Matt Haeck is a friend from college who sand in my wedding. Over the years, Matt and I have had long talks about theology, religion, and current events, and have stayed in touch though we live at opposite ends of the country. Over the past few years, he has performed locally, and has recently released his first music album, Pair of Sirens. What’s even better, it’s available on iTunes, which means you can preview each song and download it immediately.

Click here to download it from iTunes.

There’s a reason Al Gore is getting frustrated with the fact that his global warming message is not being well-received by the populace: despite all the fancy presentations, people aren’t willing to believe in something that feels more like a 1970s Pre-Trib Rapture scare film than it does a compelling encouragement to be better stewards our environment. 

The facts speak for themselves. In reality, the earth has warmed one degree in the past 100 years, and the warmest on record was 1997, over a decade ago (so “warming” is not occurring presently). The so-called “scientific consensus,” that is, the U.N.’s own IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, has scientific articles that are noncommittal at best, but are largely not the consensus as Gore would have us believe. We also know (after Gore released his presentation) that CO2 emissions are always preceded by temperature increases, not the other way around (which would be like saying lung cancer causes smoking). Left out in most explanations of the problem is the fact that solar energy increases align more accurately with the Earth’s global temperature increases, as well as the fact that Mars and some moons on Jupiter are also experiencing global warming. More grossly exaggerated are the computer model scenarios, which have recently been debunked by the same scientists who created them. Even the IPCC data only estimates sea level rises to be a few inches, not twenty feet, as Gore predicts. 

Gore hasn’t fooled the British. Not only have the court systems in England mandated that any presentation in public schools of An Inconvenient Truth be counterpointed with an opposing viewpoint, recent polling says that 70% of British believe that the warnings about climate change are simply propaganda for higher taxes. 

So what does this mean for Christians? Tony Campolo, in Adventures in Missing the Point, says that Christians should be leading the way in “creation care.” I think he is absolutely correct because the narrative of Christianity has (in my estimation) the best basis for creation care compared to every other narrative, especially Darwinian evolution. Unfortunately, however, many of our Christian leaders are selling out to the socialist agenda. While declaring it our responsibility and mandate to take care of the environment, credence is given to the far left global warming propaganda. As I was reading Jim Wallis’ The Great Awakening, I was eager to read about his creation care theology and why we as Christians should be taking better care of the environment. Because Wallis has typically been pretty fair to two sides that disagree, and tends to come to a “middle ground,” I was greatly disappointed that he succumbed to the same tactics used by Al Gore et al: claim it as undeniable truth, call any dissenters “out of touch,” and insist that the issue is “settled.” Brian McLaren does a much better job at encouraging creation care: he merely cites the passion with which Al Gore preaches his message, and hopes that we as Christians would have the same fervor. 

To be rather honest, I’m sick and tired of Christians standing alongside far left political leaders who have nothing to offer except socialist agendas dubbed as “solutions.” Why aren’t they standing up as Christian leaders proposing Christian solutions to a problem that Christians should be tackling? Why aren’t they standing up against non-Christian tactics and proclaiming the real reason to be engaged in creation care? Instead, they have partnered with those who have used fear tactics and name-calling to silence opposing visions, and smear them as “anti-environment.” 

If there’s any question about my role as a citizen of the world, a child of God, and a thinking (not brainwashed) human being, let me spell it out: God created the world for us to “tend and keep,” not rape (sorry, Ann Coulter!). God has endowed us with the skills and talent to take better care of the environment, and it’s about time we do a much better job. As human beings (and especially as Christians), we should be championing the way to better and more eco-friendly ways of living. We should be “evangelizing” by our witness and our conversations that this is part of our lives as followers of Jesus. Because we believe the world was created by God, we believe we are to take better care of it than we have. 

It’s pretty simple, really.

A survey of the last 100 years of history will reveal striking similarities in the rise to power of Mussolini, Hitler, Wilson, and FDR. Mussolini, a “man of the people,” drove for results and “shut down” opposition to his movement; he also had the media pushing his ideology every step of the way. Hitler moved swiftly to fulfill his means in the name of progress, using every opportunity to further his socialist propaganda. Woodrow Wilson created nationalist ambition during World War I, uniting everybody against a common enemy, and discouraged public dissent about his policies. FDR used the Great Depression as an opportunity to enact policies with nary an argument because the crises were “too important for democracy to get in the way.” Each of these leaders, in typical fascist style, moved swiftly and surely with his own agenda to the dismay of civil democracy by employing perceived (or real) crises to unite the nation. It shouldn’t need to be pointed out that each of their visions have reaped unprecedented costs for societies, some violent, all leaving detrimental impacts that exist even to this day.

Barack Obama has and will be using the threat of crises to further his candidacy and to rally people behind his presidency. He will talk about a “climate crisis,” an “economic crisis,” and a “health care crisis,” asking us to allow him to bring in more government control over the economy, energy, and health care. The alleged solution for each will be to give the power to the few who believe themselves to be the annointed saviors of society so they can solve the “crises” we are facing. And since it feels good to have a president who cares, we’ll be happy to support such his policies. This “cult of Obama” is one of the many aspects of his candidacy that could be described as definitively fascist. Those who oppose his vision will be deemed “anti-environment,” shills for “big oil,” or some other synonym for “hate-monger.” 

Unfortunately, marxist philosophy undergirds much (but not all) of Obama’s vision for society. In the name of “fairness,” he has promised to raise capital gains taxes––in spite of admitting that doing so would hurt the economy. Citing the concept of “smarter government” (an oxymoron, to be sure), he will increasingly add responsibility to the federal government under the guise of “the common good.” In good company with the leaders mentioned earlier, he will seek policies that control even more aspects of our lives––from the cars that we drive to the food that we eat, from the type of light bulbs that illuminate our living rooms to the ways that we educate our children. Respect for the personal choices of others and the individual’s ability to make good decisions about his or her own life will erode even further. 

And we will accept it because it feels good to be taken care of. 

Barack Obama promised to deliver “Change We Can Believe In.” Do I believe he is able to deliver what he promises? Absolutely! It’s exactly what makes me heartsick over the force and fervor by which he will fundamentally change the way America works. Gone are the days of “We the People.” Gone are the days where the free market drives the progress and advances of our society. Gone are the days where we will be able to choose how to live our lives. 

The vision he casts is an illusory dream that promotes a centralized power––through social control and engineering––as the solution to our problems. Yet he will be cast as the “savior” of our country. Of course his movement will be thoroughly fascist, but it will be gentler, nicer. And though the “iron fist” of the European fascist movements has been replaced by the hug of liberalism, as Jonah Goldberg says, “an unwanted embrace from which you cannot escape is just a nicer form of tyranny.”

Yesterday President Bush showed us yet another wimpy attempt to “lead” by saying if Congress repeals its limitations on oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), then he would repeal the executive order. But he’s already too late because we have an alternative source of getting petrol:

Full story here.

Let me rant for a second…

Congress has deliberately limited the amount of exploration energy companies can do to provide at least partial solutions to our energy problems. Even though we’re sitting on three times the amount of coal equivalent to oil than Saudi Arabia, we can’t get to it because of government restrictions. In spite of the fact that nuclear energy is only responsible for a grand total of three deaths in history, we’re prevented from having nuclear energy to fuel our country. We’ve got a Congress performing a public raping of oil company CEOs for doing what they are in business for doing: making a profit (and a mere 7% one at that!). We’ve got laws being passed that prohibit cars idling and ban incandescent light bulbs. And we’ve got laws that force farmers to use so much acreage to grow corn for fuel (which drives the cost of food up).

YET NASA HAS DECIDED TO VISIT THE SUN BY 2015!!!??

Boggles my mind how the government is literally holding us back at a time when most Americans are so tight with finances and there are solutions within our own borders.