Glimmer Of Hope

The Centre for Public Christianity does an array of podcasts.  They are all about having open discussion about issues that concern us but from a Christian perspective.

There was one podcast that intrigued me.  It covered the topic of ‘climate change’.  A hot button topic bound to polarise its audience.  It is 15 mins long.  A statement near the end I found disturbing.  It came from the guest on this podcast, a Christian, scientist and advocate for ‘climate change’.

Nearing the end the guest mentioned how if we act on ‘climate change’ then we still have a “glimmer of hope” of avoiding catastrophic rises in temperature.

This Christian is saying that knowing full well who created the climate and who maintains the climate (i.e. God).  He also knows that any catastrophic world-ending event would mean the second coming of Jesus is upon us.  As Christians we are supposed to pray for this event to take place.  Yet the guest claims to be an advocate for action on ‘climate change’ so that his children will have a world to live in.

We don’t have a “glimmer of hope”.  We have a beacon of hope and it comes in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  A Christian ought to worship Jesus, not His creation.  Worship creation and Jesus is ignored.  Worship Jesus and enjoy His creation in a responsible way, as stewards with dominion over God’s creation.

We ought to do the right thing by the environment.  No one in church would disagree with this.  Many Christians have gone beyond ‘stewardship’ and jumped into ‘earth worship’.  For these people God is put in a box while they focus on their glimmer of hope.   

Meanwhile the beacon of hope .................is still in the box.

Tokenism

Apparently Tony Abbott ought to have appointed more women to the front bench of his cabinet.

No surprise that the now opposition has jumped on this in order to perpetuate the myth that Abbott has a problem with women.  Disappointingly it was lead story on most media outlets.

If Abbott bowed to pressure he would be giving women a position based on gender and not on merit.  He appointed the best people available at this time.

People forget that when the coalition lost the election in 2007 they lost a lot of talented politicians.  Women replaced a lot vacant positions.  This means that many of the women in the now government are still very fresh.

Plenty of women are raved about for their ability in politics.  But promoting them to the front bench at this stage would be setting them up for failure.  This isn’t good for women in politics.  Some now call for quotas of women in ministry positions.  They ought to think about the negative ramifications of their ideals.

That this makes news is ridiculous, but not surprising. Perhaps I’m now perpetuating it as newsworthy.  Perhaps it’s the only thing the opposition can find to insult against an otherwise strong cabinet.

Motivation Is Key

A lot of people advocate for responsible environmental practices.  This is all good, as we all should look after our surroundings.  It’s what motivates such calls that can be disturbing.

People don’t seem to be promoting these ideals out of an ingrained responsibility to look after the environment. Rather they are advocates based on the vain claim that we can change a climate that has been continually changing on it’s own for millennia.

There’s a plethora of examples where people are flouting the environment.  Many need to be stopped.  Not because we may be able to change temperature by a fraction of a degree, but because it is good for the environment to do so. 

We are so up ourselves as a species thinking we can change and ever-changing climate.

Rudd On Bolt

I’ll give Prime Minister Rudd some credit, not many Labor MP’s are willing to go on The Bolt Report.  He wanted an immediate point of difference to Julia Gillard.  She was unwilling to appear and Rudd was.  Already a win for Rudd, and he hasn’t said anything yet.

From what he said his supporters would congratulate.  Purely because he didn’t allow Bolt to land any ‘killer blows’.

Yet from the beginning Rudd belittled Bolt as “a conservative”, as if that was a bad thing to be.  He interrupted continually, answered long-windedly and robbed Bolt of points of clarification and follow up questions.

His answers seemed rehearsed.  As did his claim that his ad nauseum responses were “a direct answer” to the questions.  He was condescending, patronising and narcissistic.

Rudd admitted that he needed to engage with conservatives then insulted the Liberal Party by calling them an “ungodly kabal”.

Yet unfortunately it doesn’t really matter what we think of his performance.  He appeared, and to enough people that’s all that matters.

Green Jealousy

Christine Milne was on Insiders last Sunday morning the 14^th July.  Her prime objective was to outline her party’s policy position for the upcoming election. 

Basically, for the Greens if you earn money you will be punished.  If you don’t earn money you will be rewarded. 

The Greens plan to slug banks, miners and the wealthy.  All this to fund an overly generous welfare package.  

The Greens hate people who earn money.  They are jealous of them it seems.  How dare people aspire to create wealth when there’s people who can’t or won’t earn money.  It is their intellectual elitist method of wealth distribution.

But they don’t think this through.  By punishing the wealthy they deter aspiration from low-income earners.  And by punishing wealth creation they might decrease the gap between rich and poor but the poor become poorer as job opportunities decline.  They purport to support les poverty, but through their policy the opposite will be the case.