Re: Resource conservation and Christ's return

My first response to this is to suggest that all Christians should take
noteof Acts 1 vs 7. Now assuming that these are the words of Christ, and if
you hold to a high view of the Bible that it is either inerrant or
infallible then you will say that we simply do not know when Jesus will
return. Thus those who think Jesus will return in the next 50 years first
dont recognise the authority and authenticity of Jesus' words ascribed to
him in the New Testament and second do not regard the Bible as
authoritative. I know some will not go into raptures about this, but people
should not misread scripture.

As we do not know when Jesus will return then we must preserve creation for
his coming.

Very seriously these "end-timers" have got it seriously wrong and will wreck
God's creation into the bargain. Unfortunately this kind of end-time
mythology is often closely associated with YEC - Henry Morris is a classic
example. as is De la Haye. We also see it affecting understandings of the
Middle East and I presume poor old SAddam has lost his job as Anti-Christ!
It is a pity more dont hold fast to the Fundamentals and stop hiving off
into irrelevancies which have dire effects on our Gospel and our planet

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Olson" <rogero@saintjoe.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 6:27 PM
Subject: Resource conservation and Christ's return

> Folks,
>
> I don't know whether this topic has been discussed before on this forum,
> but I'd like to see what the experts have to say about it. My good
> friend and colleague is a herpetologist who is especially interested in
> the preservation of wetland ecosystems. The "frog forum" to which he
> belongs had the following excerpt posted (see following message). The
> basic question for me is how we as believers and scientists reconcile
> the doctrine of the imminent corporeal return of Christ with the idea of
> environmental conservation for the long term?
>
> I know the "stewardship of creation" concept is most often given as the
> justification for conservation behaviors, but many of the more
> fundamentalist Christian groups dismiss such behavior as ridiculous if
> the physical Earth will only be around a few more decades. It seems to
> me that this is closely related to the YEC/OE question, and can be as
> nasty a condundrum as explaining Original Sin or the origin of the
> God-conscious soul.
>
> Thanks in advance for your participation. I hope this is an appropriate
> topic for our forum. If this has been discussed in depth before, please
> refer to the appropriate archives.
>
> Roger
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: No turtles?
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 16:47:30 -0600
> From: Mark Bailey <mbailey@conservationsoutheast.com>
> Reply-To: mbailey@conservationsoutheast.com
> To: PARC@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> Another factor influencing a person's worldview and attitude toward
> long-term conservation issues is whether he/she believes the "end times"
> (Armageddon, the Rapture, etc.) are upon us. People who fully expect the
> world's imminent destruction will likely fail to see the point in
> conserving
> "non-essential" resources such as frogs and turtles.
>
> A pre-millennium Newsweek poll conducted in 1999 reported, "A significant
> 44% of the population thinks that Jesus Christ will likely return to Earth
> during the first half of the next century [that's now THIS century]. One
in
> five (22%) says Christ will definitely return, a view held by 40% of
> African
> Americans and more than one-third of white evangelical Protestants."
>
> This is certainly not the forum to debate religious beliefs, but we need
to
> be cognizant of (and also sensitive to) the beliefs of a large chunk of
> society, and what they mean to conservation. A great many people in the
> United States have this worldview (including members of this listserve and
> many of our most influential policymakers). While, as James Stuart said,
> some creationists are indeed conservationists because they want to save
and
> protect the diversity of "God's creation," I suspect a larger percentage
of
> fundamentalists are not particularly concerned about the environmental
mess
> that future generations may have to deal with.
>
> Mark Bailey
>
> Senior Biologist
> Conservation Southeast Inc.
> 2040 Old Federal Road
> Shorter AL 36075
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue Dec 16 17:05:35 2003