberra (Australia). He spoke of the growing and persistent drought in central Australia, drought that was drying up the rivers, killing the cattle industry and expanding the desert.
“For you in the temperate Northern Hemisphere,” he said, “global warming is an interesting scientific concept to be debated. For us, it’s life and death! And you just keep driving your SUVs.”
http://www.sunjournal.com/node/831283
Come, Lord Jesus, that the earth will be filled with the Glory of God as the waters cover the sea. You O Lord, are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You are the “most important issue of our time.”
Forgive us when we modernists can’t handle the fact that your created universe is not under our complete control and want to reshape it to include our self-important image. Shine the light of your truth into our darkness that we may saved. We pray for your kingdom come especially in the scientific community, and ask that you guard and protect us in these troubling times.
Ultimately, the climate will change drastically, permanently and irreversibly for each of us as the result of our choices and actions. We will each be in either an ideal, even heavenly 😉 climate forever, or a global-warming-on-steroids hellish 😉 climate forever. [i]This[/i] climate change is the most important issue of our time, of all time, and of the end of time!
If Bishop Lane had significant numbers of poor, non-white people in his congregations, he wouldn’t be writing stuff like this.
One of the reasons we misuse the planet is that for many people that misuse allows their survival.
I am so tired of reading statements by persons having no real knowledge of a very complex issue making such conclusions based on the anecdotal evidence of other persons who also have no real knowledge of a very complex issue. Instead, the good bishop should ponder the stats of his own diocese. For example, 179 Infant Baptisms and 305 Burials in 2008. Also in 2008, 39 of his 66 churches had ASA of 70 or less with 9 of these having 20 or less. Again in 2008, 50 of the 66 churches had Plate & Pledge of less than $150K which means that each “rich” church had 3 “poor” churches to help. Statmann
Thanks, as always, Statmann (#4), for chiming in with relevant stats from +Lane’s own diocese that shows how deep are the problems his little collection of 66 mostly small churches face. I share your annoyance with the blithe dicta of ignorant PC know-it-alls like the lame bishop of Maine.
I note that this guy is eager to travel to the Rochester, NY area (more precisely, Bath) to participate in an SSB when a prominent gay priest there gets his marriage blessed by no less than THREE bishops later this summer. You begin to wonder if +Stephen Lane ever met a liberal social and political cause he didn’t like.
These kind of vapid, silly pronouncements by TEC bishops only reinforce the sense that for many of them, religion is merely a convenient venue for promoting liberal political causes, and where a supposed Social Gospel has completely replaced any authentically biblical gospel.
David Handy+
I cannot agree more with Fr. Handy. This church leadership of ours has become a liberal political lobbying group – we even have the EPPN, which send out emails to Episcopalians to send their Congresspersons emails, letters and phone calls for certain liberal bills coming up for votes in Congress. I ask, “Why?” Why can our church not allow Caesar to collect what is Caesar’s, and why cannot our church stick to its own business of spreading the one true Gospel and carrying out The Great Commission? Why can our church, strapped for money, not use its money for what is intended, instead of trying to influence Caesar to do something? If our church did what a church should do (see above), we would have no money problems, no political problems, no problems that would divide us permanently. Our church leaders have lost their way of why they are where they are. They have become political pawns … and sadly, they seem to think they are big political pawns, but, in fact, they seem awfully small. They are giving up what should be their real vocations for a very small political voice, that is, in reality, probably not even heard by those to whom they speak, since the potential for votes from that small voice is so small itself. They seem deluded.
I am considering a visit to Maine this summer – I presume +Lane would rather that I just stay at home? These people just give no thought to the practical ramifications of their positions….
I do think climate change is important; I’m not sure how to evaluate if it is the most important.
I’m skeptical of our ability to pull back from the brink. We’re a bit too selfish. However, there may be some reason to consider the amount we do pollute and institute policies that restrict carcinogens in our environment.
I think climate change is important too.
I vote that TEC come up with a new liturgy that allows us to sacrifice Al Gore to the volcano God.
If that doesn’t work, we could try sacrificing Lane, Schori, and sundry others to “Mother” Gaia.
After all, the Gaia worshipers and their disciples in TEC have already decreed that we should all tithe a minimum of ten percent in energy taxes to their Gods, why not go all the way? Makes sense to me.
Of course, we are called to be good stewards of the terrestrial home God has given us to exercise dominion over. Seems the more important charge given us is – “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” If the center of your world is Gaia, though ………
RE: “I vote that TEC come up with a new liturgy that allows us to sacrifice Al Gore to the volcano God.
If that doesn’t work, we could try sacrificing Lane, Schori, and sundry others to “Mother†Gaia.”
Suddenly I too am becoming more interested in environmentalism — especially this sort of thing! ; > )