Ben-Peter Terpstra asks, Is God something other than a green evangelical tree force?
Here’s a short exercise. Please, mentally tick the boxes that apply to you and/or your local green evangelical fellowship/group:
Tells us to support “make poverty history” campaigns, but withholds
(or plays down) information about the fruits of lawlessness.
Teaches “social justice” as meaning we should all talk less about the
dangers of sexual promiscuity and more about “debt relief.”
I feel pressure not to question my leader’s belief in “global warming” and “carbon
sins.”
Sneakily redefines the word “peace” in order to promote a culture of appeasement.
Ignores writings that expose how corrupt “developing nations” milk America’s
working classes.
My fellowship/group is too willing to bend over for the elite media.
I am “concerned” that my pastor likes wearing his red ribbon a little too much.
Were you able to check any boxes? If so, then it may help you to explore the many ways in which evangelical green groups are molding minds.
Now, consider the following seven points, but take your time.
(1) Law and order
In The Trouble With Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working, international development expert Robert Calderisi points out that poverty and lawlessness are close partners.
Take Zimbabwe. Calderisi reveals (page 74): “In May 2002, the Minister of Safety and Security stopped publishing crime statistics because they were too embarrassing; his official reason was that he did not want to ‘demoralize’ the public.”
People need protection. Please understand my concern: When evangelical greens withhold or play down the links between life expectancy and law issues they become enablers. It’s at this point, I say, that denial kills.
(2) Promiscuity
The key question is why so many “green evangelicals” feel that conservatives talk too much about sexual promiscuity. Where is the evidence?
In the developing world, for instance, promoting marriage safeguards children from poverty. Ditto America. Now, in any case, is that such a bad thing?
Politically correct addicts, however, work themselves up into a whirlwind. They shout, “Oh God didn’t feel strongly about alternative sexual experiments, so why should we?”
Three words: Sodom and Gomorrahcide! Or two: Ancient Rome! Or one: Hollywood!
No society can completely separate the links between wild sexual promiscuity – and a nation’s wellbeing. This, my friend, is Anthropology 101.
(3) “Global Warming”
“Global cooling”? “Global Warming”? Take your pick. It goes without saying, of course, that prominent evangelicals love peddling “climate change” fears.
Case in point: In WWIII: Signs of the Impending Armageddon, John Wesley warned Christians that (page 74): “Dr. Hurd C. Willard and a team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explained in January 1976 that the planet Earth is gradually headed toward another irreversible ice age.”
What’s more, even Billy Graham heaped honeyed words on Wesley because his bestseller – I quote with tears of laughter – “isolates and identifies the signs that Jesus said would” fall upon us.
(4) Peace
Typical of a number of girly boys in the green evangelical movement is, “Guy” (not his real name), who says, “Jesus promises he will bless the peacemakers.”
Yeah, right, Guy, but he didn’t tell us to bless the pretend peacemakers. Did he? In many evangelical green circles, the word “peace” is just a cover for appeasement.
(5) Corrupt Governments
William Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University, suggests in The White Man’s Burden (page 42), that “planners” don’t want to “deal with the complexities of bad government.” Thus, “aid advocates desperately want to disbelieve the bad government explanation for poverty, which is akin to the church youth minister who wants to believe that his charges are all virgins.”
And one more thing: What is it with African dictators and their penchant for fur coats, leopard skins – and limousines? Pastor Ted Haggard’s gay escort had more class!
(6) The Media
Intriguingly, Time magazine’s late 2007 issue asks America to believe that a “maturing Christian movement” worries more about unborn trees than unborn babies. We even learn that global “warming, along with poverty and torture, have become hot issues to a maturing conservative Christian movement.”
One the other side, “mature” green evangelicals, can count on great photo opportunities – and positive profiles for their “nonjudgmental services.”
(7) AIDS
Finally, when do-gooders create a camera-friendly charity system, they abandon reality. Sure enough, red ribbons and celebrity summits take center stage – and everybody turns away from the “bo-ring diseases.”
Well, almost everybody. My short list of questions: If “lives” matter, then why don’t we see more pastors with brown ribbons? Where are all the pneumonia quilts? And, are we too afraid to confront Hollywood’s pink mafia?
The sick-making truth? Now, even Time accepts that diarrhea kills more kids, than AIDS, TB and malaria combined. More than anything else, AIDS-centric pastors are show ponies.
My conclusion: God is not a green evangelical tree force.
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