Colin's Blog » World Issues

Is God Green?

Colin Carmichael — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 02:06:23 +0000

In my hotel room this eveing, I came in half-way through a PBS documentary about the relationship & conflict between evangelical Christians in the United States and environmentalism. Apparently one of the leaders of the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals), Richard Cizik, has had a green conversion to go along with his conversion to Jesus Christ.

A couple things stood out for me. First was a quote from Cizik: “Sometimes to be biblically consistent, you must be politically inconsistent.” Amen. Why is this so hard to understand for some? The other, related, thing that caught my attention was passing reference to the fact the Republican Party had ‘co-opted’ the NAE.

This was particularly interesting to me because I’m currently reading “God’s Politics” by Jim Wallis. Wallis, too, believes that religion (not just evangelicals) has been co-opted by the political right. So much so that the ‘religious right’ is indistinguishable from the politcal right and that in political conversation the word ‘religious’ and only be followed by the word ‘right’. A double-whammy.

I am a Christian. I am Green. Politically, I am neither left nor right. I thank both Mr. Cizik and Mr. Wallis for the affirmation that that’s OK.

Edit: Tod Bolsinger has a preview, and a review is forth-coming.

Update: Tod has posted his thoughts on the program – and provided some good links to find out more.

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Operation Objection

Colin Carmichael — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 22:00:15 +0000

I’m not going to go into a detailed post on my pacifist beliefs, but a good friend pointed me to this initiative and would like to pass it on.

Operation Objection

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Christians and War

Colin Carmichael — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:50:53 +0000

Just when you you think you are alone in what you believe, something comes along that affirms that you, yes lowly you, can have original beliefs that are valid. This article in today’s edition of USAToday (conveniently delivered to my hotel room) echoes beliefs I have held for quite some time. Until today I had thought I was alone in those beliefs – that they were inconsistent with most Christians. Some of the comments (as of 10am PDT) I couldn’t disagree more with – particularly Jim D.’s suggestion the the Sermon on the Mount was directed at individuals and so institutions (like governments) are somehow exempt. Wha? Governments are collections of individuals! Anywho, have a look at the article yoursef and let me know what you think.

BlackBerry News This Week

Nifty Statistics Tool

Colin Carmichael — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:43:05 +0000

Stumbled across this tool this morning… Fascinating stuff.

Did you know, for example, that in the ‘child poverty’ list the United States is #2 and Canada is #7? This correlation graph is especially interesting…

There is also a companion site called StateMaster.

Twitter’s Scalability Problem Isn’t Fixed