Kansas Interfaith Power & Light

BY THE REV. RICHARD CIZIK

Should caring for the environment be a major priority for people of faith? Only a few years ago, I would have blithely answered this question “no.”

What changed? I changed.

I realized I was violating the biblical commands “to serve and to protect” creation (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew words to serve, “avad,” and to protect, “shamar,” mean we must be caretakers, not just takers.

What got my attention, and keeps it, is the impact of climate change, habitat destruction and species extinction on Earth. Sir John Houghton, the first chairman of the Scientific Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — and an evangelical Christian — made a presentation on the impacts of global warming to the Oxford Conference of 2002.

I was a skeptic. It was my reasoning that the science was disputable. “No dog in that fight,” referring to the debate over global warming, was my judgment at the time. It took the unequivocal evidence of climate change — significantly caused by humans and irreversible in its nature — to shake me out of my own lethargy.

Millions of my fellow evangelical believers need to examine themselves. Too often we’ve bought into the snake oil of climate skeptics or assumed that it’s up to others, not Christians, to act to save the creation.

E.O. Wilson, author of the recent book “The Creation,” says: “If current deterioration of the environment by human activity continues unabated, half of Earth’s surviving species, plants and animals will be extinguished or critically endangered by the end of the century. One quarter, it’s been estimated, could leave us in the next 50 years due to climate change alone.”

Human health and life are particularly endangered, with the poor and disadvantaged among us at the greatest risk. James Hansen, a top scientist at NASA, has said, “One quarter of carbon dioxide that we put in the air by burning fossil fuel will stay there forever — more than 500 years. If we burn all fossil fuels without capturing and sequestering the CO2, we will create a different planet.”

Can we hear the voice of the biblical prophet Ezekiel: “Is it not enough for you to drink the water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?” Today, Ezekiel would ask: Is it not enough for you to enjoy a pleasant climate? Must you destroy it? Is it not enough for you to enjoy the myriad of creatures? Must you extinguish them?

Major segments of the Earth are dying, and we are responsible. Will we change our destructive lifestyles? Can our planet become healthy? Ezekiel says that with God all things are possible, even the reconstitution of dry bones.

As people of faith, we have no option but to act. Why not take the lead in making our nation an example of biblical stewardship? To claim to love the Creator but to abuse the world in which we live is like claiming to be fans of Shakespeare while burning his plays.

And when we die, God won’t ask us how He made this Earth or how long it took, but instead this question about our stewardship duty: “What did you do with what I made?”

Richard Cizik, who spoke in Wichita this week, is president of the New Evangelicals, based in Washington, D.C.