To Uganda

We leave tomorrow to visit the children of war and those who care for them in northern Uganda. We’ll spend the next two weeks in Kampala and in remote towns in the north that have suffered much at the hands of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

With peace talks possible this next week, it is a good time, it seems, to visit. We go with a group from ChildVoice International, which is seeking to respond to the horrific brutality of the LRA. The group has terrorized the nation of Uganda for 19 years and has abducted children to serve as child soldiers.

ChildVoice wants to raise awareness in the international community about child victims of war. Currently, the organization is planning to build a village in Uganda where children can live after escaping from their LRA captors.



I hope to write along the way and to report when I can on the road, or when I return.

In addition to being beaten, raped, and forced to march until exhausted, abducted children are routinely forced to participate in the killing of other children who attempt to escape. In addition to the thousands who have been abducted, thousands more have been killed, maimed, brutalized, and used to undertake the worst atrocities imaginable, including murder, rape, theft, and the like, and often on the very communities from which the children had lived.

Children who succeed in escaping from the LRA find their ordeal far from over. Fearing rebel reprisals against themselves or their families if they return to their villages, most escaped children are afraid to go home. Many others have nowhere to return to, as their villages have been decimated and are left abandoned when inhabitants are forcibly evacuated and sent to internment camps.

--Jim Jewell

Serve God, Save the Planet

Former emergency room doctor J. Matthew Sleeth has seen much trauma and heartache in his day, but if you want to see him get really agitated, tell him that the environment is not a valid topic of concern for evangelical Christians.

Dr. Sleeth is bold about his Christian faith and sees as his primary responsibility to bring others to faith in Jesus Christ. He is also one of the emerging leaders in the creation care movement, a position that is growing with the publication this month of his new book Serve God, Save the Planet (Chelsea Green).

On the heels of the Evangelical Climate Initiative that came out with its statement on global warming in Feb. - a statement signed by 86 prominent evangelical leaders - Sleeth's book provides an alternative to big-government "solutions," and shows how voluntary, reasonable creation care can save money in the family budget (Sleeth's monthly electric bill is around $20), limit environmental damage, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.


Sleeth also takes to task hypocritical environmentalists whose actions do not match their words.

He writes in Serve God, Save the Planet:

“There is plenty of hypocrisy among environmentalists. I was invited to visit a woman who writes about the effects of fossil fuel consumption. I pulled up to her rural Maine home one day. Two SUV's were parked in the drive. The Maine house is one of three that she owns. All are heated year-round...As we talked, I thought to myself, 'May the Lord save us from well intended, wealthy environmentalists who want to save the planet.'"

Serve God, Save the Planet is not about politics or the political battles over global warming. It is a deeply personal book with far-reaching ramifications for evangelical Christians and all those who take their devotion to God seriously. A moving personal story that is practical, the book presents a gripping account of Dr. Sleeth’s personal and spiritual journey to creation care. It lays out sobering rationale for life changes, a “how-to” guide for lifestyle adjustments that will help protect God’s creation, and a greater understanding how creation care serves others whose life and health are affected by our pollution.
Sleeth’s unique book tackles this divisive issue from a conservative evangelical perspective – one that urges the reader to focus on small changes each person can make that will have a substantial impact on the environment, rather than waiting for the government to devise “solutions” that intrude on personal freedom.

Ø "It's tempting to point to a self-serving lobbyist or a power-hungry elected official and blame him for one of the sixty-four thousands annual deaths from airborne soot,” Sleeth writes. “ But what about me and what about us? By changing light bulbs,... carpooling, and owning more modest homes, Christians can save lives."

Earlier this year, 86 evangelical leaders released a Call to Action on climate change, signaling a notable shift in the Christian community and a growing concern among evangelicals about the moral questions surrounding environmental stewardship. A poll released in Feb. 2006 by Ellison Research showed that 84% of evangelicals agreed that reducing pollution is a form of obedience to the biblical command to love your neighbor.

Now, they have a handbook they can trust to guide their steps.

Rather than using the environment as an excuse to increase government's role in our lives, Sleeth discusses how reasonable measures taken by each of us can help us practice good stewardship of the creation God gave us as a gift. In the process, Sleeth’s solutions save money in the family budget (Sleeth's monthly electric bill is around $20), limit environmental damage, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Five years ago, Dr. Sleeth and his family lived in a big house on the Maine coast, had two luxury cars and many material possessions. As chief of the medical staff at a large hospital, Sleeth was living the American dream. As he saw patient after patient suffering from cancer, asthma, and other chronic diseases, he began to understand that the earth and its inhabitants were in trouble. Feeling helpless, he turned to his faith for guidance, and he discovered how the Scriptural lessons of personal responsibility, simplicity, and stewardship could be utilized to help alleviate these health problems. The Sleeths have since sold their big home and discarded more than half of what they once owned.

Sleeth writes:

"The changes we have made [in our lifestyle] will not earn our way into heaven, but they do two important things for our souls. They connect us with the family of man around the world, and, more important, they bring us closer to God. If he asks us to give up everything we have and follow him, I now know with certainty that each member of my family would gladly do so."

In Serve God, Save the Planet, Dr. Sleeth shares what was easy and what was hard about the changes his family has made, and how material downscaling led his family to healthier lifestyles, stronger relationships, and richer spiritual lives. He writes: “Serve God, Save the Planet is meant to elicit personal accountability rather than political change. Its lessons are meant to teach individuals, families, and communities not much larger than a congregation; and yet it looks at larger issues because they profoundly affect each of us.”


--Jim Jewell

Freedom

Freedom isn’t free, the now common slogan says, and true freedom isn’t just physical freedom. As we celebrate 130 years of American independence, it is good to remember these principles.

Our freedom has been costly, but the price has been paid, and is being paid daily. That is true spiritually and politically, although humanists and many liberals will deny both.

To the humanist, people are inherently good unless driven toward bad or deprived in some way, and people are naturally free from sinfulness. As Christians, we understand that people are inherently sinful, even depraved, and that freedom from the oppression that comes with sin has to be purchased. Our souls must be purchased, but we have nothing to pay the price. The only currency that God will accept is the blood of the lamb without blemish, the Lamb of God. The price of spiritual freedom is the blood of Christ.

Politically, liberals believe that if we are nice to everyone and meet their needs, everyone will get along and all the people of the world will be free. The price of freedom, they say, is for people to give up their selfishness and be good to each other. The only reason there is war, the liberals say, is because nations such as the United States are selfish bullies that want to impose themselves on others.

Those who understand human nature recognize that we can never give enough away to deal with the evil in the dark hearts of the world (and in our own country). Freedom has to be protected, at times at a heavy price of blood and life.

In our free nation, however, we are surrounded by people who are not free. Walk through the mall and count the people who appear to have free spirits, who demonstrate joy. Turn on the television and watch for people who appreciate a free nation. Consider your family and think about relatives who are free in the midst of the burdens of life.

Freedom is not a physical position as much as it is a spiritual condition. This came to mind again during Sunday services yesterday when a soloist sang the great song “Free,” by Steven Curtis Chapman. One of the joys of my career was working for and achieving an agreement between Chapman and Prison Fellowship—where I was an executive at the time—for Chapman to visit prisons and promote Prison Fellowship’s ministry, and for PF to help support his Heaven in the Real World album and tour (1996). As a result of this agreement and after one of Chapman’s visits to death row, he wrote Free. It reflects the truth you see often among death row inmates—they are free while under the sentence of physical death.

FREE, by Steven Curtis Chapman

The sun was beating down inside the walls of stone and razor wire
As we made our way across the prison yard
I felt my heart begin to race as we drew nearer to the place
Where they say that death is waiting in the dark
The slamming doors of iron echoed through the halls
Where despair holds life within its cruel claws
But then I met a man who's face seemed so strangely out of place
A blinding light of hope was shining in his eyes
And with repentance in his voice he told me of his tragic choice
That led him to this place where he must pay the price
But then his voice grew strong as he began to tell
About the One he said had rescued him from hell, he said...
I'm free, yeah, oh, I have been forgiven
God's love has taken off my chains and given me these wings
And I'm free, yeah, yeah, and the freedom I've been given
Is something that not even death can take away from me
Because I'm free
Jesus set me free
We said a prayed and said goodbye and tears began to fill my eyes
As I stepped back out into the blinding sun
And even as I drove away I found that I could not escape
The way he spoke of what the grace of God had done
I thought about how sin had sentenced us to die
And how God gave His only Son so you and I could say...
And if the Son has set you free,
Oh, if the Son has set you free
Then you are free indeed,
Oh, You are really free
If the Son has set you free,
Oh, if the Son has set you free
Then you are free, really, really free
Oh, we're free, yearh, oh, we have been forgiven
God's grace has broken every chain and given us these wings
And we're free, yeah, yeah, and the freedom we've been given
Is something that not even death can take from you and me
Because we're free, yeah, the freedom we've been given
Is something that not even death can take from you and me
Because we're free, oh, we're free
We are free, we are free
The Son has set us free
If the Son has set you free
You are free indeed

--Jim Jewell

The Southern Baptist's Lame Resolution on the Environment

I was perplexed by the resolution passed by the Southern Baptists in Convention earlier this month on the environment. It is not unusual for me to be perplexed by the odd resolutions that are the usual gurgitation of these conventions, but because I’ve been active on the issue of evangelical environmentalism over the last year, I was particularly interested in the 2006 SBC Resolution No. 8 on environmentalism and evangelicals.

Apparently the resolution is attacking the Evangelical Climate Initiative, of which my firm was a part, but I can’t say for sure because there is too much nuance in the document for the actual purpose to be understood (perhaps someone who attended the conference would know if the floor discussion clarified this), and climate change or global warming isn’t specifically mentioned.

But the climate change politics aren’t interesting to me anyway, because I know where the conservative leadership of the SBC stands. While I think the SBC’s previous statements on global warming demonstrated an antiquated pack mentality, the question of the personal, moral responsibility of the follower of Christ is much more important. That’s what I’m most interested in now.

The Resolution acknowledges sinful man’s culpability when it comes to environmental degradation:

“WHEREAS, Since the fall into sin, humans have often ignored the Creator, shirked their stewardship of the environment, and further defiled the good creation.”

And the Resolution calls on Southern Baptists to protect the environment.

“RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, June 13-14, 2006, renew our commitment to God’s command to exercise caring stewardship and wise dominion over the creation (Genesis 1:28); and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge all Southern Baptists toward the conservation and preservation of our natural resources for future generations while respecting ownership and property rights; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we encourage public policy and private enterprise efforts that seek to improve the environment based on sound scientific and technological research.”

OK, that’s all good, in my view. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the Resolution is encouraging SBC adherents to do.

Let’s summarize: Baptists should.

1. exercise caring stewardship and wise dominion over the creation
2. conserve and preserve natural resources for future generations
3. encourage public policy and private enterprise to improve the environment.

I just don’t understand what any of this will mean to the Baptists in the pew without more specific directives.

To the drafters, what is caring stewardship? Does that mean establishing habits in your home that will use less non-renewable energy, or carpooling to the Golden Corral after church on Sunday?

How are Baptists asked to conserve or preserve natural resources? What is step one? And is it conserve or preserve—two very different approaches (there was argument between John Muir and Ansel Adams on this point). Do the Baptists really support any significant preservation?

And what legislation will the Baptists now support to improve the environment? What will they encourage private enterprise to do? Could they give us one clue?

The Resolution is useless because it is so vague. The criticisms are lame and the instructions are simply nice words.

There is one other point in the Resolution:

“RESOLVED, That we not only reaffirm our God-given responsibility of caring for the creation, but above all, that we continue to commit ourselves to the Great Commission to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to people of every tribe, tongue, and nation thus bringing glory to the One who will make all things new at His coming (Revelation 21:1).”

So the bottom line for the Baptists on the environment is for us to get more people saved. That’s wonderful; it really is. But when it comes to the environment, what good are more Christians who don’t know how to live their lives in a way that will truly care for God’s creation.

The Southern Baptists don’t know or they can’t say.

In another post I’ll tell you about some folks who can help.

--Jim Jewell