With the hardness of our hearts, it is easy to look at massive tragedy such as the cyclone (hurricane) that hit Myanmar (Burma) this week and then quickly turn away and forget.
John Piper has “6 ways to react to the cyclone“
- Be softened to the pain nearby.
- Pray for the followers of Christ in Myanmar.
- Pray for the millions of unbelievers near the calamity and far from it.
- Pray for those of us who live in the seeming security and prosperity of America
- Give money to replenish the coffers of compassion “since you also are in the body”
- Muster a team from your church, and when the doors are open, be ready to go.
Piper gives specific ideas for how to pray for each of these on his Desiring God blog.
Grace and Peace
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This might be a new word for you: vog.
Vog is volcanic smog, produced when sulfuric acid and other gases emitted by volcanoes mixes with oxygen and water vapor in the presence of sunlight. It can cause or aggravate respiratory problems among humans and damage plants. Below is an image showing this noxious gas around Hawaii, where Kilauea, which has been erupting continuously since 1983, produces large quantities of vog.
The image is from NASA Earth Observatory.
Wikipedia article on vog.
USGS page on vog, from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Grace and Peace
P.S. Kilauea releases about 1000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere per day. This is small compared to the 200,000 tons of sulfur dioxide that is released into the atmosphere per day through burning of fossil fuels and other industrial processes.
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Cyclone Nargis (a cyclone is the same thing as a hurricane or typhoon) struck Myanmar (Burma) this week. Over 10,000 people are dead, and more will die of disease in the upcoming days and weeks. Satellite imagery shows the extent of flooding, and could be useful in saving lives if action is taken quickly. The following images are from the NASA Earth Observatory.
The top image shows the area around the Irrawaddy River delta before the cyclone hit, with the distributary branches of the river clearly discernable. The bottom image shows the extensive flooding following the storm, with the capitol city of Yangon almost surrounded by water, and many low-lying areas completely covered.
We live in a world of suffering. Pray for the people on the ground.
Grace and Peace
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After 9000 years of dormancy, Chaiten Volcano in Chile stirred to life on May 2nd. The images below show the plume of ash extending from Chile, across Argentina, and out over the Atlantic ocean on May 5th. The eruption has forced the evacuation of two nearby towns, and an estimated 25,000 cattle near the volcano could die of starvation because their food is covered by up to 15 cm of ash.
The story and images can be found on the NASA Earth Observatory site.
Grace and Peace
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Christianity Today has a brief article on amateur archeologists who mount expeditions searching for Noah’s Ark: Finders of the Lost Ark?
A number of explorers have laid claim to discovering Noah’s Ark, usually on or near Mount Ararat in Turkey. But each always finds something different. Obviously, logic dictates that they can’t all be right—and most must be wrong. Churches and Christian conferences have hosted speakers who tell fantastic tales—in fact, too fantastic. Time after time we have realized that their discoveries have as much historical value as The Da Vinci Code. As much as we would like to believe them, their claims remain speculative and unproven.
The article contrasts the sensational claims of amateurs such as Ron Wyatt and Robert Cornuke, who have both claimed to find the real Noah’s Ark, with the rather tedious work of professional archeologists, who put together the stories of civilizations one pottery piece at a time. Wild speculation will always find an audience, but will fade quickly with time. Like the rest of life, most work of Biblical archeology is done one little bit at a time.
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This item was originally posted in December 2006. In honor of Earth Day, it is now part of my blog recycling program. Because I have new readers of The GeoChristian, I will occasionally go back and re-use some of my best blog entries.
The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy has produced a document called The Chicago Statement on Biblical Application. Article XVI of this statement is about the environment:
Article XVI: Stewardship of the Environment
We affirm that God created the physical environment for His own glory and for the good of His human creatures.
We affirm that God deputized humanity to govern the creation.
We affirm that mankind has more value than the rest of creation.
We affirm that mankind’s dominion over the earth imposes a responsibility to protect and tend its life and resources.
We affirm that Christians should embrace responsible scientific investigation and its application in technology.
We affirm that stewardship of the Lord’s earth includes the productive use of its resources which must always be replenished as far as possible.
We affirm that avoidable pollution of the earth, air, water, or space is irresponsible.
We deny that the cosmos is valueless apart from mankind.
We deny that the biblical view authorizes or encourages wasteful exploitation of nature.
We deny that Christians should embrace the countercultural repudiation of science or the mistaken belief that science is the hope of mankind.
We deny that individuals or societies should exploit the universe’s resources for their own advantage at the expense of other people and societies.
We deny that a materialistic worldview can provide an adequate basis for recognizing environmental values.
I heartily endorse this kind of thinking. It states the high value of creation without minimizing the importance of humans. Many in the environmentalist movement deny or minimize the value of humans. May we in the Christian community not go to the other extreme, only giving lip service to the value of the creation.
Grace and Peace
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Application is found at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals website.
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This item was originally posted for Earth Day, 2006 (Earth Day is held on April 22nd). It is now part of my blog recycling program. Because I have more people reading The GeoChristian now than I did then, I will occasionally go back and re-use some of my favorite blog entries.
We all seem to like nature–we teach our children to throw their trash in trash cans and send them to summer camp in the mountains or woods–but beyond this, Christian response to environmental issues is varied. I’ll try to give some additional thoughts about the environment as the week progresses.
A good internet article summarizing a Christian perspective on the environment is Christian Environmentalism by Dr. Ray Bohlin of Probe Ministries. Here are some quotes from the article:
What we fail to realize is that Christians have a sacred responsibility to the earth and the creatures within it. The earth is being affected by humans in an unprecedented manner, and we do not know what the short or long term effects will be.
But while pantheism elevates nature, it simultaneously degrades man and will ultimately degrade nature as well.
A true Christian environmental ethic differs from the naturalistic and pantheistic ethics in that it is based on the reality of God as Creator and man as his image-bearer and steward. God is the Creator of nature, not part of nature.
Nature has value in and of itself because God created it.
But a responsibility goes along with bearing the image of God. In its proper sense, man’s rule and dominion over the earth is that of a steward or a caretaker, not a reckless exploiter. Man is not sovereign over the lower orders of creation. Ownership is in the hands of the Lord.
An effective steward understands that which he oversees, and science can help us discover the intricacies of nature. Technology puts the creation to man’s use, but unnecessary waste and pollution degrades it and spoils the creation’s ability to give glorify to its creator. I think it is helpful to realize that we are to exercise dominion over nature not as though we are entitled to exploit it but as something borrowed or held in trust.
The source of our ecological crisis lies in man’s fallen nature and the abuse of his dominion.
Our often uncontrolled greed and haste have led to the deterioration of the environment.
We have spoken out loudly against the materialism of science as expressed in the issues of abortion, human dignity, evolution, and genetic engineering, but have shown ourselves to be little more than materialists in our technological orientation towards nature.
By failing to fulfill our responsibilities to the earth, we are losing a great evangelistic opportunity. Many in our society are seeking an improved environment, yet they think that most Christians don’t care about ecological issues and that most churches offer no opportunity for involvement.
Grace and Peace
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Earth Day is coming on April 22nd. Here’s a quote to get us thinking Biblically about our stewardship of the Earth:
“There is one ultimate owner in the universe, God. All others are trustees.” –John Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, p. 89
Grace and Peace
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Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Click on the picture to go to the site. This little version does not do the picture justice. I think it is one of the best astronomy landscapes that has appeared on APOD in all its years.
The APOD description:
This sky is protected. Yesterday marked the 50 year anniversary of the first lighting ordinance ever enacted, which restricted searchlight advertisements from sweeping the night skies above Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. Flagstaff now enjoys the status of being the first International Dark Sky City, and maintains a lighting code that limits lights from polluting this majestic nighttime view. The current dark skies over Flagstaff not only enable local astronomers to decode the universe but allow local sky enthusiasts to see and enjoy a tapestry contemplated previously by every human generation. The above image, pointing just east of north, was taken two weeks ago at 3 am from Fort Valley, only 10 kilometers from central Flagstaff. Visible in the above spectacular panorama are the San Francisco Peaks caped by a lenticular cloud. Far in the distance, the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy arcs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right, highlighted by the constellations of Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cygnus. On the far right, the North America Nebula is visible just under the very bright star Deneb.
Here in Bucharest, Romania, I enjoy a relatively dark sky for an urban area. The light pollution here is much less than it is in a comparably-sized city in the U.S., such as St. Louis. I can go outside in my neighborhood and actually pick out constellations. But the night sky on moonless nights in remote parts of the western U.S. is absolutely astounding, and the people of Flagstaff have done well to preserve this darkness.
David experienced this on a regular basis, and wrote about it in Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV)
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
Grace and Peace
Photo credit: Dan & Cindy Duriscoe
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From yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of the Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, recorded at a resolution of about seven meters per pixel. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In 100 million years or so Phobos will likely be shattered by stress caused by the relentless tidal forces, the debris forming a decaying ring around Mars.
At the APOD site, you can click on the image to zoom in to an incredible level of detail.
Grace and Peace
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I remember hearing it too, back in the 1970s: “We’re heading into another ice age.”
Today we hear: “Why should we believe the climate scientists when they predict global warming? Back in the 1970s, they predicted the Earth’s climate was going to get much colder.”
But was “global cooling” really the consensus back in the 70s? The RealClimate blog reports:
During the period we analyzed, climate science was very different from what you see today. There was far less integration among the various sub-disciplines that make up the enterprise. Remote sensing, integrated global data collection and modeling were all in their infancy. But our analysis nevertheless showed clear trends in the focus and conclusions the researchers were making. Between 1965 and 1979 we found (see table 1 for details):
- 7 articles predicting cooling
- 44 predicting warming
- 20 that were neutral
In other words, during the 1970s, when some would have you believe scientists were predicting a coming ice age, they were doing no such thing. The dominant view, even then, was that increasing levels of greenhouse gases were likely to dominate any changes we might see in climate on human time scales.
This was also reported in USA Today: Study debunks ‘global cooling’ concern of ’70s.
Grace and Peace
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If I could pass on just one thing about Christianity and the gospel to my children, students at BCA, and church, it would be this: The gospel is all about Jesus Christ and what he has done for us in his incarnation, life, death and resurrection; not about what we do for him. You wouldn’t always know this, however, by reading many of the best-sellers in Christian bookstores, or by listening to the self-help sermons that are preached in many churches.
Michael Spencer — the Internet Monk — writes about this in his post No Jesus Needed:
Recently I listened to a sermon. Preached by a Christian, a Baptist, a minister at a church, a graduate of a Christian school training ministers to serve and communicate Jesus.
This preacher gave a message that he had worked hard to prepare; a message he had presented before. A message he deeply believed in.
It was a message well organized, passionately delivered and completely sincere. It was a message with an application about having a purpose in living that many people need to hear.
So why am I writing about that sermon? Did it change my life?
I’m writing about that sermon because it was a perfect illustration of Christless preaching.
There was not a single mention of Jesus. Not once. Not in any way. Nowhere.
It was as if Jesus had never been born. It was as if Jesus never existed.
Read the rest at the Internet Monk.
Grace and Peace
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The burning of petroleum (and other fossil fuels) is a primary contributor to the increase of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Burning of plant material, on the other hand, does not increase the concentration of CO2, because the carbon in the plant came from the atmosphere in the first place, through the process of photosynthesis. If we could use plants to fuel our cars and factories, we would greatly reduce the amount of CO2 that we produce. This has been the impetus for using biodiesel and corn- or soy-derived ethanol as fuels.
Ethanol production hasn’t proven to be as environmentally-friendly as proponents had hoped, and researchers are looking for other plant-derived gasoline alternatives.
From the National Science Foundation:
Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees, But Gasoline Might
Researchers make breakthrough in creating gasoline from plant matter, with almost no carbon footprint
Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of “green gasoline,” a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.
While it may be five to 10 years before green gasoline arrives at the pump or finds its way into a fighter jet, these breakthroughs have bypassed significant hurdles to bringing green gasoline biofuels to market.
“It is likely that the future consumer will not even know that they are putting biofuels into their car,” said Huber. “Biofuels in the future will most likely be similar in chemical composition to gasoline and diesel fuel used today. The challenge for chemical engineers is to efficiently produce liquid fuels from biomass while fitting into the existing infrastructure today.”
“Green gasoline is an attractive alternative to bioethanol since it can be used in existing engines and does not incur the 30 percent gas mileage penalty of ethanol-based flex fuel,” said John Regalbuto, who directs the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and supported this research.
“In theory it requires much less energy to make than ethanol, giving it a smaller carbon footprint and making it cheaper to produce,” Regalbuto said. “Making it from cellulose sources such as switchgrass or poplar trees grown as energy crops, or forest or agricultural residues such as wood chips or corn stover, solves the lifecycle greenhouse gas problem that has recently surfaced with corn ethanol and soy biodiesel.”
Beyond academic laboratories, both small businesses and Fortune 500 petroleum refiners are pursuing green gasoline. Companies are designing ways to hybridize their existing refineries to enable petroleum products including fuels, textiles, and plastics to be made from either crude oil or biomass and the military community has shown strong interest in making jet fuel and diesel from the same sources.
Grace and Peace
Thanks to: Geology.com News
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From the Wikipedia Picture of the Day for April 4th:
This false-color mosaic showing compositional variations in the geology of the Moon was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by the imaging system of the Galileo spacecraft. Bright pinkish areas are highlands materials, such as those surrounding the oval lava-filled Mare Crisium impact basin toward the bottom. Blue to orange shades indicate volcanic lava flows. To the left of Crisium, the dark blue Mare Tranquillitatis is richer in titanium than the green and orange maria above it. Thin mineral-rich soils associated with relatively recent impacts are represented by light blue colors. The monochrome band on the right edge shows the unretouched surface of the moon.
Grace and Peace
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Kilauea, one of five shield volcanoes on the island of Hawaii, has been erupting continuously since 1983. Its eruption during the past month (March 200 
included the first explosive eruption at Kilauea since 1924. The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory offers spectacular images:
Halemaumau crater, at the summit of Kilauea
Lava streams into the ocean, making the island of Hawaii just a little bit bigger.
A recent solidified cascade of lava over the old sea cliff.
Large skylight on a lava tube. The lava is flowing to the left, and small bubbles and other detail can be seen on the surface of the lava stream. The dark spots are bits of cooled lava crust being blown into the skylight by the helicopter.
An active aa flow covers a recent pahoehoe flow.
View of pahoehoe lava field.
The captions are modified from the HVO web site.
Pahoehoe and aa, of course, are my two favorite Hawaiian geological terms. Pahoehoe (puh-ho-ee-ho-ee) lava flows are smooth, and aa (ah-ah) lava flows have a sharp, jumbled surface. If you walk on an aa flow barefoot, you’ll say, “Ah! Ah!”
Grace and Peace
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From Abortion and Christmas by Scott Stiegemeyer:
Even though we are still basking in the glory of the Festival of the Resurrection, today my mind turns toward Christmas. That’s because today is the commemoration of the Annunciation, the scene in Luke’s Gospel where the angel tells Mary that she will bear a son who will be called the Son of God. March 25 is exactly nine months before Christmas which, of course, is the the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Thus today is really the celebration of the impregnation of Mary, the incarnation of God’s one eternally begotten son in the Virgin’s womb. As St. John wrote: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
I never seem to get past this date without needing to comment on the great atrocity of abortion. It is simply not possible to take the incarnation of God’s Son seriously and not be opposed to abortion. The Eternal Son did not begin his earthly pilgrimage as an infant in Bethlehem. He began it as a zygote in Nazareth.
Grace and Peace
Thanks to: Cranach
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Gene Edward Veith (Cranach) quotes Anne Rice, former atheist and vampire novel author, on her conversion to Christianity:
Anne Rice, who became famous for writing highly literate vampire novels, gives more details about her conversion to Christianity in a forum on the Washington Post online: On Faith: Guest Voices: My Trust in My Lord. Sample:
Look: I believe in Him. It’s that simple and that complex. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the God Man who came to earth, born as a tiny baby and then lived over thirty years in our midst. I believe in what we celebrate this week: the scandal of the cross and the miracle of the Resurrection. My belief is total. And I know that I cannot convince anyone of it by reason, anymore than an atheist can convince me, by reason, that there is no God.
A long life of historical study and biblical research led me to my belief, and when faith returned to me, the return was total. It transformed my existence completely; it changed the direction of the journey I was traveling through the world. Within a few years of my return to Christ, I dedicated my work to Him, vowing to write for Him and Him alone. My study of Scripture deepened; my study of New Testament scholarship became a daily commitment. My prayers and my meditation were centered on Christ.
And my writing for Him became a vocation that eclipsed my profession as a writer that had existed before.
Why did faith come back to me? I don’t claim to know the answer. But what I want to talk about right now is trust. Faith for me was intimately involved with love for God and trust in Him, and that trust in Him was as transformative as the love. . . .
Before my consecration to Christ, I became familiar with a whole range of arguments against the Savior to whom I committed my life. In the end I didn’t find the skeptics particularly convincing, while at the same time the power of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John swept me off my feet. And above all, when I began to talk to Jesus Christ again it was with trust.
On the afternoon in 1998 when faith returned, I experienced a sense of the limitless power and majesty of God that left me convinced that He knew all the answers to the theological and sociological questions that had tormented me for years. I saw, in one enduring moment, that the God who could make the Double Helix and the snow flake, the God who could make the Black holes in space, and the lilies of the field, could do absolutely anything and must know everything — even why good people suffer, why genocide and war plague our planet, and why Christians have lost, in America and in other lands, so much credibility as people who know how to love. I felt a trust in this all-knowing God; I felt a sudden release of all my doubts. Indeed, my questions became petty in the face of the greatness I beheld. I felt a deep and irreversible assurance that God knew and understood every single moment of every life that had ever been lived, or would be lived on Earth. I saw the universe as an immense and intricate tapestry, and I perceived that the Maker of the tapestry saw interwoven in that tapestry all our experiences in a way that we could not hope, on this Earth, to understand.
This was not a joyful moment for me. It wasn’t an easy moment. It was an admission that I loved and believed in God, and that my old atheism was a façade. I knew it was going to be difficult to return to the Maker, to give over my life to Him, and become a member of a huge quarreling religion that had broken into many denominations and factions and cults worldwide. But I knew that the Lord was going to help me with this return to Him. I trusted that He would help me. And that trust is what under girds my faith to this day.
Cranach is one of the few blogs I read every day.
Grace and Peace
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From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Cat’s Eye Hubble Remix
Explanation: Staring across interstellar space, the alluring Cat’s Eye Nebula lies three thousand light-years from Earth. One of the most famous planetary nebulae in the sky, the Cat’s Eye (NGC 6543) is over half a light-year across and represents a final, brief yet glorious phase in the life of a sun-like star. This nebula’s dying central star may have produced the simple, outer pattern of dusty concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. But the formation of the beautiful, more complex inner structures is not well understood. Here, Hubble Space Telescope archival image data has been reprocessed to create another look the cosmic cat’s eye. Compared to well-known Hubble pictures, the alternative processing strives to sharpen and improve the visiblility of details in light and dark areas of the nebula and also applies a more complex color palette. Of course, gazing into the Cat’s Eye, astronomers may well be seeing the fate of our Sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution … in about 5 billion years.
Incredible beauty in God’s creation.
Grace and Peace
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Here’s another image related to this week’s heavy rainfall and flooding in Missouri and adjoining states:
In this image, red areas (very tiny) received greater than 200 mm (8 in) of precipitation, orange areas receive more than 150 mm (6 in), and yellow areas received more than 100 mm (4 in).
The image and a more complete description can be found at the NASA Earth Observatory Natural Hazards site.
Grace and Peace
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The USGS has an online map called WaterWatch, which portrays conditions from stream gaging stations. Parts of Missouri and Arkansas have received a foot of rain this week, and that storm system has spread to the east. Black dots on the map are areas that are currently the highest above normal.
The map is clickable–you can go to a state, and then to specific stream gauges.
Grace and peace
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This item was originally posted in March, 2006. (Wow! That reminds me—The GeoChristian is two years old this week!) It is now part of my blog recycling program. Because I have new readers at The GeoChristian, I will occasionally go back and re-use some of my favorite blog entries.
As a teacher, I’ve seen a few kids who regularly get D’s and F’s on their tests. I know how they feel, because I get a zero on this test every time I take it!
I got an “F” on a test today.
I have become increasingly aware that, for whatever reason, some of my children do not have a good grasp of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because of this, I am directing more conversations in our family to this critical topic. Before one can comprehend the good news of the Gospel, they need to really understand the bad news about sin.
A primary purpose of the “Law” portions of Scripture is to point us to the fact that we are sinners in need of a Savior. This morning, my family read the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) and then took a quiz out of the book Tell the Truth, by Will Metzger. Here’s the quiz:
———————————————————–
GOD’S TEST FOR EVERYONE: MEASURE YOURSELF BY GOD’S LAW
- (Yes or No) I have never put anything else before God in my life. I have always given God first place in my thinking, affections and actions.
- (Yes or No) I have never had any wrong conceptions about God nor worshipped Him in a way not recommended by Him. I have always rejected any wrong imaginations or images of God that I’ve seen or thought and refused to remake God according to my liking.
- (Yes or No) I have never slighted or abused the character of the true God by using His holy name as a swear word or using it in a thoughtless manner, such as by calling myself a follower of God yet not obeying. I have always held the name of God, which signifies His character, in highest respect, invoking it with thoughtfulness and reverence.
- (Yes or No) I have never done less than a full week’s work, and never done any of my normal work on the day set aside to worship God. I have always worked hard and willingly at whatever task is set before me, seeing it as a God-given service each day, and consistently remembered to set apart one day weekly to worship God with others.
- (Yes or No) I have never disobeyed nor dishonored my parents or any others in authority over me. I have always respected and been thankful for my parents and given them honor and willing obedience, as well as other authorities over me.
- (Yes or No) I have never murdered anyone nor had hateful thoughts or taken the slightest pleasure in seeing harm done to another human. I have always thought more of others than I have of myself and practiced the highest regard for human life and justice.
- (Yes or No) I have never practiced any sexual impurity, either physically engaging in sex before marriage or mentally having impure thoughts about someone. I have always treated others’ sexuality with respect and dignity in both my physical actions and mental attitudes.
- (Yes or No) I have never taken anything that doesn’t belong to me nor been deceitful in any attitudes or unwilling to work for my needs. I have always respected the belongings, rights and creations of others and been completely truthful and fair.
- (Yes or No) I have never lied nor slandered another person or group of people. I have always told the truth in every situation regarding every person I have known.
- (Yes or No) I have never been greedy for something that wasn’t mine, nor jealous even of the abilities, looks, or status of others. I have always shared and given of my possessions and myself to others and I have been thankful in my heart for what they have and content with my possessions and situation.
(from Metzger, Will, 2002, Tell the Truth, A Training Manual on the Message & Methods of God-Centered Witnessing, 3rd ed., InterVarsity Press)
I scored 0/10 on this one.
Praise God that I have one who speaks to the Father in my defense: “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1-2 ESV).
Grace and Peace
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Gracie likes to lay down on the laptop keyboard. Cinder likes to be in the way when I’m trying to type. That is the price I pay for having a little piece of nature in the home.
Grace and Peace
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Don, at The Evangelical Ecologist, has a couple posts on a new statement written by some Southern Baptist leaders who feel their denomination’s stance on anthropogenic climate change and other environmental issues is too weak:
A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change
An Open Letter to Southern Baptists
One thing I appreciate that Don points out is that rather than being a hinderance to evangelism and missions, environmental issues provide a vast opportunity for gospel-based outreach.
The statement, which is not an official SBC document, can be found at the Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Change Initiative site. There is nothing radical in the statement that should cause division. There are four main points:
- Humans Must Care for Creation and Take Responsibility for Our Contributions to Environmental Degradation.
- It Is Prudent to Address Global Climate Change.
- Christian Moral Convictions and Our Southern Baptist Doctrines Demand Our Environmental Stewardship.
- It Is Time for Individuals, Churches, Communities and Governments to Act.
Here are a few quotes from the statement:
We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues have often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice. Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better. To abandon these issues to the secular world is to shirk from our responsibility to be salt and light. The time for timidity regarding God’s creation is no more.
There is undeniable evidence that the earth—wildlife, water, land and air—can be damaged by human activity, and that people suffer as a result. When this happens, it is especially egregious because creation serves as revelation of God’s presence, majesty and provision. Though not every person will physically hear God’s revelation found in Scripture, all people have access to God’s cosmic revelation: the heavens, the waters, natural order, the beauty of nature (Psalm 19; Romans 1). We believe that human activity is mixed in its impact on creation—sometimes productive and caring, but often reckless, preventable and sinful.
God’s command to tend and keep the earth (Genesis 2) did not pass away with the fall of man; we are still responsible. Lack of concern and failure to act prudently on the part of Christ-followers reflects poorly to the rest of the world. Therefore, we humbly take responsibility for the damage that we have done to God’s cosmic revelation and pledge to take an unwavering stand to preserve and protect the creation over which we have been given responsibility by Almighty God Himself.
We recognize that Christians are not united around either the scientific explanations for global warming or policies designed to slow it down. Unlike abortion and respect for the biblical definition of marriage, this is an issue where Christians may find themselves in justified disagreement about both the problem and its solutions.
Yet, even in the absence of perfect knowledge or unanimity, we have to make informed decisions about the future. This will mean we have to take a position of prudence based partly on science that is inevitably changing. We do not believe unanimity is necessary for prudent action. We can make wise decisions even in the absence of infallible evidence.
This is not our world, it is God’s. Therefore, any damage we do to this world is an offense against God Himself
Our motivation for facing failures to exercise proper stewardship is not primarily political, social or economic—it is primarily biblical.
We must care about environmental and climate issues 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”
We realize that we cannot support some environmental issues as we offer a distinctively Christian voice in these arenas. For instance, we realize that what some call population control leads to evils like abortion. We now call on these environmentalists to reject these evils and accept the sanctity of every human person, both born and unborn.
We realize that simply affirming our God-given responsibility to care for the earth will likely produce no tangible or effective results. Therefore, we pledge to find ways to curb ecological degradation through promoting biblical stewardship habits and increasing awareness in our homes, businesses where we find influence, relationships with others and in our local churches. Many of our churches do not actively preach, promote or practice biblical creation care. We urge churches to begin doing so.
Grace and Peace
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WorldWide Telescope could do for astronomy what Google Earth has done for the Earth sciences. I haven’ seen it yet; it is coming out some time in the spring of 2008. With WWTelescope, one will be able to view any place in the sky with imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope as well as from ground-based telescopes.
Will it replace the Starry Night software that I have been using in my Astronomy unit? Only if I can set it for viewing from any time and any place.
Grace and Peace
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Today is pi day (3.14).
Click here for my pi day jokes from last year.
Click here for pi to one million decimal places, just in case you ever need it.
Click here for the official Pi Day web site.
Pi day just also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday. That seems appropriate.
Grace and Peace
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Google Earth came in handy today for illustrating microclimate. At lower elevations in the Bridger Range near Bozeman, Montana, dense pine forests form on north-facing slopes, whereas grass dominates the south-facing slopes. There is enough of a difference in soil temperature and moisture between the two sides of the ridges to make a significant difference in the microclimate, and hence the vegetation.
Earth science is a very visual topic—I use PowerPoint with lots of images, maps, and graphs—and Google Earth provides an additional tool for classroom and laboratory use.
Grace and Peace
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Plant hardiness zone maps show the average low temperatures for large areas and are useful for determining which plants can be grown in different regions. Seed packets sometimes have these on them, so one can determine where a specific type of plant can be grown. For example, orange trees have little tolerance for frost, so oranges are grown in pink and red areas (zones 9 and 10) on the following plant hardiness zone map of the United States (from The National Arbor Day Foundation):
There are other climate and soil restraints on growth of orange trees, so they are grown primarily in Florida and California.
Similar maps can be found on the internet for other regions of the world. The following maps are from The Pacific Bulb Society:
I’m not presently into gardening, but find these interesting from the perspective of climate.
Grace and Peace
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THE GOSPEL IS FOR BELIEVERS
Jerry Bridges has a great book on Christ-centered, gospel-centered Christianity entitled The Discipline of Grace. I haven’t completed my list of “top ten Christian books” but this one will probably be on it.
Bridges wrote an article for Modern Reformation magazine called Gospel-Driven Sanctification. Here are a few quotes from the article:
The Bible is far more than a rulebook to follow. It is primarily the message of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ, with everything in Scripture before the cross pointing to God’s redemptive work and everything after the cross—including our sanctification—flowing from that work.
My story is not unusual. Evangelicals commonly think today that the gospel is only for unbelievers. Once we’re inside the kingdom’s door, we need the gospel only in order to share it with those who are still outside. Now, as believers, we need to hear the message of discipleship. We need to learn how to live the Christian life and be challenged to go do it. That’s what I believed and practiced in my life and ministry for some time. It is what most Christians seem to believe.
As I see it, the Christian community is largely a performance-based culture today. And the more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn God’s blessing or forfeit it by how well we live the Christian life.
Paul lived every day by faith in the shed blood and righteousness of Christ. Every day he looked to Christ alone for his acceptance with the Father. He believed, like Peter (see 1 Pet. 2:4-5), that even our best deeds–our spiritual sacrifices–are acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ. Perhaps no one apart from Jesus himself has ever been as committed a disciple both in life and ministry as the Apostle Paul. Yet he did not look to his own performance but to Christ’s “performance” as the sole basis of his acceptance with God.
So I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all of their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day-to-day acceptance with the Father is not based on what we do for God but upon what Christ did for us in his sinless life and sin-bearing death. I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don’t have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1). My driving motivation now is not guilt but gratitude.
Yet even when we understand that our acceptance with God is based on Christ’s work, we still naturally tend to drift back into a performance mindset. Consequently, we must continually return to the gospel. To use an expression of the late Jack Miller, we must “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.”
We must always keep focused on the gospel because it is in the nature of sanctification that as we grow, we see more and more of our sinfulness. Instead of driving us to discouragement, though, this should drive us to the gospel. It is the gospel believed every day that is the only enduring motivation to pursue progressive sanctification even in those times when we don’t seem to see progress. That is why I use the expression “gospel-driven sanctification” and that is why we need to “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.”
Bridges has much to say about about being dead to sin, definitive (or positional) sanctification vs. progressive sanctification, and motivation for living a holy life when its all about Jesus and not about us.
Read it for yourself: Gospel-Driven Sanctification
Grace and Peace
HT: Extreme Theology
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