Martha's Marvellous Munchies

The final study in the Tenants of the King booklet focused on a passage from Romans 13, about submitting to the governing authorities.  As I read through the study, it seemed less about submitting to authorities, and more about engaging with and challenging them.  So I found Ephesians 5:8-16 instead. For me, this passage sums up the kind of things that churches can do. For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.  Live as children of light - for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.  Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.  Therefore it says, 'Sleeper awake!  Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'  Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the mo

I'm scared.  Are you? When a group of scientists releases a report on climate change which basically says "Sort it out now.  Or else." that's pretty scary. When we hear that species are going extinct at a rate of thousands per year , that's pretty scary. When you see pictures of the amount of plastic in the sea, that's pretty scary too. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters Even when we're doing our best to help the environment, we're aware that the whole way we live is unsustainable.  Just by living in a centrally-heated house, with running water and electric lights, driving a car and eating imported food, we are using more resources than any other humans in history.  But - even given a 12-year deadline - there doesn't seem to be any easy way to change this. It's all scary.  But fear often stifles us, not stimulates us.  How do we get away from our fear? Jesus on the Lake Rembrandt: The Storm on the Sea of Gal

I begin to see why people don't have a theology of the environment.  It gets very messy very quickly.  We thrashed our way through Romans 8:18-23 for our second Tenants of the King Bible study, and wrestled with such unanswerable questions as: What is creation waiting for and when will it happen?  Do our sins cause environmental problems?  If creation is being redeemed along with us, what does that mean?  Does "a new earth" mean a completely different one, or one which is the same but renewed? Well!  Can I just go and recycle a few tin cans in peace now? Let's go back to the basics.  We humans are part of the universe.  We can't live without it, but we also persist in regarding ourselves as separate to it.  If you picture "the environment" do you include bridges, skyscrapers, oil refineries?  Probably not.  But they are all just as much made of bits of the earth as rocks, rivers and trees. Image credit: Pixabay So why do we put man-made thin