Her reference to the baptismal promise was timely, I thought, (and long overdue) since a lot of churches have baptisms on Easter Even. Maybe they thought about that promise for the first time, or in a different way. I was thrilled to death that she alluded to it, and even had a custom T-Shirt made, since at that time, I felt (for personal reasons) that our churches don’t live up the that baptismal promise that we’re expected to do, if only we’d really think about what it means to “renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God”. But we don’t even talk about that in our churches…. So, among other things, I’m the “billboard in the pew” to remind the people of what they don’t/won’t think about. http://episcoveg.weblogger.com/my-new-designer-church-outfit

It was just a few weeks later when the PB spoke at the HOPE Conference. I’m just guessing that the topics could have been on her mind. I just posted a link to my blog tonight, to the recently posted videos of the various talks at that conference. I thought it was refreshing — and I think that the detail of her talk fleshed out what she was trying to get across in her brief Easter Message. So maybe you’d find more context, if you could listen to her talk.

A few thoughts, the original admittedly ascerbic post on Bishop Schori’s message was not so much concerned with a church leader tackling global warming per se (something we all agree is real and needs to be addressed), rather the appropriateness of using her Easter Message to do so, (a message with very little specifically Christian content if the truth be told). And concentrating on bovine methane in particular – good humor? Provocative? Misguided? Offensive? We obviously disagree.

On the science of cow farts here is an interesting post from the telegraph: http://tinyurl.com/2ru9sf

As for the American Church and climate change, another couple of posts, one from MSNBC charting the growing commitment of Evangelicals in this area: http://tinyurl.com/ypuezy and another interesting site is Christians and Climate run by American Evangelicals including Jack Hayford, Rick Warren and Leith Andersen: http://tinyurl.com/26o3ft

I’m afraid as far as Ms Schori’s Easter Message goes, for me it’s nil points, as for the science of Bovine Methane – we can agree it’s certainly a hell of a lot of hot air

However, I am encouraged that these issues are being put on the table in the US… plus, it’s obviously got at least this small corner of the blogosphere in a discussion about Easter- perhaps it’ll have a similar impact elsewhere?

Happy Easter L,S,E,L+A- hope to see you all soon

Love R,D+G

looks like this is breaking down into two arguments. On the first front, I guess your lady Episcopalean is more concerned with orthopraxy than orthodoxy, which is a reasonable way to think from one perspective. After all, we are called to make disciples, not teach theology? So teaching people to love one another, and consider others in their actions should indeed be an Easter message. After all, this is a time when we refelct on the reality of discipleship, the laying down of the life of God’s son out of love for each of us. A challenge at Easter is not just to reflect on the story, but to consider ways in which we too need to lay things down for the sake of others. At any rate, I expect your lady there was speaking to the believers, so why would she need to evangelise the converted?

On the other front, yes, the weather has had an impact. But the huge shift has as you say come in countries like China and India, where western lifestyles are being taken up in huge numbers, and meat consumption has increased hugely. It is the responsibility of we meat eating westerners, who have been over consuming for many a long year, to lead the way in cutting back this consumption. To be honest we should have done this a long time ago, but we were too greedy. Sure the issue of China and India may prove the final environmental straw (or plank in this case) but we’re hardly in any condition to complain when we guzzle burgers and steaks at any given opportunity.

I blogged about this before a number of times, including here: http://simoncross.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/present-food-levels-are-unsustainable/ and here: http://greenmyworld.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/green-my-world-step-one-cut-out-the-meat/ this latter on my sadly underpopulated ‘green my world’ blog.

On the topic of forests, yes they are methane producers, but that’s not really the point. These huge old forests, sitting around the equator, are the places that need to be maintained to keep some kind of equilibrium. But destroying these trees, which lock carbon up for hundreds of years, is in no time at all releasing all of it at once. It would naturally be released a bit at a time, but not all at once! And then how are we compensating for this destruction? We arent. In fact we can’t. The only thing we can do really is slow or stop the destruction of these equatorial rain forests, which we have been chopping down for the afore mentioned reasons.

Of course there are no silver bullets, and the whole issue is vastly complex, but that shouldnt stop us taking a long cold look at our lifestyles and saying, yes, here I am not acting in the best interests of others… or there I am contributing to the death/starvation of my fellow humans. As far as science being unproven, well yes, all science is unproven. It is all hypothesis until another hypothesis disproves it.

Let’s be clear, I am not an advocate for the Episcopaleans, I’m a simple church, house churchy, Christianarchist, non comformist type, and I am not even trying to defend this lady in terms of what she said or says. But on the issue of meat eating, I strongly feel tthat this is an issue we have a responsibility to act in. This is discipleship, to lay down our lives and lifestyles for the sake of others…

S.
Lets be clear too, the rainforest destruction has come at our hands, not the hands of the chinese or the indians.

You make some good points – how to respond?

No doubt if the Western world became vegetarian then meat consumption and in turn bovine methane would decrease. The Western world would probably be slimmer, healthier but arguably more flatulent as a result.

Should Christians be good stewards of the environment? Undoubtedly. Is global warming real? Yes. Should the Church address these issues? Absoloutely.

However, the point of the post was as much about what was unsaid in the Easter message as what was said. No mention of the cross, a sentence on the resurrection, no word of hope, no victory, no peace, no theological reflection at all on the meaning of the incarnation, the cross or the resurrection. At the same time the American church is itself in turmoil. Each will draw their own conclusion as to why; in this context, at this time, the Prime bishop chooses to comment on the ‘methane output’ of hamburger cows.

As for the science, a few points:

I agree on the need to protect the rainforest. If it is being cut down to make way for soya crops for cattle feed, then I’m against it.

What is behind the new face of hunger?

World food prices are undoubtedly rising – we see that first hand in the Philippines and those who struggle most are the poorest whose staple food rice suddenly becomes expensive. However, is the driving mechanism behind these increases the West’s over consumption of all food stuffs but particularly meat? I would have thought that this consumption would be relatively constant over time as the population is relatively constant. To my mind a more likely reason lies in the recent typhoons and floods that have hit the SE Asian rice bowl, Bangladesh and China, causing a reduction in the production of rice and therefore a world rice shortage. Also the global recession, plus all time highs in crude oil and the price of gold, plus the slide in the stock markets all result in increasing prices in the basic commodities.

Is agricultural methane a factor in global warming?

Possibly. I’m no expert but an hour googling reveals that this is a relatively new hypothesis and the science is unproven. I note that the rainforest itself is also a ‘methane engine’. As is human waste. Increasingly, I think global warming is seen as an incredibly complex phenomenon, with a multitude of global causes and impacts. I think we agree that there is no silver bullet – vegetarianism or biofuels.

What is to be done?

No doubt the West (and specifically the US) have a leading role to play in addressing global warming – but the truly frightening prospect is the development of China and India. At present China is constructing one coal powered power station a day. India has just begun producing the ‘peoples car’ a diesel run affordable car for the masses. The rise of the middle classes in these 2 countries, coupled with population growth in general mean that over the next half decade resource consumption – energy / meat / precious metals (just about everything) is going to rise exponentially around the world and global warming accelerate correspondingly.

I don’t know what the answer is – but I suspect that Americans eating less hamburgers (good and well intentioned though that might be) is unlikely to make much difference.