Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 243 | Climate Idolatry & the Pope

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

Earth Day again reveals the religious nature of the climate change movement, and the pope revealed his own faulty theology on the subject. We break down where this is coming from and what the Bible has to say about caring for the environment. Today's Sponsor: Classic Learning Test: Take the CLT10 test (Classic Learning Test equivalent to the PSAT) from the comfort of your home. Visit https://www.cltexam.com/ to register.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a great relaxing weekend. Today we are going to talk about climate change from a Christian perspective in light of Earth Day, which was April 22nd.

There were some things that were said that. I think Christians need to be able to think critically about and assess from the point of view of scripture. And the Pope said some things about Earth Day that I do not agree with Theologically. So we're going to break all of that down. I do want to talk to you guys about the Out of Shadow's documentary. And I might be able to today. And I'm sorry you keep putting it off. I promise that I am not doing that on purpose. And what I mean by talk about it is just you guys have asked me what I think about it. And so I want to give you my thoughts because I do have them, but I don't need to take an entire episode to do it. So it keeps on getting tacked on to the end.

And then I don't have time once I talk about the main subject that I'm talking about to actually get to that. So I'll talk about that. I'll also talk about the chosen series, which so many of you guys have asked me about. I haven't watched it. I will watch it. And maybe I'll do an entire episode just telling you guys what I think about the Out of Shadow's documentary that's on YouTube and also the chosen series if I get around watching that anytime soon. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news

of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honest over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

So Earth Day was April 22nd. Just a little background on the origins of Earth Day. It kind of gives us some context for the environmentalist movement in general. There is some controversy surrounding how Earth Day started or who actually started. Earth Day. So if you just Google who founded Earth Day, the first name that comes up is Gaylord Nelson. He was a senator and environmental activist who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. From Bill Clinton, he died in 2005, but he really went down in history as the guy who started Earth Day and was a pioneer for the environmental movement as we know it now.

Rolling Stone and the New York Times report that is actually not Gaylord Nelson. Nelson, it's actually a man by the name of Dennis Hayes, an environmental activist. A lot of the outlets interviewed him this year about climate change and all that good stuff. But in 2011, and here's where even more of the controversy comes in with Earth Day, NBC wrote a piece saying that it was Ira Einhorn. Maybe you already know that name. He is infamous. And really, that's who is reported to have started Earth Day when it was written about in the 1970s.

He was a hippie. He was an environmental activist, but I repeat myself. The interesting thing about Ira is that seven years after the first Earth Day, he murdered his girlfriend and composted her body and the authorities found the body in his trunk. But he actually fled, strangely enough, and became kind of a nomad across Europe and then was extradited, I think a couple decades later to the U.S. and then put in prison. He actually just died this month. ABC in 2006 also credited him with founding Earth Day. salon.com, another left-wing outlet, calls him the organizer of Earth Day, or they did back in the day, about 20 years ago, a 2001 article in the Washington Post said that he helped organize Earth Day.

And yet, when you Google him today or you Google who started Earth Day, you're not going to find this name. I couldn't find any recent articles by any of these outlets stating that he helped found Earth Day. The most recent is the 2011 NBC article. Most articles about Earth Day don't even list him as any part of the day. And articles about him don't even say that he was an environmentalist sometimes. A Time article actually says that it's all a total myth that Ira had nothing to do with Earth Day at all. And maybe that's true. I don't know.

I can't say that I've been a big part of the environmentalist movement or that I am very familiar with the history of it. It's just from what I've researched recently. It's also possible, though, that the media changed. their tune once they realized as liberal activist organizations, they need to fall in line with the totality of the left-wing narrative. And how would it look if one of the core pieces of leftism, which is environmentalism, was tied to a convicted murderer who ironically, adamantly and publicly was anti-violence and anti-war and all of that? And also, as an aside, why is that always the case with leftist activists? Not always. But a lot of times,

that they oppose so proudly and so boldly the things that they do themselves or support the things that they don't do themselves. We talked about that on Friday, promoting tolerance and peace while being very aggressive and very hateful of themselves. Obviously, I'm not generalizing everyone on the left, but it seems that with so many prominent liberal activists, the skeletons in their closet belie their purported values, and that was certainly true of our friend Ira. Anyway, whoever started Earth Day, it is, whether it was Ira or whether it was Gaylord or whether it was Dennis, whoever the media wants to believe started it. It doesn't really matter. Whoever started Earth day, it's supposed to be a day where people raise awareness about the forces that are harming

the earth to express gratitude for nature and to inspire people to be environmentally conscious and to battle climate change. And as you guys probably know, the climate has gone through seasons of climate change for millennia, literally forever. far as we know what the earth has done. We know that the earth has gone through cooling and has gone through heating. It's gone through different stages of climate change that has had nothing to do with human activity.

Climate alarmists have been telling us for decades that the Earth is a ticking time bomb and that if we don't act now, the Earth will be uninhabitable in just a few years. You heard AOC and Beto O'Rourke and a bunch of people on the left saying, this is an existential crisis and the world as we know it is going to come to an end

12 years or less unless we do all of these radical things, the end date for the Earth just keeps getting pushed back. This has been happening for decades now. The goalposts keep moving. It used to be global warming. Now it's climate change that includes global warming. And when people argue that, well, things don't seem to be warming up progressively every year climate activists say, well, climate isn't weather.

That's typically what they say. But at the same time, when there are especially hot days or hot summers, hot seasons, or especially cold winters, or when there's a catastrophic weather event, you'll see climate activists on Twitter saying, see, these are the effects of climate change. And so they simultaneously say it has nothing to do with weather and that also it has everything to do with weather and weather events. The science on climate change, the bottom line is not settled. That's just a fact. As we talked about on last Wednesday's podcast, science is not supreme because why? While it's really important and while we should study it and should be thankful for it, it's vulnerable, not just to human error, but also to human bias.

It's very often driven by ideology and politics. It shouldn't be, but it is. And this becomes obvious when you see climate activists arguing that climate policy shouldn't just focus on climate-focused solutions, but on things like racial equity and economic inequality. If you remember AOC's Green New Deal and all the hubbub that that caused, it was this all-encompassing. Her plan was this all-encompassing takeover of the government and society in general. I'll never forget when she released that initial FAQ that said that her plan, the Green New Deal,

aims to provide economic security for those who are unwilling to work, not unable to work, but unwilling to work. So for many, if not most climate activists, they drum up climate. fear to push for a socialist restructuring of society. They know if they can fill people with enough existential dread, they can convince them to hand over freedom in exchange for the security and protection the federal government promises. We're actually on that we're watching that same exchange in a way right now and we are, we're seeing this happen with coronavirus and climate activists attempt to do the same thing with climate change. Now that said, we can agree that climate fear mongering is real. Climate change, at least the rhetoric surrounding climate change right now,

is a little bit hyperbolic and that people use climate activism as a ploy to give the government more power and restructure the entire economy and society. And we can still acknowledge, while acknowledging those things, we can still acknowledge that we should be responsible as stewards of the earth that God has created and that God has given us. Pollution is real, waste is real, there are toxins, their behaviors, not good for the environment, not good for animals, therefore not good for humans. My friend Benji Backer actually has an organization called the American Conservation Coalition, and I really appreciate what they do in their perspective because they believe in limited government environmentalism. So you should check them out if this is something that you're

interested in. They want to harness the power of limited government and free enterprise to make the earth a better place. And I think that's good. I think that's a good example of good stewardship of our resources. They actually just came out with an alternative plan to the Green New Deal that's a lot more feasible and just makes a lot more sense. So all that said, all of that said, we as Christians need to be able to find the truth in all things. And that includes this. So when we see the world freaking out about anything, our first reaction should never be to join in the panic. We should always take a step back, assess the situation, seek the truth, seek the facts, and look to the word of God to inform our thoughts. This is true about coronavirus. This is true about climate change. This is

true about any issue on the left or the right that everyone seems to be fretting over. Sometimes there are things to be concerned over, of course, but panic is never justified for the Christian because unlike the secular world, we know that God is in control. We know that God is sovereign. So God, the creator of the universe, who tells us what will happen at the end of the age, we can trust him. We can have faith that what he says is true. Now, depending on your eschatological views, there are different perspectives that you have on what the Bible says will happen with the tribulation and Jesus' return and the thousand year reign and all of that. But regardless of our views on the quote, end of the world, we as Christ followers agree that according to scripture,

and our source of wisdom and vision, climate change is not how the world is going to come to an end. Okay? So it might be true that there are things that we need to fix, whether it comes to our behavior, whether it comes to renewable energy or infrastructure, all of that stuff. That might be true, but it is not true that the world is going to end from climate change. It is not the existential crisis that climate fearmongers want you to believe that it is. Of all the the prophecies that we see about the in times in scripture, we read about famine, we read about calamity, we read about natural disasters and wars and persecution and martyrdom and all of that. And maybe, maybe there could be an argument that famine and natural disaster are products of

climate change. But if that's the case, then there ain't nothing that you nor I are going to be able to do to stop that. But more importantly, the argument that these precursors to Jesus' return or products of climate change is undermined by God's promise in Genesis 8 21 through 22. He says this, I will never again curse the ground because of man. He is making this promise to Noah after the flood. I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not see.

So let me repeat that. That last line, while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. So seasons will remain, seed time and harvest will remain, both cold and heat will remain. So as Christians, we believe that God keeps his promises. We believe he means what he says. He is in control of the entire universe, and we know how the end will come about. And it's not through climate change. The Sovereignty of power and power of God protects us from climate panic. It protects us from all panic, but in relation to this topic, it protects us from climate change panic. Now, we also read in Genesis that God made the world, and he saw that it was good as he was creating it. God made the world with intentionality and care and creativity and purpose and thoughtfulness. He created Adam and he placed Adam in the garden to, quote, work it and to keep it. God created the earth to glorify himself and to nourish and help us. And he didn't just make things pragmatically for human sustenance and shelter and use.

He made beautiful things. He made creatures in the depth of the ocean that the human eye may never see. He made ecosystems. He made colors and smells and textures and views. He didn't just make the world usable. He made the world beautiful. This is what Christians call gifts of common grace, meaning gifts that even non-Christians get to enjoy. He didn't have to do that, but he did for his glory and our good. And so knowing that,

it is through gratitude and joy that the Christians should love, should appreciate, and steward nature. There are many ways that we do this, and Christians in good faith can disagree on the proper methods of caring for the earth. But I would say that, you know, just from my perspective, it's good to reduce waste. It's good to plant trees, to take in CO2. It's good to prevent pollution and our water and air as much as we can anyway. It's good to care for animals. It's good to conserve the natural world. It's good to use free market innovation to modernize our infrastructure and agriculture

and harness renewable energy and things like that. I don't think these things have to be the focus of our lives as Christians, but we can take steps in our own lives, in our own circles, to live within our means, to limit excess, to care for the plot of our lives. the earth, the plot of or the spot on eternity on which God has given us to make sure that we are stewarding creation and stewarding our lives in gratitude in a way that glorifies God. But what we cannot do, if we want to abide by scripture and live in faith in Christ, which of course all of us who follow Christ do, is panic and buy into the narrative that this is

the existential crisis of our age. God's word says that it's not an existential crisis because he's in control of existence and he promises the seasons and harvest and cold and heat will continue through the end of the age. We therefore cannot allow climate fearmongering to lead us into a position of believing the federal government needs to control our lives and private industry in order to save us. The federal government does very few things while very few things effectively and efficiently. I don't understand why this is hard for people to get. We also, lastly, cannot buy into what looks like quasi earth worship. We've talked about this on the podcast, on the dangers of the new age. If you haven't listened to my episode titled dangers of the

new age and interview with Doreen Virtue, you have to. It is by far my most listened to episode. She is a very interesting person. It was just an awesome interview. So go listen to that. But one of the characteristics of the new age is the idea that everything is God, or at least there are parts of the new age that believe that everything has components of the divine. So crystals, oils, rock, sand, trees, wind, whatever in nature has special divine power and or presence, including you, including me, including all people. And we're not talking about the biblical truth that humans are made in God's image. I'm talking about the belief that inside you, this New Age belief that inside you is some untainted

God is that if it weren't for societal expectations, if it weren't for your insecurities, if it weren't for the patriarchy or capitalism, whatever, it would be unleashed or manifested. That is an idea in the world of self-love and self-help. Sometimes it's explicit. Sometimes it's implicit. That is a new age concept that can generally be described as pantheism. So the belief that God is or is in everything and anything. So you see this in a lot of ways, including when it comes to climate, change ideology, how leftism, the new age and the culture of self-love or Trinity narcissism, they're all intertwined. They're all interconnected. So without knowing it, many environmentalists have become pantheists. You notice that behind their constant insistence on the, quote,

science behind climate change is spiritualism. So if you follow Giselle, Tom, Tom Brady's wife, and obviously a model in her own right, Leonardo DiCaprio, any of these environmental activists, and look at their rhetoric about Mother Nature or Mother Earth. They talk about showing gratitude to the Earth, showing reverence for the Earth, humbling ourselves before nature and thanking it for what it provides for us. So they personify, and I would say even glorify, deify the Earth. They elevate animals, a lot of these activists do, to the place of humans. They demand not just responsible stewardship of natural resources, which I agree with,

but what sounds like all out worship of the earth. And that's what's interesting is that many climate scientists and climate activists identify as atheists. I'm sure not all of them, but a lot of them do. They hold to this Darwinistic, materialistic worldview, meaning they only believe in what they see or what can be proven objectively by science.

So not realizing that for many of them, much of their so-called science is driven by things that are not objective, things that are subjective, so personal opinion, political ideology, and I would say most ironically, religious belief. Their religious belief is one that ascribes personhood and even divinity to the inanimate earth. So the Pope released his statement, which I thought kind of echoed this secular religion. It echoed this kind of pantheistic worldview. Part of his statement said this, and you can look it up to read it in full, so you don't think that I'm just taking words out of

his mouth, they're taking him out of context. He said this, we have failed to care for the earth, our garden home. We have failed to care for our brothers and sisters. We have sinned against the earth, against our neighbors, and ultimately against the Creator, the benevolent father, who provides for everyone and desires us to live in communion and flourish together. It is imperative that people restore a harmonious relationship with the earth and with the rest of humanity, he said. The Pope said so many natural tragedies are, quote, the earth's response to our mistreatment. If I ask the Lord now what he thinks, I don't think he will tell me something very good. We are the ones who have ruined the work of the Lord, the Pope said.

In today's celebration of Earth Day, we are called to renew our sense of sacred respect for the earth, for it is not just our home, but also God's home. This should make us all the more aware that we stand on holy ground, Pope Francis said. So the Pope from this statement, to me, sounds like he has been blue-pilled on really several things, but particularly on the environment. Now, listen, this is not an attack on Catholicism. I know many of you conservative Catholics also have a problem with Pope Francis. Maybe a lot of you out there really love him. Also, keep in mind, I critique the bad theology of Protestants all the time. I know I'm going to get at least one message or one or a few saying that I'm a Catholic hater, but it's okay. I think a podcast

that talks about theology and current events, I think that the Pope is probably fair game for that intersection. Obviously, I have myriad issues with the Pope's theology, but we will zero in on this particular statement about Earth Day. First of all, it's extremely general and accusatory without much substance. It's what I would call a virtue signal. I don't know what he means. When he says that we've failed the Earth,

maybe that's true in some ways, certainly. I'm willing to maybe concede on that. but I'm not sure exactly what he means. He says that we have sinned against the earth. He asks us to have a harmonious relationship with the earth. The earth is responding to our mistreatment through natural disasters, he says. But these statements are not biblical. You cannot sin against the earth, according to God's word.

You can sin against God. You can sin against your fellow man. You can sin against God and man by, say, purposely polluting someone's only water source. But you cannot sin against the earth. The earth is a wonderful. gift, but it is inanimate. It cannot forgive. It does not have emotions. Again, this is a pantheistic worldview. This is New Age. This is mysticism. This is ancient Native American paganism. And I don't think the Pope intends to purport this worldview, but his rhetoric echoes it. I also take issue with

the Pope saying that if he asks the Lord something, he will tell him the Pope something in particular that isn't already told to all of us, all Christians in scripture. God doesn't gave the Pope any kind of special revelation, guys. I know that that might be scandalous to say. That's just not biblical. The Holy Spirit is in all believers. The word of God is made available to all believers. I take issue obviously when pastors, Protestant pastors, say the same kind of stuff that God gave them a special word that cannot particularly be found in God's word. Also, he says, we have ruined the work of the wood. That's not possible. God is sovereign. Again, can we sin? Yes. Can we mess up? Can we do things that don't please God? Can we do things with our natural resources that don't

please God? Sure. But no work of the Lord can be ruined or thwarted by man. One of my favorite verses, Job 42, too, God can do all things and no plan of his can be thwarted. He says the earth is, the Pope says the earth is God's home. It is? That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that God is seated on his throne in heaven. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me. And what is the place of my rest? Isaiah 661. I mean, this directly contradicts what the Pope said. Psalm 114. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man. Now, two things. Two ways that we could possibly, if we really wanted to give the benefit of the doubt here, possibly interpret what

the Pope said to be theologically correct. Number one, we know that God is omnipresent. So Jeremiah 23, 24 says that God fills heaven and earth and nothing is hidden from him. Number two, the second way we could do that is God's spirit we know from the Bible is in us and his presence is with us. Romans 8.9 says, you, however, are not in the flesh but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Isaiah 5715 says, I dwell in the high and holy place and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit to revive the spirit of the lonely and to revive the heart of the contrite. But the Bible does not say that the earth is the Lord's home.

So yes, he's omnipresent, but the Bible clearly says that God's home is in heaven. He is on his throne in heaven. That is what scripture tells us. This sounds like the Pope is saying that we are ruining not just God's work, but the home that he built for himself. We are tearing it down. It sounds like, poor God. to put God's house back together that we're tearing down. He calls the earth God's home and he's saying

we are ruining God's home. But again, Isaiah 661, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest? Acts 1724 through 25. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed. anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. So nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And lastly, I would also contend with the Pope's assertion that all earth is holy ground. So he says that we need to realize that we are on holy ground. I just don't see the

biblical basis for a statement like that that all the earth is holy ground. When I hear the term holy grounds, immediately think of Moses in the burning bush. I think of Exodus 3-5 when the Lord speaks to Moses from the burning bush. The verse says, then he said, do not come near, take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. That would mean that the ground that Moses was walking on earlier before that with his sandals on was not holy ground. Again, the Pope is using unbiblical language here. Maybe you think I'm nitpicking, but I think that we could hold the Pope to a high standard. He is asserting what I would call not pantheism, probably more accurately, it would be penitism, which is the idea that God is

everything in the universe, but also that God is supreme over the universe. Whatever it is, pagan. It is outside of proper biblical theology. I don't think that everything the Pope believes can be described in this way, but this particular rhetoric is. So the Pope, at least through this statement, is bolstering the secular religion of environmentalism and environmentalism. And environmentalism has become a religion, particularly for secularists who typically claim atheism. The religion of environmentalism drives what can sometimes only be described accurately as hysteria. When it comes to what's happening in the environment and what's happening on the earth, I think poor Greta Thunberg can accurately be described as hysterical.

And I don't mean any disrespect. By that, she's young. I think that she is passionate. and I think her passion is probably genuine, but I think she's being exploited. So it's really her parents and the media who should be to blame for that. Al Gore, hysterical. And this hysteria pushes people not just to hatred, absolute hatred and silencing of those who disagree with them, whom they consider blasphemers if you go along with the idea

that environmentalism is a religion, but also a desire for control, a drive for socialistic policies that control people's behavior to try to, allegedly mitigate the risks of climate change. It's telling that these activists, though, hardly ever point fingers at China, the biggest polluter on the planet who already control their citizens' lives. It's always somehow the United States' fault, despite us not even being close to the biggest perpetrator

of environmental irresponsibility. So climate activism is a religion, among many other religions that secularists hold to, they either worship the cause itself, or they worship the earth, or they worship the government. Remember, everyone worships something. There's no such thing truly as an atheist.

Everyone worships something, whether it's themselves, whether it's money, whether it is success, whatever. Everyone makes some kind of idol. And the environment, unfortunately, for some, is just another one of those idols that Christians need to be really careful to avoid. Now, there's a lot more that we could talk about from a policy standpoint

and from a scientific standpoint. But since this is Theology Monday, I wanted to make sure that we looked at this from a biblical perspective. And I hope that it was helpful to you guys. I will see you guys back here on Wednesday. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie,

you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day

and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.