I watch posts on a variety of topics from Christians and Church organizations and denominations, many of which I am glad to see being confronted and talked about. But amidst it all, the glaring absence of concern about the Climate Crisis continues to speak loudly, and alarmingly, about the level of our denial as a church and as a people who talk about justice. AGAIN: There are MANY MANY serious, scary injustices that require and call for action. We desperately need people working in those areas.
But we are avoiding the ONE justice issue that impacts EVERYTHING. It is one which will eventually become SO SEVERE and SO OBVIOUS that , in the not so distant future, we will be asking ourselves how on earth we ignored it for so long. The Climate Crisis is SCREAMING at us from a range of disciplines, and yet we continue on in business as usual. The United Methodist’s Caretakers of God’s Creation: United Methodists Caring for God’s Creation , now a part of the General Board of Global Ministries held a conference in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday, and not a peep about it on the United Methodist News Service feed. It’s time to take stock, The United Methodist Church (and the UMC is by no means the only one). It’s an epidemic, this continued denial that there is a full-blown CRISIS. The Church continues to be enablers of our addiction as a civilization instead of realizing that we need to hold an “intervention” to seriously take stock of where we are.
My response:
The latest article in that list was Jan.4, so 3 months ago. That really underscores my point. That doesn’t really communicate anything like a crisis. And still nothing on the METHODISTS who met in Atlanta this past weekend. Nothing leading up to it, either. There is a whole lot going on amongst United Methodists, but unless one is local to these efforts, one would not be finding out via the UMC media. This past summer, a UMC seminary(Claremont School of Theology) was central in planning one of the largest, if not THE largest gathering of faith leaders around climate in history. But nothing from the UMC media on that either. That so many UMC members know nothing of all this is a HUGE hole in your coverage. You REALLY need some staff who have their radar on , and specifically on what is rapidly impacting a whole host of ethical and social issues and creating tragedy after tragedy, and its just going to get worse.
Also, that list is a search I run on a regular basis. The absence of Climate Crisis coverage as I look for new information is what prompted me to write this post. The KEY WORD again, is CRISIS. The Church MUST be at the helm on this, teaching and preaching and enabling the lifestyle changes that the people on our planet (especially and specifically those in the “developed” world which produce the most CO2 and cut down the most of the world’s carbon sinks (plants, trees, etc.)
The following comment came from the Facebook account of The United Methodist Church:
The UMC and United Methodist News Service post articles that relate to the climate crisis within the work of our global church. Find those stories and more here: http://www.umc.org/search/gcse?q=climate