In our series on Biblical Anthropology we’ve been talking about the environment. My purpose last time was not to take a certain side in the many arguments about environmentalism, but simply to point out that there is more than one side to the story, and to show some of the reasons why that is.

Today we’re going to get specific and actually look at some of the policies that governments around the world are actually signing onto, from the United Nations. The particular document I used when we talked about this as a church, and which I will use here, is called “Principles for Ecosystem Restoration to Guide the United Nations Decade 2021-2030”.

In some ways, it’s time to pull together much of what we’ve learned in the whole entire series. For example, do you remember the “enemy’s headquarters” – the house in ruins that we talked about? Our illustration was a house in ruins – half-built – because the enemy always uses lies mixed with the truth. Lies are nothing, and that’s way the house is only half constructed. But then he uses it as a headquarters to attack us.

As with almost everything, we will see in this document the truth mixed with lies.

It’s laid out with “Ten Principles that Underpin Ecosystem Restoration”. Let’s just talk about four of the ten.

Principle 1: Global Contribution. Of course they’re talking about a global effort under the leadership of the United Nations. Principle 2: Broad Engagement. Everyone is involved, especially “under-represented” groups. Who decides who is most under-represented? You can guess, but they do give some examples: “local communities, Indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, women, youth and LGBTIQ+ people”.

It’s hard to argue with the fact that we need everyone working together to care for the planet, right? But there’s more.

I listened to the interreligious panel that was held at COP26. And one of the panellists, from the Christian tradition, explained it like this.

“Our problem is that we have focused on personal responsibility. But often this doesn’t work, because people don’t have the ability. (Poor them.) And so, what we need to do is change the system, to have control from top down. Instead of focusing on personal responsibility, we should focus on social justice. For example, transfer funds from rich countries to people with a darker colour of skin. Et cetera.”

Of course, that was a rather loose paraphrase, but an accurate one. 🙂 So we’re back talking about “social justice”, from our discussion of justice. And now you’re going to hear the phrase “climate justice”, which actually is not biblical justice. In other words, the answer to our climate problem is not so much that you should drive your car less. The answer looks more like neo-marxism. It is the intelligent and powerful who decide who should get the money and how the systems should be set up.

Do you see how so much we’ve learned comes together here?

So how are we going to convince the common people of these things? Well, fear works. Terrible things will happen if you don’t listen to the “experts”. But should that kind of fear be our motivation, as Christians?

Principle 4: Benefits to Nature and People. “Ecosystem restoration aims to achieve and sustain the greatest net gain possible, given project- and programme-level goals, for biodiversity, ecosystem health and integrity, ecosystem goods and services, climate-change mitigation, and human health . . .”

Well, nice of them to throw “human health” in there at the very end.

It’s pretty common to give humanity a low priority here. Many people believe that the human population needs to be far lower than it is today. I’ve heard it preached that we should aim for between 500 million and 3 billion people in the world, and no more. Many base their estimates on the work of Paul Ehrlich from the University of Stanford.

And so birth control is promoted, and sterilization. The late David Graber, a biologist with the United States National Park Services, wrote in 1989: “Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

And actually, quite a few people have said similar things, in perhaps unguarded moments. Normally, it’s kept a little more quiet. But the truth is, there are many people looking for ways to decrease the human population as soon as possible (actually, as I write this now, I heard a popular news broadcast this morning talking about that very thing!). Why? Because “we’re in a crisis”. But – how does this perspective fit with God’s Law?

One more. Principle 6: Knowledge Integration. “Ecosystem restoration should strive to integrate all types of knowledge – including, but not limited to, Indigenous, traditional, local and scientific ways of knowing – and practices in order to achieve greater kinship with nature, cooperation and effectiveness.”

Now, listen carefully. Because this is also very common. This does not mean that we need information from everyone, because you know things that I don’t. This doesn’t mean that we need different perspectives on a problem. I would agree with both of those ideas. No, this is saying that we need to introduce new ways of knowing.

In other words, we don’t need to use the scientific method, logic, or absolute truth. Science is only one possible thing on the list! Because there are many “ways of knowing”. Paganism is quite popular, for example. So, we’ll decide what to call “truth”. What way to follow. Or more accurately, what to follow in place of the truth.

Are there good things in this document? Sure. But what has been smuggled in along with the good things? Denying God’s truth, and bringing in your own ways of knowing. Shaking your fist at God’s law. Devaluing the importance of human life. Ensuring that certain very “wise” people are in control.

In 2014, Dr. Joe Boot wrote about the difference between a humanist worldview, or we could say a secular humanist worldview (which has been common to some extent since the serpent told the woman that she could be like God), and a Christian worldview.

In a Christian worldview, God limits government. All people and institutions should have limits, because we’re sinners. If we don’t have limits, if we have too much power, what happens? We take more. These limits come from God, Someone apart from the creation. The transcendent God.

Dr. Boot writes:

…the pagan philosophers and statesmen favored statism, emperor worship and tyranny. One reason for this, as we have noted, was that their humanistic worldview (as with all humanism and paganism today) posited an ultimate impersonalism in which man is conditioned by an impersonal environment and not by a personal God. Whilst claiming to be free, in the world of flux, man was seen as conditioned by the stars, his family, his fortunes, nature and the gods (also products of nature and natural forces), and so he became fatalistic in his thinking. As such, pagan thought requires a powerful and priestly state to save man from the environment all around him…

The Colour of Death and the Law of Life (Dr. Joe Boot)

In other words, in the real world, a person is free because he or she is made in God’s image, and is responsible to Someone outside of the universe. But in secular humanism, the person is conditioned by his or her environment, a perspective leading to fatalism, so that true freedom is impossible. We must be coerced into action by the emperor-priest.

Listen to people talking about environmentalism. You will hear religious language. The end of the world, salvation, repentance, it’s all there. But – it’s not the true religion.

So the answer of the world to environmental issues is to create a system to put you in a smaller box. Don’t worry, you can have freedom in your box, but the government will limit you and take care of you as it wishes. And you must believe that the box makes sense, the box is all that there is, the box is the only thing that is important for you.

Beyond questions of world temperatures and snowfall and sea levels are issues that are even more concerning for believers – a host of ideas that are being imported under the guise of caring for the planet.

Many non-Christians are doing good things for the environment. Thank God! And sometimes we can work together. But always remember, Christ is the Lord of Creation. He is the truth. So – ask questions. Research. Don’t be afraid to be different. Take personal responsibility. And don’t be surprised if you end up doing something that the world hates. Jesus warned you.

We’ll take one more brief post to wrap up this discussion, before taking a look back over all 11 topics that we’ve covered.