Environmental Nature Worship

Isaiah 24:4-5
“The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.”

There are some evangelical organizations that would point to Bible passages such as Isaiah 24 or Jeremiah 2 and say that these passages refer to the devastation caused by global warming – or climate change, as they now prefer. An accurate exegesis of Isaiah 24 would need to study the use of the Hebrew word eretz, translated either as "land" or as "earth", and such exegesis is outside the scope of this Creation Moment. The question is whether the two passages mentioned refer to the entire planet Earth or just Israel.

However, if we allow for a moment that the passages do indeed refer to the whole Earth – a position of which I am less than convinced – there is still a problem for Christians influenced by the climate change lobby. In fact, the passages make clear that the sin, which is being punished by devastation, is idolatry. The reference to harlotry in Isaiah 24 usually indicates idolatry, and Jeremiah 2:8 identifies this as the worship of Baal. Baal was the nature deity of the Canaanites. Worship of Baal was deemed necessary to aid the environment and produce better crops. So, the pollution of the land in Jeremiah 2 and Isaiah 24 is actually the moral pollution of substituting another deity for worship of the true God. That is, in reality, the approach of the modern environmental movement, which has made a god of the Earth and a morality of its precepts.

Prayer: We pray, Lord, that we will never inadvertently put anyone or anything in the place of worshiping You, our Creator and Savior. Amen.

Ref: Clough, C. (2016), Sin, Deception, and the Corruption of Science: A Look at the So-Called Climate Crisis, < https://cornwallalliance.org/2016/07/sin-deception-and-the-corruption-of-science-a-look-at-the-so-called-climate-crisis/ >, accessed 2/28/2019.

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