Trying to make sense of the environmental debate

Feel a bit warmer lately? Scientists worldwide say planet Earth is getting pretty hot due to global warming. But while there’s widespread conviction that global warming is real, there's heated debate over how to solve the problem—most noticeably among Christian leaders. Earlier this month, several of them testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, expressing deeply divided thoughts on the issue.

Over the past year, two groups of feuding evangelicals have loudly proclaimed their opinions about global warming. Both groups held press conferences, made public statements, and sent letters to top government officials. Their battle has drawn extensive news coverage, including in a PBS special report, "Is God Green?" Further, an evangelical leader from one camp drew accusations of defaming PBS journalist Bill Moyers. Whew—it’s getting pretty hot, all right!

Want to know my secret? I have a pathological need to be liked. That might not seem like much of a secret—after all, most people want to be liked. But I’m not talking about want here; I’m talking about a never-express-an-unpopular-opinion-in-the-hopes-that-all-people-will-adore-me need to be liked. Frankly, it’s a bit of a problem.

The joy and importance of first fruits

God’s first recorded lesson in spiritual growth is strangely intimate: a series of wistful fatherly questions in the sweeping narrative of Creation.

“Why are you angry?” Yahweh asks Cain, a disgruntled guy who could be my brother, could even be me. “Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” (Genesis 4:6).

God’s questions seem to assume that Cain knows what’s right—and that readers countless centuries later will know, too. And yet from my earliest days as a Christian, I’ve struggled with the story of Cain’s failed offering. God’s rejection seems so picky. Cain was, after all, offering something to God—“some of the fruits of the soil” (Genesis 4:3). What exactly made his brother Abel’s offering—“fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock”—acceptable to Yahweh when Cain’s wasn’t (Genesis 4:4,5)? What might this story teach us about how to grow in faith and Godlikeness?