In the end, the conscience-stricken David brings the subject of enmity back around. “May the Lord judge between you and me,' he yells at Saul from a safe distance, 'And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.… May the Lord be our judge and decide between us. May he consider my cause and uphold it; may he vindicate me by delivering me from your hand.”

There’s a part of Jesus’s story in Luke 19—there’s some debate over whether it qualifies as a parable—that is about human solidarity. It begins in what we might call the ‘here and now’ with a certain rich man clothed in finery and eating the best food. A beggar named Lazarus, covered in sores, sits right outside his house.

For the sake of this paper I’ll mention only three capacities that, in my experience, evangelicalism has denied the creation care plant over the last two decades, namely: 1) a capacity for integration with the environmental justice movement, 2) a capacity to confront Christian nationalism and political conflation, and 3) a capacity to evolve that next step theologically: we abandoned Dominionism for the concept of faithful “stewardship”—thank God for Francis Schaeffer and Cal DeWitt—but now we need to develop a new, but biblical, anthropology of our creatureliness and interconnectedness. What I mean by “capacity” is: they didn’t let us go there. Evangelicalism didn’t let us go there. Read More.

Jacob was fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau and the disappointment of his father Isaac, when he 'stopped for the night because the sun had set' (v.10). The 'certain place' he had reached was named Luz, which according to the name apparently refers to an almond grove. In a fact that never failed to amaze us Sunday School kids as much as the glorious ladder did: Jacob took a stone and used it as a pillow!

The global stocktake (GST) at COP28 will be the first conducted since the Paris Agreement went into full effect and began its five-year cycles. In the third year of a cycle, the parties will conduct this 'inventory' of 'where they’re collectively making progress' on the Paris Agreement goals. Two years later, they will return to the COP (in this case COP30 in 2025) and bring more ambitious targets for emissions reductions, based on what the GST reveals.

Jesus died for us. We often need to be reminded that he also lived for us. I don’t simply mean that he lived long enough to articulate for us a set of teachings, as wonderful an accomplishment as that is. I mean that in his incarnation, in his en-flesh-ment, as an embodied being embedded in creation, Jesus showed us how to be a human being. This month’s theme prayers for Climate Intercessors will feature the role that plastics—its production and its pollution—play in climate change. Jesus showed us how to be a consumer. Read More.

Cataclysms and bad news aren’t the only things that can cascade. So can thoughts and memories and connections. I remembered that the first time I had ever heard about the possible collapse of what is called the global ocean conveyor belt was in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Hope for the possibility of the 1.5°C target has been an illusion for nearly a decade; an assessment by experts siloed within their narrow disciplines projecting a possible case provided that, if everything outside of their realm goes just right (e.g. politics, international relations, military conflict, banking systems, religious engagement, etc.), then maybe they can still model their 1.5°C scenario.” Glibness? Cruelty? Irrelevance? Whatever it felt like, it made me wake up and realize that desperate hospital waiting rooms are populated by more than just medical experts, grieving families, and timid siblings. Chaplains—professional in their own right—are also common figures at hand in a hospital when calamitous pronouncements are made. It is an act of great leadership—spiritual, emotional—for a chaplain to step forward and compassionately suggest, “It may be time that we consider a different approach to care.” Read More

Excerpt: There is no doubt about it, John 11 is the story of a miracle.  Jesus calls Lazarus forth from the grave and it is another one of Jesus’s seven signs in this gospel that he is divine, another occasion for one of his seven I AM statements, in this case, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  I will begrudge no one in our Climate Intercessors prayer network who wants to pray for the miracle of preventing a 1.5°C warming.  Yet, as I read John 11, while it is obviously the story of a miracle, I don’t believe it is a story about miracles.  It is about death and life, and about how in Jesus we live, and breath, and have our being even unto eternity. Read More.

Dear Ed and Julia: I am concerned about God’s creation and so I try to stay informed and engaged about climate change. I am greatly troubled by the recent announcement that the host government for COP28, U.A.E., has appointed Sultan Al Jaber to serve as the president of the climate summit. Meanwhile, Al Jaber intends to retain his role as CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the world’s largest petroleum producers. Read More

It’s December 2018 at the COP24 climate summit in Katowice, Poland, and I am as depressed as I have ever been. It didn’t help that I had an attack of kidney stones during my layover in Brussels. It didn’t help that my normal set of colleagues at these climate summits weren’t attending this one. I was alone. I was alone on a mattress on the floor of my price-gouging AirBnb, touk and gloves on to try and ward off the cold. And then there was the summit itself. Poland was hosting COP24 in their coal-mining region, promoting “just transition” seemingly as a way to keep promoting the fossil fuel itself. When the climate march rolled around on the Saturday after the first week, phalanxes of Polish police in riot gear were out in full force. COP24 is generally considered a “failed” COP, precisely at the time when the Paris Agreement needed to shift into a higher gear.

Deuteronomy is about the 'treaties' that we make with God that supersede any treaty, like the Paris Agreement, that nations make with each other. Its stated motivation behind its restatement of the Ten Commandments is markedly humanitarian. And its theme that 'the past is always present' should encourage us that God is still as active in 2022 as he was when the shekinah glory fell on Moses.

Explore the significance of Jesus's Parable of the Two Sons in the context of global climate action at COP27. Learn how countries like Australia and the USA can pivot from inaction to meaningful engagement. Join Climate Intercessors in strategic prayer, seeking divine guidance for impactful decisions at COP27. Read on for insights and join our global prayer meetings.

In 2013, a chance encounter and Psalm 77 sparked a vision for climate action. Explore how this ancient text continues to inspire our pathway to COP27 in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt.