News

Jon Anderson: It's our turn to care for the planet Earth

For the sake of neighbors near and far, we have to respond to climate change.

Jon Anderson, Star Tribune

April 13, 2007

 

It's amazing what a difference a degree makes. A single degree does not seem like a big thing when you look at your thermometer, but it makes an impact larger than you imagine. It turns a snowstorm into sleet or a rainstorm. It's the difference between safety and danger.

Leading scientists tell us that the Earth's climate is changing and that average temperatures are going to increase by several degrees. An increase like that could wipe out a wide variety of animal and plant species. A change of several degrees could dramatically change weather patterns, causing chronic drought in one part of the country and devastating hurricanes in another.

 

I'm not an expert in science or climatology, but I've noticed changes in our climate much as many other Minnesotans have. What can we do? How will this affect our children's lives and those of our children's children?

 

These are economic questions. These are public health questions. And they are religious questions, too. We know that global warming already is having an effect on people. I recently visited with the pastor who used to serve the Inupiat people of Shishmaref, an island town in northwestern Alaska. He told me how the people who have lived all their lives on the island have to prepare to leave because the rising water and ever more intense winter storms are literally washing away their homeland.

 

I am not an expert on all faith traditions, but I know that most emphasize our calling to care for creation. Christians believe that we are called to not exercise domination over creation, but rather dominion. We are called to be careful stewards. We are called to love our neighbors near and far. We know that our actions have consequences that affect people near us and far from us. But our neighbors are not only other human beings, but plants and animals. And the Earth is our home.

 

People of faith need to be talking more with scientists, politicians, business leaders and others about how we can work together for the good of all. It will take a variety of steps big and small to be good stewards of what we have received and build a simpler and more sustainable way of living for the good of all.

 

When I was a young man, my father did not talk about his faith too often out loud. One day, when I was an overly smart teenager, he asked me to go and plow the contour strips that swooped around our big hill with its sandy soil. While these strips of different crops look beautiful, they are a pain to till. When I got home I told my dad what I thought. "That's crazy," I said. "I'm not going to do that again!" I have never forgotten what he said next, "Jon, we have been given this land by God to care for in our lifetime and to pass on to the next generation in better shape than we received it."

 

This is our watch. May we work together to care for creation and pass it on to the next generation in better shape than we received it ourselves.

 

Jon Anderson, of Redwood Falls, is bishop of the Southwestern Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

 

©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.