And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
(The Revelation 16:8-9)
Most scientists agree that the Earth is experiencing a warming trend, but many are sharply divided as to the causes and whether humans have a significant, or even measurable, effect on them. Some propose that human behavior is responsible for the onset of an apocalyptic catastrophe called global warming, and claim is can be diverted by all but discontinuing, or dramatically reducing, the use of most forms of energy and building new communities remarkable similar to agrarian subsistence in their simplicity. Others note that history shows that climate variations are cyclical, fluctuating between warming and cooling periods, and that it is both presumptuous and preposterous to suggest we can control them.
Environmentalists: Get Crossed, Federal Government Eyes New Christianity
Over the years, the ranks of the former camp have swelled with ideological factions having convictions resembling those of religious tenets. They have organized politically to enact laws, set restrictions, and entice by special privileges in order to force citizens to comply with behavioral changes that would save the world as we know it; according to their theory. Up until recently, the one thing that was missing from their religious fervor was the presence of a popular, main stream, religious arm.
That began to change in the nineties with the emergence of a new twist on Christian stewardship emphasizing environmentalism. It wasn’t long after that the entirely new gospel of Creation Care evolved which is centered on a faith in humanity to restore the earth to its garden of Eden purity, and usher in the Kingdom of God on earth. By 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency took note of this emerging trend towards Green Evangelism, and begun soliciting ways to include churches who promote environmental causes into the ranks of those eligible to receive federal, faith-based funding. The EPA was looking for ways to tie the original intention of faith-based funding designed to meet basic social needs to perceived climate needs as well.
At a symposium held in Washington D.C. by the Worldwatch Institute entitled “Invoking the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in the Quest of a Sustainable World,” Jerry Lawson, an EPA director, called for environmentalists to come up with ideas to expand church participation in faith-based programs to include green causes for which they could receive the federal funds.[i] Lawson claimed in an interview with CNSNews.com at the time: “What I am doing and other people at EPA are doing is looking at the programs we have available today that can benefit faith-based groups.”[ii] Lawson admitted, however, that the real relationship that would be created is one in which the government would “work through your faith-based group to achieve” EPA goals.[iii]
The prospect of the federal government nationalizing churches for environmental causes also appealed to Gary Gardner, director of research at Worldwatch, who at the time said: “There is a role for the government to bring religious groups and environmental groups together.”[iv] While Gardner neglected to cite which article of the Constitution supports his contention, the lure of federal funding held out by the EPA could be a reason why churches are lining up to enlist in Green Evangelism faster than anyone could recite the First Amendment’s clause prohibiting the federal government from establishing a religion. By 2005, the EPA’s division of Environmental Justice was administering the Environmental Justice Grant Programs to 501(c) (3) non-profit organizations,[v] and for which grants churches were trading volunteered service hours for cash in return.[vi]
Mankind In Control: Wrestling the Scriptures
Today, there are a plethora of Christian Green groups preaching the gospel of Creation Care, and prophesying doom caused by human induced global warming. Evangelical Environmental Network is one the larger organizations, and lists as their partners, among many, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, World Vision, and Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. The EEN is headed by Rev. Jim Ball who authored the “What would Jesus Drive” campaign intended to promote the selection of more fuel efficient automobiles “to protect our health and God’s creation from vehicle pollution.”[vii] While the EEN attempts to justify its radical environmentalism[viii] with the Bible by emphasizing a clean earth must exist for the future, they fail to be struck by the operative clauses in their references to the coming millennial and perfect ages.[ix]
The EEN reference the future Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which there will be a great restoration of the earth and its creatures, including harmonious living between man and beast (Isa.11; 65), but without seeming to notice that it is Jesus Christ who returns and sets up His kingdoms and makes those changes. They also point out that a new heaven and new earth are in the future (Rev. 21), but here they fail to likewise note that this completely renovated earth occurs at the conclusion of Christ’s millennial reign, and is accomplish by God setting fire to the entire globe (2 Pet. 3:10, 12). In none of these instances is the Father or the Son reliant upon mankind’s efforts or cooperation. In fact, the Bible says just the opposite: “But the heavens and earth which now are, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Pet. 3:7; emphasis added). One might expect that these important details would be beyond the powers of discernment of an apostate organization preaching a false gospel, but even learning institutions which claim Christian education as their mainstay are showing signs of this biblical illiteracy.
Dereliction of Duty: Christian Colleges and Universities
There is evidence that Christian Colleges and Universities are becoming seminaries for future Creation Care preachers by offering Creation Care study programs. Biola University in California explains the purpose for their overseas offering “is to provide Christian-based undergraduate education that is cross-cultural and interdisciplinary, with a focus on the welfare of all God’s creation, both human and nonhuman, through the sustainable stewardship of the Earth’s interconnected systems.”[x] They go on to say that this new “mission” of the Christian University “is accomplished by the interconnected dimensions of ecology, theology, culture, and Christian discipleship.”[xi] In fact, if they become much more “interconnected” with the surrounding worldly cultures whose theology is ecology based, it will become impossible to distinguish Biola’s brand of Christian discipleship from Gaia (mother earth) worshiping environmentalism, or Baalism which was a combination of fertility cult and nature worship of rebellious Israelites.[xii]
This emphasis on interconnecting relationships embraced by Green Evangelicals, among others, is designed to foster the world’s view of communitarian equality with, and acceptance of, cultures diverse from Christianity. Young people who are in these programs are acquiring a new reverence for simple life forms in order for the cult of Gaia to promote acceptance of simpler, lowered standards of living in an interconnected world community collectively fighting global warming. Shadow boxing was never so sinister; for instead of being taught to resist the arch enemy of the Church, Christian students are being trained to fight one that does not exist.
The Mask: Who Christian Administratos are Selling Out To
For its creation care studies, Biola uses an organization called Creation Care Study Program, and they are only one of several Christian schools to do so. Azusa Pacific University, Bethel University, Wheaton College, and others, are also among Creation Care Study Program’s participating institutions.[xiii] Creation Care Study Program offers both a South Pacific Program, including Samoa and New Zealand (for which the New Zealand Tourist Board provides material and images for the CCSP website), and a Belize Program in Central America. The CCSP advertises with luring idyllic images on their website showing students petting lizards and fondling invertebrates in exotic getaways. Nevertheless, they assure prospective students that their course “is a high-caliber academic semester abroad connecting Christian faith with the most complex, urgent global issue of the coming decades.”[xiv] It is one thing to devote a semester of foreign study for cultural understand, but a four month emersion in new theology “learning about sustainable development and Christian creation care”[xv] in New Zealand and Samoa “to develop a theology of creation that understands humans as stewards of the earth” is conversion therapy for a new religion.[xvi]
Universities that utilize CCSP have gone far away from warning Christian students: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (2Cor. 6:14). Indeed, their emphasis on interconnecting them with heathen earth worshippers, subservient in their stewardship role to Gaia, deprives them of the admonishment: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2Cor. 6:17-18). While this may seem a harsh rebuke, a look at one of CCSP’s affiliations makes it easier to appreciate the similarity between the Gaia religion of Christian sponsored Creation Care and this neoBaalism.
The Face Behind The Mask: Defending the Indefensible
Creation Care Study Program promotes the religious group Restoring Eden, Christians for Environmental Stewardship, which also has local chapters on Christian University campuses nationwide. Members of Restoring Eden seemed happy to obtain Senator Barack Obama’s endorsement, and were smiling in a group picture with him which appears on their website. At least they rightly captioned the photograph “Inconvenient Christians,”[xvii] for there could be nothing more inconvenient then standing for both the defense of blunt-nosed lizard, and in favor of the murdering of human babies at the same time (the latter course also publicly endorsed by Obama). Such alliances add a new meaning to their admission that they make “hands dirtier” in the service of their mother earth.[xviii] Like the EEN, they also make misapplications of scripture to justify their religion.
Restoring Eden cites as biblical instruction for serving the earth Proverbs 31:8, which should be taken in conjunction with verse nine also, and from the King James reads: “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy” (Pro 31:8-9). Certainly it is a great day of deception and perversion when an admonishment from the word of God to defend and protect the disabled, the poor, the widows, and the children is used to justify turning a blind eye to their destruction. This is exactly what Restoring Eden’s twisted doctrine changes about this scripture by assigning it to plants and animals, and what Restoring Eden upholds by their liaison with Obama.
Vile Affections: The Result of Worshipping Creatures
These religious groups, and those organizations affiliated with, or endorsing them, are those who are deceiving and being deceived. In these apostate hours, their behavior and delusion is remarkable similar to the description found in Romans:
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Rom 1:22-25)
The pernicious gospel of Creation Care is much more antithetical to God’s word than might at first be realized. It is one part in a couplet of depravity; the extreme of which is exhibited after this paganism is allowed to progress unrestrained. Then, the second tendency of their sentiments manifests. This happens when, ultimately, God no longer restrains them and the creature worshippers plunge into gross immorality:
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; (Rom 1:26-28)
This record of vile affections is already evidenced in the organizations which have joined with the doctrine expressed by Restoring Eden, as promoted by CCSP, and endorsed by Christian Universities who participate by sending their students to CCSP for indoctrination. For example, the Episcopal Church is active in preaching the creation care doctrine of environmentalism,[xix] and also ordains homosexual bishops and is actively promoting same-sex unions.[xx] The United Methodist Church has struggled with defrocking lesbian ministers, not supporting their ministers who have taken a biblical stand on homosexuality,[xxi] and being sharply divided over same sex unions; and they also are active in preaching creation care environmentalism. The National Association of Evangelicals’ has vice president Richard Cizik who seems to preach creation care environmentalism exclusively for that organization. Cizik might be described as a global warming activists as he attends many green evangelism events; including leading the intercessory prayer for the environment at the Washington National Cathedral’s Earth Day Service last April.[xxii]
It will be interesting to watch Cizik’s activism in the future. It will be remembered that his predecessor, and former NEA president, Ted Haggard also came to support Green Evangelism, and was later forced to resign when news of his leaving the natural use of the women surfaced. History, however, is not on Cizik’s side. By the time revival occurred under King Josiah, the creature worshippers had also aligned themselves closely to a pretense of holiness. When Josiah put down the nature worshiping priests and break down the houses of their sodomites, they were right beside the house of God. The NEA claims 30 million members, and if they are not to be given up by God to vile affections also, they should be setting up and taking note of NEA’s continued global warming advocacy. They should be clear on exactly what is meant by global warming, what real scientific discoveries are pointing out in regards to climate change, and what the word of God says about coming climate changes.
Good Science: Looking at the Big Picture
The term global warming has become synonymous with anthropogenic causes (e.g. humans burning fossil fuels) for the increase in global temperatures for the last half of the 20th century. Natural phenomenon for global warming, such as solar activity, has been largely discounted by the major scientific societies, but not all scientists agree with this theory. Indeed, top scientists have pointed out flaws in the popular climate models; some of which have been tweaked to show two-thirds of all warming in some instances caused by human activity.[xxiii] Other scientists have successfully performed experiments proving how natural influences from beyond our own solar system dramatically affect global temperatures on earth. According to Roy Spencer, former National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist and currently a principal research scientist at University of Alabama in Huntsville, existing climate models are not only too sensitive, they don’t accurately take into account the effect that precipitation systems have on temperature.[xxiv] Furthermore, Spencer contends that there is still too little known about the what happens in the earth’s atmosphere to stabilize climate,[xxv] and a discovery by Danish scientists supports Spencer’s claim that hitherto unknown natural causes of climate variation not only exist, but are far more influential than was previously imagined.
Another explanation for Earth’s climate variation, dubbed a “missing link in climate theory,” has been found: exploding stars.[xxvi] When stars in the in our Milky Way galaxy explode, they send out high-speed atomic particles that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. These particles, know as cosmic rays, react in our atmosphere by releasing free electrons which accelerate the formation of cloud nuclei, and have a significant effect on low-level could formation. Low altitude clouds play 
a substantial role in cooling the surface temperature of the Earth. Up until last year, the influence of these cosmic rays on the Earth’s climate was only a ten year old theory. Then in October, 2006, a team of Danish scientists at the Danish National Space Center’s Sun-Climate Research division performed an experiment that proved that these cosmic rays are a causal mechanism for producing certain molecules that assist in cloud condensation. The original theory was based “on data showing a strong correlation between variation in the intensity of cosmic radiation penetrating the atmosphere and the amount of low-altitude clouds.”[xxvii] The DNSC experiment yielded such dramatic results that director Henik Svensmark said they “were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei.”[xxviii]
The question naturally arises, if global temperature has been warming, what has caused a reduction in the cosmic rays entering our atmosphere? In reporting on the experiment’s results, the DNSC provides the answer to this question also:
Climate is subject to influences by both natural and human forces, including greenhouse gases, aerosols, solar activity, and land use change. The climate system is extremely complex and any estimate of the human contribution to climate change is very uncertain.
Changes in the Sun contribute to climate change. Solar activity has been exceptionally high in the 20th century compared to the last 400 years and possibly compared to the past 8,000 years. When solar activity is high, the flux of galactic cosmic rays is reduced due to increased magnetic shielding by the Sun. The cosmic rays may influence Earths climate through formation of low lying clouds …
Climate models only include the effects of the small variations in the direct solar radiation (infrared, visible and UV). The effects of cosmic rays on clouds are not included in models and the models do a rather poor job of simulating clouds in the present climate. Since cloud feedbacks are a large source of uncertainty, this is a reason for concern when viewing climate model predictions.[xxix]
Once again a causal mechanism for climate change, this one actually causing global warming, is identified as a natural phenomenon, and popular climate models are called into question. The Sun’s magnetic field, which shields the earth from cloud forming cosmic rays, more than doubled in the 20th century causing a sharp reduction in cosmic rays entering the earth’s atmosphere,[xxx] and hence a reduction in earth-cooling cloud cover. Far from managing the life-cycles of distant stars in the universe, the Creation Care environmentalists must at least be able to control the magnetic field of our own star the Sun if they are to have even a hope of affecting climate change. Yet they continue in the height of arrogance and conceit to assert that they can, and must, save the world from out of the feeble hands of God. This attitude has also been identified by a top official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA administrator Michael Griffin doesn’t question that the “trend of global warming exists,” as in measurable climate change, but he questions the assertion that we should try and do something about it.[xxxi] “I am not sure that it is fair to say,” Griffin said in a NPR interview, “that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”[xxxii] To appreciate Griffin’s commentary, he must be quoted at length:
To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”[xxxiii]
It is as arrogant a position as suggesting we control the Sun’s magnetic field to change the current warming trend.
The Truth About Warming: The Future of Climate Change
The fact that this real solution to climate change is completely unattainable does not, however, deter Creation Care disciples because it has nothing to do with the actual problem they are really seeking to solve. Creation Care, like its predecessor Baalism, is a manmade religion. As such, it is in conflict with God’s word and God’s people. For the high priests of that religion this means one thing: competition. To compete with Christianity, Creation Care offers alternatives. Their alternative to letting the Word of God speak for itself is to take it out of context, change the subject, and misapply it. They have an alternate plan of salvation based on good works which appeals to the flesh through pride and self esteem. To make disciples, they threaten with defective climate models and skewed data, and they force by legislation to alter human behavior. It is all for vanity. No one or anything shall be saved by environmentalism. The church of Creation Care is destined for destruction itself.
While there is no truth to global warming, there is truth to catastrophic climate change taking place in the future. A time known as The Day of the Lord is prophesized in the Bible as containing a period of seven years wherein judgments are poured out upon the earth and all its inhabitants (Joel 3:14-16; Isaiah 13:9-11). While these punishments take the form of wars, plagues, and famines (Rev. 6:3-8), they also include mega asteroid and comet impacts that will result in huge fire storms, noxious lethal gases released into the atmosphere, and tsunamis (Rev. 8:8-9). The impact on the earth’s environment will be so severe that thirty percent of all rivers and springs will become poisoned, but many will die from drinking the waters because they will be overcome with thirst (Rev. 8:10-11). The millions of tons of debris ejected into the atmosphere will block out a third of the Sun’s light (Rev. 8:12), but conversely there will be no long nuclear winter traditionally forecasted for such an effect. Instead, the 
Sun will go into a solar maximum and erupt with massive solar flares caused by exploding sunspots[xxxiv] that will shower the earth with intense coronal mass ejections which will not only reek havoc to any remaining technical infrastructure, but will also scorch men with great heat (Rev. 16:8). If this seven year period were to begin today, based on the formulas given in the Bible and a total population of six billion people, over three billion will perish under the combined plagues and judgments that will be unleashed. Much of the extinction will be due to climate change, but a very large portion of it will actually be brought about by obvious supernatural means and agents so that it will be clear that the judgments are from God (Rev 9:13-21).
As pronounced and prolifically described an event as The Day of The Lord is in the Bible, it need not overtake anyone unaware. For all who trust in Jesus Christ, who are born again (Joh 3:3; 1Pet. 1:23), they will meet Him as “the bright and morning star” (Rev. 22:16). If they be here on earth when that day dawn, to them the morning star will arise first with transformative power in their hearts, (2Pet. 1:19) bringing them forth to meet the Lord in the air by translating their mortal bodies in the time it takes the day star to twinkle in their eyes (1Cor. 15:51; 1Thess. 4:16-17). What follows for those who remain upon the earth is the wrath of God (Rev. 6:15-17), which the Church is not appointed to (1Thess. 5:9).[xxxv] When will this all happen? Two thousand years ago, Jesus said: “And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12). Therefore, pay no heed to false teachers. Turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God; “And wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.” (1Thess. 1:10)
Notes:
[i] Marc Morano, “EPA Faith-Based Grants For Green Causes,” CNSNews.com, December 20, 2002.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] U.S Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Justice, “Grants,”
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/grants/index.html
[vi] Greg Peterson, “Clean Sweep for Mother Nature,” Episcopal Church, Environmental Stewardship, June 1, 2005.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/1829_62395_ENG_HTM.htm?menu=undefined
[vii] Evangelical Environmetal Network, “Campaigns/Projects,” WWJDrive, WWJDrive Tour, Press Room, FAQs,
http://whatwouldjesusdrive.org/tour/faq.php
[viii] Radical environmentalism being the sort that elevates all living things to the same value as mankind; thus making him subservient to them.
[ix] Evangelical Environmental Network and Creation Care Magazine, Scripture,
http://www.creationcare.org/resources/scripture.php
[x] Biola University, “Creation Care Study Program,” Biola off campus study programs,
http://www.biola.edu/offcampusprograms/programs/creation-care.cfm
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Merrill F. Unger, Ungers’s Commentary on the Old Testament (Tennessee: AMG, 2002) 316, 1924.
[xiii] Creation Care Study Program, About the Creation Care Study Program,
http://www.creationcsp.org/about.html
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] Creation Care Study Program, South Pacific Program.
http://www.creationcsp.org/programs.html
[xvi] Creation Care Study Program, Belize Courses, “God and Nature” (course description: 4 credit hours, 300 level course).
http://www.creationcsp.org/belize.html
[xvii] Restoring Eden, “Inconvenient Christians,” Welcome to Restoring Eden,
http://www.restoringeden.org/. (accessed April 22, 2007).
[xviii] Ibid.
[xix] The Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN), “Caring for God’s Creation: Called to be Stewards,”
http://eenonline.org/about.htm
[xx] Lillian Kwon, “Episcopal ‘Desertion from Anglicanism’ Prompts Call for New Church.”
The Christian Post, March 26, 2007.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070326/26536_Episcopal_%27Desertion
_from_Anglicanism%27_Prompts_Call_for_New_Church.htm
[xxi] Alan Cooperman, “Lesbian Minister Defrocked By United Methodist Church,” Washingtonpost.com, November 1, 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31
/AR2005103100971.html
[xxii] Michelle Vu, “Churches Preach Creation Care on Earth Day,”
Christian Post,April 23, 2007.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070423/27037_Churches
_Preach_Creation_Care_on_Earth_Day.htm
[xxiii] MSNBC, “Climate models: Humans fueling hurricanes:
Tests show strong correlation between warming ocean, rising emissions,”
September 12, 2006.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14787234/
[xxiv] Wendy Reeves, “Scientist: Warming not caused by humans,” The Huntsville Times, al.com, April 19, 2007.
http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/
base/news/1176974192195090.xml&coll=1
[xxv] Ibid.
[xxvi] Space Daily, “Exploding Stars Influence Climate Of Earth,” October 6, 2006.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Exploding_Stars
_Influence_Climate_Of_Earth_999.html
[xxvii] Ibid.
[xxviii] Ibid.
[xxix] Danish National Space Center, “Climate change and cosmic rays,”
Research Areas & Projects. (emphasis added).
http://www.spacecenter.dk
/research/sun-climate/other/global-warming.
[xxx] Space Daily, “Exploding Stars”.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Exploding_Stars_Influence
_Climate_Of_Earth_999.html
[xxxi] Clayton Sandell, Bill Blakemore,”NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming:
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming,”
ABC News, Technology & Science. May 31, 2007.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3229696&page=1
[xxxii] Ibid.
[xxxiii] Ibid.
[xxxiv] “Solar Superstorm,” Solar Physics, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/23oct_superstorm.htm
[xxxv] Church, ἐκκλησιÌα, ekkleÌ„sia, ek-klay-see’-ah - called out ones, a calling out, that is, (concretely) a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation (Jewish synagogue, or Christian community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both): - assembly, church. (Strongs).
