Creation Care

I was talking to two old friends during a recent visit to Mampuján, the Colombian community I lived in for two years, when a horn honked down the street. Ana Felicia sat up with a start, yelled something about her garbage and ran out the door, leaving me confused.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with the Christian environmental blogosphere (and let’s be honest, who has the time for that except nerds like me?), let me get you up to speed. In August, the Christian Post hosted a bit of a microcosmic “debate in the public square” recently between passionate Christians who find themselves on opposite sides of the climate change question--and it all started with Rush Limbaugh...

The words of Micah are among the best known in the Hebrew Bible. Justice has always been a central theme in Jewish thought and practice and the word ‘justice’ appears more than 200 times in the Old Testament. It is the subject of justice that I want to focus on. I am going to begin with a brief excursion into agriculture – canal irrigation technology in particular. That there is a connection with justice will hopefully become evident quite soon.

If you are reading this and are from North America (and perhaps even if you aren't), you are no doubt aware of just how divisive the issue of climate change is in the US and Canada. Experts from both sides of the issue are regular installments on the 24-hour news networks, presenting the latest data in favor of or disputing the warming of the planet. Policy experts offer the pros and cons of legislation aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers debate possible action steps.

It started with a question: "Can we do Show of Hands?"

A little baffled by the question, I asked for more information. It was a justice initiative put on by the Office of Social Justice. I remembered seeing something about it on a mailing a few months before but had nowhere to go with it so it was filed under "R" (a big blue recycling bin under my desk).