The religious aspect of the Environmental movement  pt.2

Many involved in the Green movement want to introduce an earth based religion for the solution to the worlds problems– they believe in Gaia — an “Earth spirit,” some call her the goddess or planetary brain. They believe the planet is a living organism, a deity, at the same time denying the actual deity that made it. Some think that human beings can have a spiritual relationship with this entity. This earth spirituality is part of the new age movement but it is more accurate to say it has more to do with ancient paganism.

Some may protest and say the environmental movement is about science and not religion. But they need to take a closer look at those involved and what they are writing.

“GaiaMind” is the name of a project associated with the Light Party, which maintains that through “global meditation and prayer,” people can “align with and expand the powerful initiating energies of The Aquarian Age...”  In their literature:  “Imagine people all over the world sharing a moment of meditation and prayer, a moment of unified global consciousness when people from the world's many diverse spiritual traditions simultaneously focus attention on our interconnected relationship with Gaia — the living Earth.”

Change has become the cliché of our time, the New Age movement calls it “transformation.” “In the late twentieth century there is a growing awareness that we are doomed as a species and planet unless we have a radical change of consciousness. The reemergence of the Goddess is becoming the symbol and metaphor for this transformation... [and] has led to a new earth-based spirituality” (Elinor Gadon, The Once and Future Goddess).  

“Spiritual Greens” within the greater Environmental movement tell us that Earth can save herself – because she has wisdom and power. We can help and assist her by becoming conscious of the oneness and sacredness of all her parts and participate in the solution. Deepak Chopra says, that the earth is a living creature called “Gaia,” that the entire universe is one living being with a universal consciousness of which we are each integral parts (Deepak Chopra's Infinite Possibilities for Body, Mind & Soul, November 1996, p. 1.) This monism goes in concert with the spirit of unity that is sweeping over the planet to bring the transformation.

The environmental movement began gestation in the 60’s -70’s and blossomed to prominence in the late 80’s through the UN. It became a policy through men like former asst sec. general Robert Muller and Maurice Strong. And this is where its base of influence still is today.

The green movement was birthed by radical environmentalists, feminists, Marxists, and peaceniks in the sixties. Many saw Buddhism, Native American spirituality and Wicca as the alternative to Traditional religion i.e Christianity. When Earth Day was introduced and its set date was April 22. This date is significant, because it is Lenin's birthday. Lenin was anything but an environmentalist, he was a mass murdering Marxist.

One of the self-identified “founders” of Earth Day, Bay Area activist John McConnell, proposed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors 1969 a new holiday to be called Earth Day on the first day of spring, the Equinox, around March 21. But, he writes, in 1970 local anti-Vietnam War and Environmental Teach-in activists “who were planning a one-time event for April 22, also decided to call their event Earth Day.”

And what was this unnamed "one-time event" in 1970? It was the 100th birthday celebration for Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known to history as Lenin,

Those who oppose this movement have pointed out Earth Day’s best friends have been like the late David Brower, founder in 1969 of Friends of the Earth (FOE). Born in Berkeley, Brower was the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club (1952-1969) and spearheaded its efforts to shut down road construction and development in National Parks. In his later years Brower went on a pilgrimage to Nicaragua embraced and praised its Fidel Castro-aligned Marxist Sandinista rulers.

The first Earth Day in 1970 has only 20 million people.

Earth Day Network launched their Green Generation campaign, to engage students, churches, and communities - pressuring the world to adopt a new global climate treaty.

Gaia Rescue, was a project of Earth Day 2008 promoted the global unity by rescuing the environment;

“To correct this problem we’re going to have to act as a planet, not separately as groups or countries. It will take all of Gaia’s children to save her from the mistakes we’ve already made.” Gaia Rescue, http://www.gaiarescue.com

The religion of communism has been replaced by the religion of environmentalism. As some have pointed out, Earth day has become a political holiday for environmentalists known as Watermelons – who are green on the outside but red on the inside. Many commend Marxist dictatorships - capitalism is anathema to them.

Nature and Goddess worship are part of its celebration, conducive to what Wiccans promote.

To mark Earth Day, four women and two men stood on a hilltop outside Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, literally praying to Mother Earth. 'Sacred Earth Power, bring healing to Planet Earth,‘ intoned barefoot Selena Fox, priestess of Circle Sanctuary…Similar Nature worship was part of Earth Day festivals from Boston…to Berkeley…The ceremonies were part of a growing U.S. Spiritual movement: Goddess worship, the effort to create a female- centered focus for spiritual expression”   (Richard Ostling, Time, May 1991) (Posted on Berit Ko’s website).

San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral on Earth Day 2001, had an interfaith song Celebration with all religions participating. Tibetan temple bells will blend with the Cathedral Organ. Vocal performances will range from Native American and Muslim Chants to Spirituals and Choral canticles. Representatives from a diverse range of religious paths will participate in the festivities, including Native American, Islamic, Hindu, Jewish, Pagan, and Christian.” (news release, “A Song of Creation: An Interfaith Earth Day Celebration at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco,” www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/175)

The Humanist Manifesto II, (under “World Community”)" we read: “We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty as to move toward the building of a world community... We look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government.” It further states “each person to become, in ideal as well as practice, a citizen of a world community.”

The environmental movement is basically a Humanist movement that wants transnational laws on climate change to govern all nations. There are all types of environmentalists. It consists of an ideology, a philosophy and a religion. The spiritual Green movement is both bio and theo-centric. In that they see the Earth-as sacred, the deity, and we are responsible to uphold and preserve this deity who has given us life. God (or Goddess) is Mother Earth who is evolving, organizing and nurturing her parts. This is the evolution theory on steroids - man evolved by chance along with the earth. Humans and animals are expressions of Mother Earth and are responsible to the Earth. Our wisdom is to connect back to Gaia, to have a mutual balance, a living arrangement.

Even the late Carl Sagan, stated that “any efforts to safeguard and cherish the environment need to be infused with a vision of the sacred.” (The Moscow Plan of Action of the Global Forum on Environment and Development for Human Survival, Jan. 1990 (final draft), p.12

Sagan suggested that earth should be “regarded as sacred” to encourage treating it with “care and respect”- not because God made it, but because it (Gaia) made us. (Religious Leaders join Scientists in Ecological Concerns,” in Christianity Today, August 19, 1991, p. 49. source: chapter 11 of Occult Invasion)

Al Gore who has been the most vocal on the (fraudulent) environmental crises relents that,

“goddess religion was ubiquitous throughout much of the world until the antecedents of today's religions--most of which still have a distinctly masculine orientation--swept out of India and the Near East, almost obliterating belief in the goddess. The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity”

You can almost hear him sigh in his remark. “. . . .  [I]t seems obvious that a better understanding of a religious heritage preceding our own by so many thousands of years could offer us new insights . . . .” (p. 260 Earth in the Balance).

He speaks of “Our religious heritage is based on a single earth goddess who is assumed to be the foundation of all life…all men have a god within. Each man has a god within because creation is God.” “ ...it may now be necessary to foster a new “environmentalism of the spirit” (p. 242). The 'spirit' Gore is referring to is the one he says is within man and the earth which certainly makes this a new religious category.

The Environmental Handbook gives us more insight into this environmentalism of the spirit “At the level of the common people this worked out in an interesting way. In antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own genius loci, its guardian spirit. These spirits were accessible to men… Before one cut a tree, mined a mountain, or dammed a brook, it was important to placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation, and to keep it placated. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects” (p.20-21, The Environmental Handbook, Lynn White Jr.)

This is ancient animism – paganism, where spirits indwell objects.

Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, refers to the Gaia theory several times in his book on global warming, asking “...is there a Goddess of the Earth?”  He adds, “This is not a fanciful question, but one that has spurred a major debate over what has been called the Gaia hypothesis.”

Increasingly, scientists are adopting the shamanistic view that Mother Earth is a goddess named Gaia. This belief is promoted at high-level gatherings of scientists. Conferences of the Dallas-based Isthmus Institute regularly draw leading scientists and religionists together to discuss “science and spirituality.” Usually held at a University of Texas campus, typical conferences include discussions of the “spiritual” aspects of ecology and of “Gaia.” (Dallas Morning News, September 26, 1992. Quoted in chapter 11 of Occult Invasion by Dave Hunt)

René Dubos, a board member of the futuristic organization Planetary Citizens won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book So Human An Animal his life’s work involved research on environmental and social factors that affect the welfare of humans. He is credited as an author of the phrase “Think globally, act locally”. In his book A God Within: “The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human species has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution.... Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature” (René Dubos, A God Within: A Positive Approach to Man's Future as Part of the Natural World, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972), 38, 41. “http://www.crossroad.to/Books/BraveNewSchools/5-Earth.htm

Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Michael S. Coffman, president of Environmental Perspectives, says, “They are instituting a new state religion.”  But it is a religion at sharp variance with the Judeo-Christian foundations of the American constitutional republic.  A document mandated by the U.N.- sponsored Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Biodiversity Assessment, explicitly refers to Christianity as a faith that has set humans “apart from nature,” a process in which nature has “lost its sacred qualities.” 

From its inception the environmental movement was at odds with Christianity and made their feelings known. They define the Judeo/Christian belief that God assigned man to “rule over” the earth has caused us to exploit and abuse it. But this not true, The Lord did not intend for man to use anything from the earth without purpose, God’s instruction was against abuse of anything. The Bible speaks of conservation in only  a few areas. Deut. 20:19-21 “When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man's food. Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, to build protection against the city that makes war with you, until it is subdued.”

To the environmentalists, earth is in a crisis and this ecological emergency is the result of Christianity that denies nature as sacred, it is the Romans 1 principle at work. (read, the UN Global Biodiversity Assessment).

“No new set of basic values has been accepted in our society to displace those of Christianity. Hence we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man” (The Environmental Handbook p.25, Lynn White Jr.).

Today's ecological crises is blamed on Judeo/Christian traditions, their solution: we need to return to pagan roots and reject the Bible and Christianity. The fact that many of the innovators and inventors of the past centuries have been Christian and have improved mankind’s living standards seems to be ignored.

Their solution, “More science and more technology are not going to get us out of our present ecological crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one...” (The Environmental Handbook p.24, Lynn White Jr.).

The Sierra Club Environmental Health Sourcebook, ”Well Body, Well Earth,” tells us to “turn to the traditions of ancient cultures” such as Buddhist meditations and Native American Hopi rituals in order to ”reaffirm our bond with the spirit of the living earth.” ”The more you contact the voice of the living Earth and evaluate what it says, the easier it will become for you to contact it and trust what it provides.”

In the book “Deep Ecology” “We ... need to reawaken something very old ... our understanding of Earth wisdom. We need to accept the invitation of every shape and color bore testimony to God's creation to the dance-the dance of unity of humans, plants, animals, the Earth.’ (By Bill Devall and George Session’s)

Tim Zell, leader of the pagan Church of All Worlds, formulated a theology of “deep ecology” that was called Theagenesis.  It had to do with “the interconnection of all living things to each other and to Mother Earth, a sentient being in her own right.”  The “Mother Goddess” is “a living, sentient being with a soul-essence that can be perceived by humans.” This idea reportedly came to him when he had a “profound vision” in which “he saw Earth as a single biological organism that has evolved from a single original cell, making all life forms on the planet a 'single vast creature.'“  He views natural disasters and plagues as the means by which the planet heals itself.

The official “mission” of the Church of All Worlds, the largest of the pagan movements in the U.S., involves mobilizing the force of Gaia or Gaea.  The mission is “to evolve a network of information, mythology and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaea, and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and evolving consciousness” (source: Green Egg, the official Journal of the Church of All Worlds, Vol. 29, No. 119, May/June 1997.)

Numerous Environmental groups promote the pagan idea of Gaia as alive and intelligent, the Greeks called the primordial mother goddess Gaia, which means earth.

In Greek mythology, the Mother Earth Goddess, Gaia, or the “Deep-Breasted One,” is the oldest of deities.  Born from the dark abyss of Chaos, she married her son, Uranus (Ouranos), Father Heaven, and produced the first creatures, the Titans and Cyclops. At the height of her cult, she was served by the pythoness priestess at the Oracle at Delphi.  Gradually, she was absorbed by the deities Rhea, probably of Cretan origin, whose name derives from a term for Earth, and Cybele, goddess of caverns. (Mary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft (New York: Facts on File, 1989), p.131. http://www.usasurvival.org/cultofgaia.html)

This supreme Earth deity - Gaia, had sacred oaths given in her name, and worshippers performed all kinds of rituals to her. A female deity was recognized by many religions that were not monotheistic. Nature-based religions are the most ancient; they come from early man rejecting the true God and monotheism. The Goddess is a doorway to Wicca also known as “eco-feminism.”

Earth Day Network recently launched their Green Generation campaign, to engage students, churches, and communities - pressuring the world to adopt a new global climate treaty which we now see underway.

This new age message is now being adopted by evangelistic churches and organizations. Christiane Amanpour of CNN cited a poll – that 70% of evangelicals see global warming as a future threat. Can this is accurate? As I researched Christian organizations it became increasingly clear it probably is.

The National Religious Partnership for the Environment is a formal alliance of major faith groups and denominations of Jewish and Christian communities and organizations in the United States. Its four founding partners include: The U.S. Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches of Christ, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical Environmental Network. The Partnership promotes care for God's creation throughout religious life. They seek to provide inspiration, moral vision, and commitment to social justice for all efforts to protect the natural world and human well-being within it.

[ed. Note: When you hear the term social justice- it means a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. Payback.]

On the website - creationcare.org nearly 500 Christian leaders have signed EEN's Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation. Their goal- to educate, inspire, and mobilize Christians in their effort to care for God's creation. They want the church to celebrate the gift of God's creation on the Sunday that falls closest to Earth Day, they call it Creation Sunday.

creationcare.org believes human-induced climate change is a serious Christian issue requiring action now.

Whole list-http://www.creationcare.org/resources/signatores.php

 Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation

Let me address a few of their points. On their website it says, Christ died to reconcile all of creation to God (Col. 1:20).
2. All of creation belongs to Jesus (Col. 1:16; Ps. 24:1).
3. It fulfills the Great Commandments to love God and love what God loves. (It's hard to love a child with asthma when you're filling her lungs with pollution.)
4. Pollution hurts the poor the most, and Christians are called to care for the poor and the less powerful (Mt. 25:37-40).

They state: Caring for the earth “fulfills the Great Commandments to love God and love what God loves. (It's hard to love a child with asthma when you're filling her lungs with pollution.) Pollution hurts the poor the most, and Christians are called to care for the poor and the less powerful (Mt. 25:37-40).

Other environmental groups also make this claim, that pollution to the Climate is killing the poor everywhere. I would like to see the death certificates of all these people who are dying from greenhouse pollution. Does polluted air target only the poor and overlook the wealthy?

It appears everything that is wrong will end up being tied into the “climate crises” they call global warming.

They want to “extend Christ's healing to suffering creation,” citing Romans 8. Yet a good reading of Rom.8 shows us that it is the day of Christ that will bring this, not man.

Really? What relationship to man does a fish or a bird have. They are not referring to the eco system such as what we breath out what plants breath in but a relationship liken to the godhead, which is patently absurd.

Here we have a shift in mission work, from the gospel message to save souls which will live eternally with or without God to making the earth suitable for an extended stay of creatures living harmoniously together.

What of the judgments from God that are to take place in the coming tribulation? Did they forget what is coming or do they no longer believe it? “The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up” (Revelation 8:7.)  

Many churches have come on board. This new age message is now being adopted by evangelistic churches and organizations. For those who have turned green, HarperOne has produced a 'Green' Bible for them.
The Green Bible (NRSV) is the first environmentally themed Bible, focusing on the caring of the Earth through green-inked Scripture passages as well as input from Christian conservationists, theologians and practitioners and a “green trail guide” of Christian leaders through history.

Mark Tauber, vice president and deputy publisher of HarperOne states, “The Bible carries an important message about caring for the earth.” “Going green has become a top concern among many Christians as they begin to see protecting all of creation as a biblical obligation. Our Green Bible offers them a new lens to identify how caring for creation comes right out of the Scriptures.”

The Bible is produced on special eco-friendly paper and cover material - printed in forest green and on soy paper.

The Green Bible calls attention to more than 1,000 verses related to nature, ”creation care” is written by Desmond Tutu, Emergent leader Brian McLaren, and others who are not sound in their theology. Some contributors to this Bible suggest that eco-neglect violates Jesus' call to care for the least among us. In other words, a tree, a plant is now the “least among us.” How absurd can one be?

 The Green Bible is introducing change into the church with an eco Christianty. Souls are eternal - plant life is not! We should be learning to explain the good news of Jesus Christ from a Bible, not select a Bible to learn about becoming green along with the world.
 
We should keep in mind that opening this door in the church allows eco feminism in. Consider what Starhawk, the first president of the Covenant of the Goddess has to say: The model of the Goddess . . . fosters respect for the sacredness of all living things. Witchcraft can be seen as a religion of ecology. Its goal is harmony with nature, so that life may not just survive, but thrive.”

In 5/92, so-called leading evangelicals joined a coalition of science and religion sponsored by the “Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment.” based at New York's godless Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a bastion of New Age/ecumenical/Antichrist deception. James Parks Morton, declares that “the body of Christ is the earth ...” Out of the 5/92 meeting came an environmental consortium of the U.S. Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches, the Evangelical Environmental Network, and the Consultation of Jewish Life and the Environment.

Then there is the United Religious initiative, URI, whose unifying mission is to work for a better world,

unprecedented cooperation for global good among the people of the world's religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions. URI embraces all religions as if all are true and equally valid. Sikkhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Shinto, Judaism, Bahai faith, Taoism, unitarianism, Native traditions, Wicca, Zoroastrianism Jainism.

URI has been approved as a Non-Governmental Organization associated with the United Nations! The URI Cooperation Circle at the United Nations was instrumental.

In its Preamble: We, people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions throughout the world, hereby establish the United Religions Initiative to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation…, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings.”

The Partnership is integrating care for God's creation throughout religious life: theology, worship, social teaching, education, congregational life, and public policy initiative. … and commitment to social justice for all efforts to protect the natural world and human well-being within it.

National Religious Partnership for the Environment

Their link goes to http://www.creationcare.org/ the Christian site that has the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation.

Interfaith organizations - the World Council of Churches is connected with URI. The World Council of Churches called on churches around the world to ring their bells 350 times during the Copenhagen climate change summit on December 13 as a call to action on global warming.

The leading council of Christian and Orthodox churches also invited places of worship for other faiths to join a symbolic “chain of chimes and prayers” stretching around the world from the international date line in the South Pacific.

“By sounding their bells or other instruments 350 times, participating churches will symbolise the 350 parts per million that mark the safe upper limit for CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere

“On that Sunday, midway through the UN summit, the WCC invites churches around the world to use their bells, drums, gongs or whatever their tradition offers to call people to prayer and action in the face of climate change,” the council said in a statement. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/feds_move_iran_seize_mosques_nyc_94aYUBwWe1r4KcOrlvmXWI

The environmental movement is a religious movement by itself and has merged other religions to join in their agenda of propagating change of mans place on this planet. It is diminishing the role of man to be equal with other creatures. Where man is merely a participant of the natural order of things “with no special claim on its resources.” Evangelicals now claim that Christ's command to preach the gospel includes rescuing the environment “Environmental Stewardship: A Biblical Perspective”

The environmental movement is a religious revival of ancient paganism that is modernized, that acknowledges then creation over the creator. We now have a message of global salvation, making mother earth your salvation replaces individual salvation in Christ. Salvation becomes what you do for the environment.

National Council of Churches (NCC) Associate General Secretary for Faith and Order, Dr. Ann K. Riggs insists, “No one can read Scripture and deny that caring for creation is part of what God has asked us to do.” The Old Testament makes that point clear, she notes, adding, “There is nothing in the New Testament or early church traditions that suggest we no longer have to care for or protect creation. Care of creation is part of the Gospel.”

Is creation care part of the gospel? What seems to be missing is citing a scripture that specifically commands or has the intention they are claiming.

February 14, 2005 National Council of Churches issued a letter Headed: God’s Earth is Sacred:
An Open Letter to Church and Society in the United States– In an effort to refute what they call a “false gospel” and to change destructive attitudes and actions concerning the environment

The statement, “God’s Earth is Sacred: An Open Letter to Church and Society in the United States,” points out that there is both an environmental and a theological crisis that must be addressed.

“We have listened to a false gospel that we continue to live out in our daily habits - a gospel that proclaims that God cares for the salvation of humans only and that our human calling is to exploit Earth for our own ends alone.”

The statement calls on Christians to: first, to “repent of our sins, in the presence of God and one another,” and, second, to pursue, “with God’s help, a path different from our present course.”

In its call to repentance, the statement confesses that, “we have abused and exploited the Earth and people on the margins of power and privilege, altering climates, extinguishing species, and jeopardizing Earth’s capacity to sustain life as we know and love it.” It goes on to identify eight norms to guide us on a new environmental path: justice, sustainability, bioresponsibility, humility, generosity, frugality, solidarity and compassion.

National Council of Churches http://nccecojustice.org/ has eco justice plans.

They offer their pdf. files to download for free (hard copies printed with soy based ink on 100% post-consumer recycled, chlorine-free paper). After all we wouldn’t want to read something about the environment on regular paper made from trees.

Beside all their precautions of avoiding pollution, others point out the problem of washing the print off paper to recycle. Rauno Laithalainen, a Thai Forestry Worker writes:

“Recycling, that great environmental savior, may not be as beneficial at it seems. In Thailand, all paper is recycled. The old paper has to be washed to get rid of all the ink and this causes heavy metals to pollute [our] rivers. The poison gets into the fish and the surrounding countryside” (Recycling: Green Panacea or Municipal Nightmare?” p 21.) 

The National Council of Churches calls destructive attitudes and actions concerning the environment

a “false gospel,” this shows that they do not know what the gospel is.

In there letter “God’s Earth is Sacred” http://www.ncccusa.org/news/godsearthissacred.html

We are obliged to relate to Earth as God’s creation “in ways that sustain life on the planet, provide for the [basic] needs of all humankind, and increase justice.” ^[American Baptist Policy Statement on Ecology, 1989, p. 2]

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew: “To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin. For humans to cause species to become extinct and to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation . . . for humans to degrade the integrity of Earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the Earth of its natural forests, or destroying its wetlands . . . for humans to injure other humans with disease . . . for humans to contaminate the Earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life, with poisonous substances . . . these are sins.”[2] We have become un-Creators. Earth is in jeopardy at our hands.

….that addressing the degradation of God’s sacred Earth is the moral assignment of our time comparable to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s.

The statement calls on Christians to: first, to “repent of our sins, in the presence of God and one another,” and, second, to pursue, “with God’s help, a path different from our present course.”

In its call to repentance, the statement confesses that, “we have abused and exploited the Earth and people on the margins of power and privilege, altering climates, extinguishing species, and jeopardizing Earth’s capacity to sustain life as we know and love it.” It goes on to identify eight norms to guide us on a new environmental path: justice, sustainability, bioresponsibility, humility, generosity, frugality, solidarity and compassion.

All of these read like they were published by the UN. It is they who need to repent and believe in Jesus not just the God of their imagination or the environmental god Gaia (the green god).

Matthew Fox, a New Age, ex-Catholic priest has longed for many years to see a “religious renewal” and “awakening' in our times. He says we need an earth consciousness, to move beyond nationalism to bio-regionalism. He believes in a Coming of the Cosmic Christ, The healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a global Renaissance, the whole earth as a holy temple.

Fox is the founder of the Institute for Culture and Creation, he states, “I think frankly that the survival of the Earth today depends upon an earth consciousness, that we move beyond nationalism, for example, to a sense of bio-regionalism,….. I think the only future the planet has is a spiritual awakening that's global; this is why I think the earth religions are coming forth at this time in history” (Full Circle: The Women's Spirituality Trilogy)

He believes God is both Mother and Father, and that Eco-justice is a necessity for planetary survival.

In his book New Reformation he presents the premise that we are confronted with two versions of Christianity: one that is fundamentalist and is characterized by a Punitive Father God, a rigidly hierarchical church structure, a belief that we are born of original sin, intolerance of gay lifestyles, a fear of science; and the other version of Christianity which is expressed by a loving God of justice and compassion, is earth centered and eco-conscious, is interfaith and lifestyle tolerant, embraces the feminine, believes in original blessing and encourages scientific thought.

His book New Reformation “has a vision that is earth-honoring and oriented toward ecologic, economic, gender, social, and political justice. A New Reformation will seek mightily to balance female with male elements and to honor in every way the Mother-Father God of divine wisdom. It will consider the morality of keeping the earth beautiful and healthy to be at least as important as the morality of keeping human relationships beautiful and healthy” (A New Reformation p.22)

None of this is new. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin believed in a universal Christ: “that seems to me the only possible conversion of the world, and the only form in which a religion of the future can be conceived.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution (Collins, 1971), p. 130). This Christ was not a person—he emphasized the spirit within all matter. This is the new spirituality, the earth based religion of Gaia.

A new spirituality based on harmonious relation to our environment has an appeal to all. The argument of interrelationship of all life (pantheism and panentheism) makes sense to those who are being influenced by the spirit of the age. Unity of nature and all creatures is a Dr. Doolittle doctrine that asks of people to do too much.

Pt. 3 Pantheism, pledges and earth worship