A BITTER rift over climate change has developed between a senior member of the Anglican Church and Sydney Catholic Archbishop George Pell.
Canberra Bishop George Browning, the Anglican Church’s global environmental chief said Cardinal Pell was out of step with his own church and made no sense on global warming.
Bishop Browning also criticised the Federal Government for its “utter obsession” with growth and warned that climate change refugees would be a bigger problem than terrorists in a century of desperate struggle.
At the national Anglican synod in Canberra yesterday, Bishop Browning attacked the cardinal for saying Jesus said nothing about climate change. “It’s almost unbelievable,” said Bishop Browning, who is the chairman of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network.
Now wait a second! We hear constantly that Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality either. Is there a rule book here somewhere? I can’t figure out how this game is played.
Liberal Anglicans (and liberal Catholics, it must be said), having lost the Christian faith, have substituted crisis environmentalism for it.
Now there are, I know, conservative Christians who believe the man-caused global warming story, but they don’t substitute it for their religion. This is a matter which is still under discussion in scientific circles, and the proposed “fixes” won’t work even by the analysis of their proponents. This matter is politics, not religion.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all do what we can personally to take reasonable steps to save energy and refrain from dumping trash in the air and in rivers and streams.
Well said, Katherine. Climate change will occur no matter what we do or don’t do. It has always been thus. Get used to it because it will happen.
OK, so the difference between Catholicism and Affirming Catholicism is that the Affirmers in contrast to the above affirm nonsense and are led by naked emperors (which might account for their attachment to [url=http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2018]curious vestments[/url]). Now there’s a theological explanation I can understand…
What’s their position on the National Electric Code?
[blockquote]Cardinal Pell replied scathingly that church leaders should be allergic to nonsense. “My task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people’s minds and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or no clothes,” he said. “Radical environmentalists are more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don’t need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness,” he said.[/blockquote]
One word………….[b]PWNED![/b] 🙂
Let me see if I understand something here. There have been at least “4” major Ice Age events that scientist know about. Would it be correct to assume that each of these would qualify as a “major climate change event?”
Who was responsible for these instances of “climate change?” Who was failing to act? What could have been done to head them off?
Few people realize that there was a “Little-Ice Age” which occurred in medieval/post medieval times. In fact, there was around a 70 year span of time where summers in Europe all but disappeared and with the snow and ice failing to completely melt away during the summer seasons. According to NASA’s “Earth Observatory”: [link]http://eobglossary.gsfc.nasa.gov/Library/glossary.php3?xref=Little%20Ice%20Age[/link]
[blockquote] LITTLE ICE AGE A cold period that lasted from about A.D. 1550 to about A.D. 1850 in Europe, North America, and Asia. This period was marked by rapid expansion of mountain glaciers, especially in the Alps, Norway, Ireland, and Alaska. There were three maxima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals. [/blockquote]
There have been two much smaller “Little Ice Ages” since and it’s important to note that Ice Ages, whether massive or mini, have always been preceded by a period of climatic warming. Hmmm!!!
There is geological evidence of numerous ice and warm ages. How severe ours is I couldn’t say. But it is interesting that the remains of tropical plants are found many feet below in the Arctic and Anarctic ice. Saw this many months ago on one of the science channels. Nuff said!
Pell has a great take on Islam too:
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5317&var_recherche=Pell+Islam
Obviously he differs from Peter Jensen, but the two have an interesting ‘ecumenism of the trenches’ for the great city of Sydney.
Am I the only evangelical Anglican who doesn’t care for Anglican attacks on Catholics, especially when they have little to do with theology and a lot to do with politics?
I literally have no opinion on climate change itself, but Bishop Browning’s response to it is quite hysterical and chicken-littleish. And that genocide comment gives hyperbole a bad name. Advantage Pell.
There is still no proof that Man is causing the current alleged global warming. But we do know that this planet on its own goes from ice Ages to warmth enough for giant dinosaurs and back again.
So let the scientists and politicians hash it over. And let us beware of left-wing politicians using the issue as a cover for pushing hard-core socialsm and right-wing politicians who care little for other environmental issues. But we should remember asceticism is extolled for Christians in the Bible and especially Church Tradition from the Desert Fathers. So if Man does cause part of the warming problem, there is a Christian answer–self-control instead of voracious personal consumption.
[i]So if Man does cause part of the warming problem, there is a Christian answer–self-control instead of voracious personal consumption.[/i]
I would think this would be prudent in the opposite, as well. Even if man is NOT causing part of the GW problem (and I don’t believe we are), then we are still called to global stewardship from the OT (God told A & E to “care for the garden” — not ‘trash’ it) and the NT in Jesus’ reiteration of “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — that means helping them to have clean air and water, learning good agricultural techniques, developing cheap forms of renewable energy, etc.
I don’t know where the idea came from that if one disbelieves ‘anthropgenic’ (human caused) global warming then one is against conservation, etc. That is certainly not the case in my household.
Peace
Jim Elliott <>< Christian AND environmentalist
Jim–I agree with you. And for a Christian good stewardship of the earth should begin with copying the call and example of the Bible and the Desert Fathers for moderation and asceticism on our own part before we go out to save the world through clean water projects, cheap energy,etc.