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Date Posted: 10:33:43 08/04/04 Wed
Author: Chris
Subject: Re: Experiences in Saudi Arabia
In reply to: Tony Lang 's message, "Experiences in Saudi Arabia" on 09:20:05 08/02/04 Mon

To bolster up the existing cliché of anti-American, anti-Bush European environment freaks, I have to admit that I fit into that category. I think environment protection is a basic element of Christian ethics rooted already in the first chapter of the Bible. And I agree with Tony that many Christians are unaware of the importance of this issue and their responsibility in this issue. I also agree with Tony that protecting the environment has much to do with protecting the poor and exploiting the environment goes often along with exploiting the poor.

Concerning “global warming” and “climate change”, here we have two questions: First, does it really take place? Second, is it caused or aggravated by man? I think we cannot deny that it is happening. We can see in our personal life. As a child, I used to go skiing in a low mountain range nearby. When I grew older, year by year there was less snow and the winter was warmer. The climate in Germany used to be very moderate, we had no extremes. But since several years we experienced catastrophic floods, heat waves and storms. During the last two years we even had disastrous tornados in Germany, I phenomenon that I knew only from the movie “twister” before. The last one was just two weeks ago. Some will say these phenomena have not increased, but we only get better and more reports. Maybe. But in addition to these things we cannot overlook in our everyday life, we have also facts that are hard to ignore such as the warming of the oceans, but they are not visible in our everyday life. So I believe the fact that there is a climate change cannot be denied. (The earth has seen many climate changes in the past anyway, this wouldn’t be so unusual in itself.) The second question is: Are we guilty of this, is it the cause of industrialization? Some say it is to arrogant of man to believe he can change the climate. But I believe that things like the ozone holeand the greenhouse effect need to be studied and the industrial countries should make every effort to account for this things. Even if not everything is 100% clear, in case of doubt assume the worst scenario. It can never be bad if we develop cars which use less fuel and emit fewer pollutants, and if we reduce our use of technology drastically. We need not live like Amish people, but we can learn something from them. Life with less cars and technology can be much happier.

Concerning peace politics much could be done better. For instance, last year there was a big earthquake in Iran in the city of Bam. What if America had immediately helped there, with a huge engagement, and millions of dollars (for the war, billions were spent!). Wouldn’t it have created at least some sympathy for the US in the Muslim world? Germans like Americans because they helped us a lot after the war and were very friendly. If they had behaved like they do not in Iraq, we would think differently. I think a little bit of love bombing could do more good than massive real bombing, which has already produced thousands of new Bin Ladens, worse than the original.

Back to the task of environmental protection: I don’t think Christians should ignore this. First, as Tony said, this will always be at the expense of the poor and the next generation (and we don’t know how many generations God will still allow). The argument that Jesus will come soon does not count. Even Martin Luther believed that the end was near, yet the following famous word is attributed to him: “If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today!” Second, the environment, our earth and everything on it is God’s creation and thus has a value in itself, is precious and needs to be protected (see how God himself protected the animals in Noah’s ark!).

Maybe you know the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy who published the famous statement on biblical inerrancy in 1978. Besides this, they also published a statement on biblical hermeneutics in 1982, and one on biblical application in 1986, which, unfortunately, are lesser known. The last article of the statement of biblical application (I cannot find it in the Internet) speaks a very clear language about Christian responsibility for the environment. Maybe somebody can find the article. I think Tony would like it.

It will be difficult to discuss these issues in detail on this web board, since awareness for environmental issues is so different in Europe and US. I remember an American girl who was send as a “missionary” to my chapter and she just laughed about our habits such as reusing plastic bags. At that time waste separation in every household wasn’t introduced yet. I don’t know what she would have said to this.

Inevitably, this will get out of hand and become a huge discussion, which must not be bad, but will distract from the UBF issues, which is the actual topic of this board.

My suggestion is to create an associated “RSQUBF Offtopic Board” where we can discuss all off-topic questions among the same community of UBF and ex UBF members. The two boards could be linked together in the header. As soon as a discussion makes a digression, we could point to the Offtopic board.

On that board we could discuss many questions of Christian ethics, Christian life, Biblical hermeneutics, politics, family life or anything else that seems important to us. Things that are related to UBF only in so far as they are non-issues there. Or did you ever read the Chicago statements on Biblical inerrancy, hermeneutics and application in Chicago UBF? Have ethical questions ever been discussed in UBF “conferences”? Has UBF ever cared about the poor in the world?

One UBF missionary told me that he was sent on the streets, cafes and taverns for fundraising in Korea. They told the people that they were collecting money for the poor. When he found out that the money was used to buy a UBF chapter instead, he was not able to go on the street anymore because his conscience told him this was deceit. He spoke with his shepherd, who justified this proceeding by saying the money was for the “spiritually” poor students who need UBF chapters. This happened in the 1980s or even 1990s, it was usual practice in Korea UBF, even after the same problem had been brought up in the 1976 “rebellion.” As Joe already pointed out, money had been collected for a Bangladesh flood (Tony was not off topic in this regard), UBFins sold peanuts, sold their belongings and even their blood to raise some money for this purpose, but Lee used it for UBF instead. UBF did never show real interest in the poor, nor in anything else that was going on in the world.

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