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Deeply Challenged by Change
George Murphy’s article "Are We Having a Heat Wave?" (Sept./Oct. 2007) is a gentle and cautious acknowledgment of global warming. It is timely.

The climate change problem is quite possibly the most serious issue facing human survival. Beyond the U.S. borders, people are taking action. For example, the Svalbard International Seed Vault is being established in Norway. Its mission is "intended to hold in cold storage as many as 3 million seeds to combat the loss of biological diversity, to reduce vulnerability of agricultural production to climate change, and to secure future food production capability. It will be a seed bank of last resort for the world" (from Resource Shelf online newsletter). This "doomsday" seed vault is deemed necessary because human activity is able to seriously endanger the biodiversity and ecology of the earth.

Here are reasons I see for why the church, in particular, has difficulty addressing the ethical challenges in a global warming age.

Our historical focus has been on salvation beyond this world. When heaven is our home, we are less interested in this world’s future. The destruction of the world seems acceptable, even biblical. Evangelicals have honed this message well.

Roman Catholics again focus on increasing the population, promoting bigger families. Despite the fact that in my life time the human population has tripled in 60 years, this Christian communion appears to have no framework to imagine what a 12-16 billion population future will do to the environment.

We have succeeded in preventive medicine to rid the world of dreaded diseases. The success in medicine and preventive health may well be part of the reason the environment is more impacted by human activity. This raises a difficult moral challenge. Preventive medicine has blessed us with longer, more healthy lives. Meanwhile, we seem to have no ethical or religious basis for self-limiting our population. When China did it, we were morally outraged.

Humans impact virtually every environmental system on earth. We tinker with everything. Our technologies are powerful and are becoming even more so. Theologically, we have no other place to go than to accept that humans today have risen to a position of power over the life and death of our planet greater than all our ancestors. We are learning how things work through scientific investigation. Knowledge is power, we’ve been told. And powerful knowledge is coming fast. How will it be used? Who will own it? Will it be used in addressing the global climate change challenge? Or will we continue "conquering nature?" What will we Lutherans do with the knowledge acquired that gives us the power of life and death over our environment and the survival of humanity?

An environmental scientist I know tells me every time I see him, "I pray for my grandchildren who I fear are going to see things nobody should experience." He is deeply troubled by the current trends in global warming. He will then say, "Environmental scientists have catastrophe on their side. It is when there is a catastrophe that people finally listen."

Maybe catastrophe will be our salvation? Will we listen and learn? Or when environmental catastrophe comes, will the religious smugly sit and judge those affected by such "acts of God" labeling them sinners deserving what they get? We saw some of that from certain evangelicals during the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. So forgive me for being less than optimistic about our Christian witness in a global-warming world. We are deeply challenged by this growing crisis.

Don Knutson
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Democracy’s Prominence
It seems as though our country and its leaders almost deify democracy. We might add churches to that deification also.

If democracy were commanded by God, we would be worshiping a golden calf named Jehovah that Aaron the "facilitator" helped the voters create, even giving an excuse that any politician would be proud of for carrying out the wishes of the democratic majority.

I could list any number of majority votes that didn’t seem to please God. [God] did not approve of the majority who wanted a king. And how many of God’s prophets were voted down and even killed for daring to contest the majority wishes?

I could find almost none of the democratic votes of the people in the Bible that endorsed God’s plans. The majority voted down the Messiah as God predicted. Many sinful peoples’ votes are not much better than one sinful person’s vote.

Today we are trying to enforce democracy on Iraq. Even Colin Powell, our former Secretary of State, said, "Democracy is not for everyone." In interviewing people from Arab nations, he found that democracy frightens them. They told him, "Do you know what would happen if we had Jeffersonian democracy? The fundamentalists would win and we would have no more elections." We weren’t happy when Hamas won the election. What if the majority in a country voted to wipe out Israel just as the majority of our Congress voted for war with Iraq even if the motivation was false and contrived?

And what about democracy in our church today? Arild Borch of the Canadian church gave a talk once at a [national assembly] where he did nothing but read the motions that had passed former [national assemblies], and we all broke up in laughter at the stupidity of those leaders back then. The question he left with us, "What motions will pass at this [meeting]?"

I remember in one [national assembly] when the issue of capital punishment came up. Franklin [Clark] Fry, put a letter from J. Edgar Hoover as the last item on the agenda. This action preserved our recommendation of capital punishment by a very slim margin. Is our church politically maneuvering today also? It left a very cynical attitude in the minds of many on actions passed back then. It will do no better today.

It is shocking to me and to many pastors and lay people I talk with that the Constitution and the votes of the [national assembly] must be followed to the letter, but interpretation of God’s Holy Word is left up to private feelings and opinions. The excuse is often given that we must keep the church up-to-date on current issues and concerns. The feelings of the people often counter the clear Word of God.

I feel that, imperfect as it is, democracy is still the best form of government for America, but to force it on the world and to make it the deciding factor in our [assembly] decisions, should only be done with careful study, caution, and common sense. A little prayer always helps, too!

Robert S. Ove
Rio Rancho, New Mexico