A Rocha Creation Care Conference

Creation Care Workshop_Grace PJ_26 Nov 2011

A Rocha Workshop on Creation Care will be held on 26 November (Sat) at Grace Community Centre, Taman SEA, PJ.

Peter Harris will be our main guest speaker. He is the founder of A Rocha, an international Christian nature conservation organization working in 18 countries. The workshop is designed to be interactive will be a combination of sermon plus engaging activities. There is a very minimal fee of RM15 per person to cover the cost of F&B on the day. The workshop starts at 930am - 330pm.

Attached is the e-flyer with more information. I would greatly appreciate it if you can help to circulate this among your friends, church members, cell groups and networks. To register; email Deborah at maildebster@gmail.com.

Come, be inspired, blessed and make a difference wherever you are.

The Lorax (by Dr Seuss)

The Children’s Library is a CDPC community project for children in Puchong and its neighboring communities. We hope to bring the joy of reading high-quality and award-winning story books in the English language to more emerging readers.

With this goal in mind, the Children's Library Holiday Program was organized to take place on 1st September 2001 (Thursday morning). More than 20 children aged 5 to 8 years old attended the event, most of whom have just gotten to know about the library/church. Praise God for bringing the crowd!

Alicia reads Dr Seuss’ "The Lorax" about the wanton usage of the earth’s resources for selfish gain. Check out the cartoon version

Biblical Environmental Stewardship

Question: Shouldn't we spend our time and resources helping poor people rather than animals or plants?

Vinoth Ramachandran once remarked that the question is like asking a poor mother not to bother about her child’s education because feeding him is more important. Of course, both basic needs should be our concern although in some contexts, saving lives would have higher priority than environmental conservation.

In most situations, however, it’s not an either/or choice. The well-being of rural poor is often dependent on a sustainable ecosystem. The natural resources are their ‘pharmacy’ (from which they gather medicinal herbs) and ‘local supermarket’ (from which they are supplied daily needs) and water supply system. Environmental degradation disproportionately affects the poor. Since there is close interdependence in the ecosystem, animal and plant extinctions would ultimately be unhealthy to people as well. Helping people to manage and develop their natural resources in a sustainable manner would in turn alleviate poverty.

Therefore, we must care for both people and for non-human elements of God’s creation.

Obeying God’s commandment to be responsible stewards of His world is also an expression of love for the Creator and for people, especially the rural poor.

The main challenge to creation care is to start with ourselves. None of us likes to change our lifestyle if it involves perceived inconvenience. If each of us care enough to act in the light of what we discover, we can begin to live a simpler lifestyle, reduce pollution load and free up more resources for those really in need.

Dean Ohlman wrote, “We must not prioritize our ethical obligations to such an extent that we excuse the plight of animals made to suffer unnecessarily by our neglect or cruelty.”

Question: Isn't this business about ‘saving the earth’ a distraction to the church’s task of ‘saving souls’?

This question is best addressed by asking a similar question – “Is parenting a distraction from our Christian task of evangelism?”

For those of us with children, parenting is a time-consuming responsibility we carry out daily. It’s part and parcel of living in obedience to God. We rarely need to choose between caring for our children and witnessing for Christ. We perform each duty when it is required and doing either one does not contradict the other.

In the same way, Dean Ohlman observed that “earth-keeping is a natural and integral aspect of our day-to-day decision-making regarding spending, work, consumption, transportation, waste management, and so forth. The problem is that not until recently have we come to understand how irresponsible we have been regarding this foundational aspect of daily living.”

A Christian analysis of environmental degradation sees its primary cause in our broken relationship with God which leads us on a futile quest for fulfillment at the expense of the earth. Instead of purveying more gloomy news and passing more laws, lasting progress can only come about when people have a radical change of heart. And the fruit of gospel witness should result in transformed hearts and reordered lifestyles towards God, other people and the creation as part of our discipleship.

The conservation movement today is in dire need of hope that the good news has to offer.

Not only that. Every time we care for creation, we are really witnessing to the Creator.

We are demonstrating to the community the practical outworking of the gospel with our lives.

For instance, A Rocha, a Christian conservation movement, took a piece of unkempt land in West London and turned it into an oasis for wildlife called Minet Country Park. It raised questions among the neighboring people, “Why are they doing this?” It gives opportunities for them to find out that our ecology is based on the gospel and our gospel is centered on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Question: What’s the point? The ecological problems are so huge. What I do won't make any difference.”

Environmental stewardship is a loving response to God and turning away from consumerist lifestyles. As Christians, we can do what is right not primarily because of the perceived usefulness, but as an act of worship. This perspective frees us from the despair that secular environmentalists face – to act rightly while trusting in the sovereignty of God for the results even when the circumstances look bleak.

Suggested Resources:

http://www.arocha.org/
http://arochalivinglightly.org.uk/

Ecology: Local Trends and Issues

From Kairos: The current mindset of the public towards environmental protection is much too simplistic, with most people relying only on two key factors in their consumer choices: recyclability and biodegradability.

Too much faith is placed in recycling as a solution to the increasing mountains of trash being generated. Firstly, not everything is easily recyclable (as in the case of assorted plastics), or is worth recycling (whether from an energy consumption point of view or in terms of the cost factor). Other factors such as concern for hygiene may also deter the reusing of certain items.

For example, in the case of glass bottles, which are totally recyclable, the trend in the industry is to switch to single-use bottles, especially for beverages. This is because the washing and sterilising of used bottles is not exactly a low-energy process, and this does not yet take into account the cost and energy involved in transporting the used bottle from the end user back to the bottling plant. Furthermore, there are liability issues (especially in the litigious West) to be reckoned with when reusing glass containers.

The benefits of a product being “totally biodegradable” are also overrated. In properly managed landfills, nothing ought to decompose or biodegrade as this will produce leachate, which in turn needs to be treated. As such, innovations like biodegradable plastic (and whatever else that is touted as being biodegradable) will not help much in reducing the amount of waste if they are not composted.

The fact is, being biodegradable counts for nothing if the product ends up going to the landfill. On the other hand, biodegradable products or waste (like paper, textiles, leather, garden wastes) are combustible, which suit incinerators just fine.
In deciding what constitutes a “better” material (besides recyclability and biodegradability) for our daily applications, we must appreciate the concept of embedded energy (EE), which means the total sum of energy and other input needed to manufacture a product. For example, if more energy, water and money is required to reuse glass bottles for soft drinks (compared to disposable plastic bottles), then it cannot be said that glass is always an “environmentally friendlier”, or better, choice.

This does not mean that recycling has no place in modern society. Putting aside all economic barriers, the chief hindrance to the success of any recycling programme lies in the attitude of consumers. The fact is, separating all the waste generated in one's home is a cumbersome, if not unappealing, task for many. It takes significant effort to ensure that all the different types of wastes are sorted out properly.

As consumers, we must make wise purchasing decisions. Too often, we buy what is
convenient and cheap without taking into account the product’s durability (which will prevent it from becoming landfill material quickly, thus wasting more precious resources) and its overall long-term impact on the environment.

Christians need to be mindful of how their individual choices affect the environment. In dealing with the growing mound of trash, Christians have another alternative: REFUSE, adding another R to the list. In a lot of instances, this should be our first choice. By consuming less, we avoid the tough question of whether it is better to reuse or recycle, to landfill or incinerate. In the meantime, we should get acquainted with the science, economics and lifecycle of the things we consume, and not be misled by simplistic suggestions on what is better for the environment.

Meng Yew Choong is a journalist with a Malaysian English daily.

Reducing Your Wasteline!

What can the Local Church Do as Creation Waits?

Alicia Jackson
July 2009
City Discipleship Presbyterian Church (CDPC) is by no means a mega church, or even a large church. Medium-sized, perhaps even “relatively small” may be more apt word to describe our numbers. So how much positive difference can a relatively small church make towards the welfare of the environment we share with hundreds and thousands of city folks? Well, significant actually.



Being the only administrator in CDPC gave me the opportunity to initiate projects that will benefit the church community. I have been (so far!) given the liberty by my senior Pastor Rev Wong Fong Yang to launch and implement any uncontroversial community projects I deem fit. One major occasion for that happened sometime in early 2008, when my cell group friends Ken and Shirene asked me a question that I probably would not have thought of that time: “Why are we using foam disposable cups which are bad for the environment”. Good question.

So why do we, and other churches indiscriminately dispose trash that will pollute the environment for hundreds of years? As the one responsible for purchasing and distributing foam disposables, I would say because it is convenient. It is cheap. It is much easier than cracking your head for a better alternative AND system that will cater to hundreds to users each week. It is strange looking back that the care of creation never once crossed my mind. We ARE throwing those cups in the DESIGNATED thrash bin using APPROPRIATE garbage bags tied up in the PROPER WAY aren’t we? It’s not like we are dumping our trash in the nearest monsoon drain are we? Hence we have fulfilled our due responsibility, right? Well, the question posed by Ken & Shirene opened up the possibility that no, we haven’t fulfilled our due responsibility to our society (let’s not separate society from environment as they are inter-related). In fact we are doing harm each time we throw those carefully tied up neat packages of foam cups and plastic cutleries into the municipal dump.

And so begin our journey to correct our ways. First, the foam cups will have to go. At first, the logical solution was to replace it with paper cups. However after some research, I discovered that the negative environmental impact from producing and transporting resources-intensive paper cups is probably worse than the foam ones. On top of that, paper cups are lined with layer of plastic for water-resistance which makes it not very recyclable either. Also, paper cups are not finger-friendly when holding hot beverages which are the staple of CDPC’s fellowship hall. This means we’ll also have to provide hot cup jackets which will add to the trash. At the same time, paper cups leave a less damaging rubbish trail compared to foam ones. Then again, they are more expensive. So what should we do? Which type to use? What about cost? These and more questions were faced in our quest for a greener CDPC.

Eventually, we decided to skip the biodegrable disposables and head right to reusables instead. Hence a 3-phased solution was implemented:

Phase #1: CDPC members were encouraged to use their own personal mug. This is done by selling personalised mugs at RM1.50 each to members in church over two weekends. Racks were set up for members to store their mugs. As the mugs were labelled with names of their owners, there isn’t any problem of unwashed and ill-treated mugs.

Phase #2: Foam cups are limited to 50pcs each week. Eventually, they were replaced by paper ones with reusable jackets made out of coloured foam sheets. These are mainly for visitors’ use.

Phase #3: Launched a 4-week countdown to “Zero Disposable Cups” using posters to remind church members to bring and label their own mug. After that, all disposable cups were replaced with designated “Guest” mugs for visitors.


12 months forward and I am proud to say that CDPC has since replaced our disposable cutleries and plates with reusable ones. We are also separating our waste (paper & plastic) and bringing them to the local recycling centre. True to the initial tagline “Reduce Our Wasteline” in the posters I set up during the early stages of our green journey, our thrash volume now has reduced significantly. Church members on refreshment duty can testify that they dispose much less number of garbage bags compared to a year ago. Surprisingly, it was a rather easy transition from disposables to reusables. Church members gamely cooperated and did their part without resistance. This only proves to show that Christians are generally aware of environmental issues and would do what is right, if steered the right way.

Our next project is in line with “Precycling”, which means proactive recycling by reusing resources and refusing new purchases unless absolutely necessary. I have recently set up an advertising board for church members to give away, lend or sell used furniture, appliances and baby gears. Hopefully this latest green project will take off and benefit the community. It will certainly benefit the environment by directing still good and usable items away from our overloaded landfills. Our other green efforts are choosing food items with less packaging and using reusable shopping bags.

Back to making a significant impact on the environment despite being a small body of people, I strongly believe that when Christians are motivated to be earth keepers in their local churches, they will eventually do it at home and at work. As they practice care for creation at work and in their day-to-day affairs, co-workers, neighbours, relatives, friends and even strangers are sure to notice and hopefully be influenced to do the same. If each Christian “converts” a handful of individuals by exemplifying simple acts like refusing plastic bags, separating their trash, leading a simple materially non-cluttered life, reducing their carbon footprints, imagine the overall exponential impact that will be made in our local society.

Peter Harris, Founder/Director of A Rocha, a Christian Conservation group, said during the the recent Biblical Environmental Stewardship Conference, that the environmental movement is really not about saving animals and plants. It is about changing hearts to CARE for this awesome creation that God has generously bestowed unto us. It is my hope that every Malaysian heart, beginning with the Christians in Klang Valley, will change in that direction.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
(Psalm 24:1)

Top 10 Ideas To Care For Creation!

1) A Rocha Aug Top Story on Malaysian-Singapore Conferences
Video Report by Graham McAll (Spot yourself in the shots!)

2) Your Top 10 Ideas with the Most Votes!
After the speed round of brainstorming in groups, Alvin Ung got everyone to vote
on ideas which people felt were doable, a sign of our next steps towards creation care.

Did you know this was the #2 idea?!
"Pray and give thanks every morning for Creation."

What a wonderful practice!
I invite all of us to commit to doing this together till 18 Aug (1 month after 18 Jul).

3) Downloads: Audio recordings of the talks (note: the links expire on 10 Aug)

SESSION 1 (Miranda & Peter Harris)

SESSION 2 (Dr Graham McAll) "Climate Change, Health & Faith"

4) Join the Google Group: Biblical Environmental Stewardship Malaysia

"This group is a follow-up initiative to the A Rocha Conference
on Biblical Environmental Stewardship which was held on July 18 2009 in Subang Jaya.
It's a place where we can share our hopes, dreams, questions, answers and opinions,
and hopefully discover what God may be saying to us through it."

Those who wrote on the sign-up sheet at the end of the conference, I encourage you to carry on the conversation and nurture this newfound creation care community,
specially set up for you by David Bakewell (thank you!)

Thank you CDPC, Pastor Wong Fong Yang, Alicia, Ken & Shirene, Alvin Ung & David Chong making the the first A Rocha conference in Malaysia possible. And thank you everyone for coming, and desiring to participate in God's reconciliation of His world.


Thank you and God bless!
Melissa Ong
A Rocha International

Why is creation waiting for the Christians?

By Shirene Chen

The provocative title of A Rocha’s inaugural conference in Asia, “Why is creation waiting for the Christians?” is perhaps the most overlooked, urgent question to be asked in the Christian church today.

A Rocha is science-led, research-based Christian nature conservation organisation with projects in 18 countries. A Rocha means “The Rock” in Portuguese, a tribute to its humble beginnings in a field study centre in Portugal.

The conference, held in the City Discipleship Presbyterian Church (CDPC) in Subang Jaya, Selangor on 18 July 2009 consisted of two parts. In the first part, Peter Harris, the founder and director of A Rocha taught the biblical foundation for Christian action in creation care. In the second part, Dr. Graham McAll, a family doctor in England, presented scientific evidence that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.

So why is creation waiting for the Christians? Or put another way by Peter, “Although more and more, the environment is on page one of our newspaper, it is rarely on page anything in the Christian news.”

Peter explains that our neglect of creation is an example of the disconnect between what the bible says and what we do that can be traced back to the times of slavery in the southern states of America in the 17th to 19th century. At the time, Christian slaveholders, unwilling to give up their slaves, supported the institution of slavery and inhumane practices.

There is also the telling story of John Newton, the converted English slave-ship captain who read his bible on the decks while slaves perished beneath his feet.

Since then, the split between private faith and public affairs exists in the church and the bible is relegated to speak only on strictly “spiritual” matters.

Today, Christians are not connecting what the bible says to what we are doing to creation. We have allowed the “consumerism DNA to infiltrate the church, creating a genetically modified church preaching a genetically modified gospel.”

Three biblical pillars for creation care

What does the bible really say about creation care? Peter gives a framework of three biblical pillars.

1) Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

The earth is the Lord’s and we ought be accountable to the One who owns it. Yet we have lost the sense of whose world we live in. By using the word “environment”, we tend to think of the material world as what is around us, and put ourselves, idolatrously, in the centre of it.

Christians should learn to use the word “creation” more instead of “environment” because “creation” is the biblical perspective that puts humans as part of God’s created world together with the plant and animal creation. Because the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, we are to value all of God’s handiwork including the non-human part of it.

One consequence of the utilitarian, human-centred view of creation is the tragic fact that we only know 4% of the plants on the planet and we stand to lose 50% of them in next 50 years through climate change and loss of natural habitats.

Psalm 104 speaks of the extraordinary range of species that God has made in His wisdom. But we are behaving like children who burn the library of their father without reading the books.

2) Hosea 4:1-3
Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
because the LORD has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.

There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

Because of this the land dries up,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea are swept away.

3000 years before the advent of the environmental movement, Hosea bleakly described symptoms of our ailing creation and the root cause of it. He showed us that our broken relationship with creation is the result of our broken relationship with God.

People think that the environmental crisis is only about saving plants and animals but the core of the problem is actually about changing human hearts. What changes the human heart? The secular environmental movement is angry, depressed and radical because it has no answer to this question. But the bible gives us an answer and a hope.

3) Romans 8:19-22
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Sermons on this passage seldom deal with the idea that the creation is groaning and there is hope for its liberation from decay. Why is this idea often neglected? Peter offers one possible reason – the church is afraid of getting the gospel mixed up with pantheism.

But the bible wants us to talk about creation. Psalm 148, written at a time when Israel is surrounded by nature worshipping religions, puts nature in its rightful place. In the psalm, all of nature sings praises to God “for he commanded and they were created” (v.5).

Creation is groaning because our relationship with the Creator is broken. While the old Adam broke our relationship with God (Gen 3), the new Adam, Jesus Christ, came to restore our relationship with Him (Romans 5:12-21). Therefore, those in restored relationship with God, the children of God, are to bring healing and wholeness to creation.


Awakening the sleeping giant

All over the world, Christianity has allowed the secular green movement to provide leadership in the field of creation care. Peter urges us that “most effective environmental campaign is to teach the bible because the church is the world’s largest NGO!”

In Asia, Christian leadership in this area is paramount because a large treasure trove of biodiversity is still concentrated in this region. However, our green landscapes are fast disappearing, falling to the same destructive forces – climate change, pollution, over-harvesting - that have wiped out the natural habitats in the West.

God has purposes for where and how we live (Acts 17:26-28). Peter believes that the Asian church can speak where the Western church cannot. If the Asian church gains the vision of creation care, it can lead and rouse the global church, the sleeping steward, to wake up before it’s too late and respond to the biblical call to be responsible earth-keepers.

Putting God’s word into action – an A Rocha project in Kenya

Arabuko-Sokoke Forest in Kenya is the largest remaining remnant of coastal forest that once spanned the East African coast from Somalia in the north to Mozambique in the south.

It is home to a great variety of mammals, amphibians, insects and birds including rare species such as the tiny Sokoke Scops Owl and the peculiar Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew.

Mida Creek, adjacent to the forest is home to one of the most productive mangrove ecosystems on earth and is a significant feeding ground for internationally important migrating birds including Crab-plovers and a small population of Greater Flamingos.

However, the forest and the creek are being threatened by over-harvesting by local people as a means of earning money, largely to support their children's education.

To break this human-wildlife conflict and poverty cycle, A Rocha Kenya has developed eco-tourism facilities in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and Mida creek and channels the funds from eco-tourism into scholarships for secondary school children who would otherwise be unable to afford the school fees.

Called the Arabuko-Sokoke Schools and Ecotourism Scheme (ASSETS), this project has encouraged the local communities to value their natural habitats because they benefit directly from their conservation.

More information on ASSETS: www.assets-kenya.org

A Rocha resources for churches

www.arocha.org - A Rocha’s main website with case studies of projects around the world, audio sermons, videos and books.

www.ecocongregation.org - tools for churches to integrate creation care into their worship, teaching, building, land, church management and mission.

www.arochalivinglightly.org.uk - resources to live out the biblical understanding of creation care in everyday lives.

www.climatestewards.net - A Rocha’s carbon offset climate change programme.

The Medical Community and Climate Change

Graham McAll on the medical community and climate change (1:22 minutes) - Melissa Ong & Daniel Tay

Dr. Graham McAll – family doctor, member of the UK’s Climate and Health Council, and conference speaker – found that medical professionals agreed on the major impact climate change has on human health and that important initiatives designed to combat the effects are already under discussion.

In the wake of A Rocha's "Why Creation is Waiting for the Christians" conferences in Singapore and Malaysia in July 2009, Dr Graham McAll who spoke on the relationship between medicine, Christian faith and climate change, states that the medical community can play an essential part in connecting the scientific community and the general public, because "we know the suffering of the poor... we know the suffering of our patients."

What do faith, medicine and climate change have to do with each other?

Many Christian health care leaders are now fully aware that environmental conservation is an integral part of their faith commitment. Over 500 people were involved in two weeks of A Rocha meetings and conferences in Malaysia and Singapore this July, examining the links between creation care and health care.

Dr. Graham McAll – family doctor, member of the UK’s Climate and Health Council, and conference speaker – found that medical professionals agreed on the major impact climate change has on human health and that important initiatives designed to combat the effects are already under discussion. They also expressed great concern about the effects of pervasive haze and poor air quality – those who met in Kuala Lumpur were particularly aware of the problem.

Meanwhile, many beautiful species are endangered by habitat destruction, including this Blue Nuthatch, found in Malaysia’s spectacular montane forest. Others, like the globally endangered Straw-headed Bulbul from Pulau Ubin island in Singapore, are harder to see – but take a moment here to listen to its song!

Down-To-Earth Christianity

Download Peter Harris' call for creation care here!

Creation Care and Mission
By Peter Harris, Director, A Rocha International. Adapted from DOWN-TO-EARTH CHRISTIANITY edited by R W Dayton and P E Pretiz, 2000. ISBN 0-9678717-0-0

We live in exciting times. All over the world the church is recovering the truth that the gospel is concerned with restoring three areas of relationship. Principally it brings peace between people and their God, through Jesus Christ the Redeemer. Secondly it can restore relationships between people, through Christ who breaks down all the walls of hostility. Finally it makes possible a renewed relationship between people and God's Creation itself. This manual has given many examples of work that focusses specifically on this last essential aspect of gospel reconciliation. But how does it relate to those who are working in the more usual tasks of cross-cultural mission? Those tasks may range from servicing the computers of a denomination in South-East Asia, to translating scripture in central Africa, from cooking at a conference in Kazakhstan to teaching Old Testament in Lebanon. Surely there is nothing of Creation care in any of that? But there is, as some essential biblical insights may help us to see.

We begin by taking seriously the perspective of scripture that makes it plain that we live in the creation, not the environment. That is to say that when we have anything to do with the material world, it is with God's handiwork that we are involved, and thus all we do in our lives, all our actions, have to do with what the Creator has made, and so of course with the Creator himself. If we think of the world merely as "the environment", or "nature", or even more selfishly as "natural resources" we tend to think of it as what is around us, and there for us. We take our place, idolatrously, in the centre of things. But biblically the world and all we see, at least that which we have not ourselves transformed, is both from God, and for him. That brings much of our daily living into the conscious context of our personal and communal relationship with God; just as every Christian is inevitably a witness, every Christian and Christian community must inevitably care for Creation if it means anything at all to say that we believe in a Creator God. So whatever our work, our relationship to creation is part of it, and reflects our relationship to God. If we wish to care for Creation better, we need to worship God more fully! If we wish to worship as the Bible intends, we must recognise that we join the worship which creation itself offers to God. And if we wish to worship in offering our souls and bodies as God encourages us to do, we must make our care for his creation part of that.

We go on to discover that the creation is everywhere, and not merely in the countryside. We often think that environmental issues are for the foresters, or the biologists, or maybe the agriculturalists and rural development workers. But we all turn on taps or fetch water, we all switch on or off lights or light fires, we all breathe and eat. All of these things involve us in choices, and responses to God's good gift of creation. They may well also involve us in the suffering that has been brought into the world through the Fall. The water may be polluted, the light comes at a high cost to creation, the very fabric of our food is increasingly an artefact of profit-driven choices that have major implications for many other species of plants and animals that share the planet with us. So whether we live in a mega-city, or a tiny hut in the rainforest, we live in Creation, and its care is our concern.

Most of all, we express our relationship to God, and therefore witness to it and make it evident, by all that we are, and not merely by all that we say. So an abusive or indifferent relationship to the Creation sends confused signals if we wish to proclaim Christ the Creator. Often it is our concern for the church that encourages us to cross cultures and undertake the challenges of work in all kinds of places, regardless of the difficulties that we may encounter. We know that Christ died for his church, and so our concern is not a trivial one. But what is the church for which we are concerned, and what is the gospel that we wish to see spread through all the earth? The church is the community of people redeemed from the three broken areas of relationship that we have talked about above. But if we ourselves continue to live that broken-ness, what do we bring with us to the different societies that we enter, and the churches elsewhere that we go to serve? Globalisation ensures the export of the unsustainable and abusive western lifestyle - what Tom Sine has called the McWorld syndrome . Inevitably globalisation has its Christian counterpart in the development of a more uniform Christian sub-culture world wide. In so far as that sub-culture has its origins in western societies, it can unconsciously perpetuate the western indifference to creation and the consumerism that mark the wealthy nations, and western missionaries risk bringing their toxic cultural additives admixed with the life-giving gospel they intend to share. Non-western missionaries, increasingly in the majority, bring similar assumptions about their relationship to the creation with them wherever they go to serve. What we must recognise is that this is not merely an unfortunate detail, but that the very gospel itself, corrupted in that fashion, does no justice to Jesus Christ, the Redeemer and Creator, who we wish our gospel to reveal.

What can we do in practical terms therefore to make sure that we are faithful witnesses to him in our life and work, regardless of where that life and work is lived out, and regardless of what its official business is?

Firstly, just as it is now normal for some degree of anthropological or cultural study to be a regular part of cross-cultural training, along with the obvious demands of language study, so we should make it an essential part of our preparation to acquire an equal awareness and understanding of the physical setting in which we go to work. By definition those who merely visit a place are unfamiliar with all of its dynamics, ecological and otherwise. They tend to be acutely unaware of the constraints that must exist if their life is to be sustainable in an unfamiliar environment. They also have far less invested in its sustainability, because unlike those they have come to serve, they can always leave! If they are part of demonstrating or teaching a lifestyle that results from the gospel, as inevitably they are, cross-cultural workers need to be aware of the local context if they are not to endorse or even recommend disaster. Two actual examples, one negative and one positive serve to illustrate the point. In a semi-arid African country, missionaries began to feel acutely the difficulty in training church leaders who belonged to a nomadic group. The people were never in one place long enough for the teachers to complete any serious work. As the missionaries understood little of the interaction between the movement of the cattle, and the availability of food, they resolved to sink a borehole that would avoid the need for wandering, and provide constant water, keeping the people in place for long enough to be taught thoroughly. Needless to say, within four months the land for some thirty kilometres in every direction had become a dust bowl, trampled by the constant presence of the many animals who had now settled down in the area. Serious poverty was only averted by the resumption of the old nomadic lifestyle. More positively, in a South American country, a pastor was very concerned by the way his church people were destroying the last of a dryland forest in order to sell the wood for much - needed fence poles. Once the trees were cut, the land soon lost its topsoil, and families who had once lived in the area were forced to move. Furthermore the pastor was convinced by teaching Genesis that this kind of way of living by destruction didn't reflect a proper human response to the Creator. So he gradually introduced a bee-keeping economy which ensured the protection of the woodlands that were habitat for the bees, but which served to safeguard the livelihood of his church members over future years. Properly understood, and obediently undertaken, the search to understand creation is part of a quest to understand God, just as the search to understand a culture is an act of compassion that reflects God's love for the people he has made. John Stott has reminded us of the dictum of the seventeenth century astronomer, Johann Kepler, that in studying the creation we are "thinking God's thoughts after him." It cannot afford to be a neglected or forgotten part of our preparation if we are truly concerned to be of service in places which are unfamiliar to us.

Secondly, we can simply offer to our host country and church an awareness that our relationship to creation is relevant to our relationship with God and to our discipleship. For many Christian communities that will come as an entirely new idea, and will also conveniently serve to challenge the besetting dualism which does such damage in Christian living. World-wide the idea that God is indifferent to the material has taken root in popular Christian thinking, and its results are seen on every side in the form of strained marriages, disrupted families, ugly Church buildings, and incoherent Christian thinking about the world around us. An affirmation of the fundamental goodness of Creation, and of the possibility of redemption in the midst of life, rather than by escaping life, is urgently needed. It will need great humility, and the awareness of our partial understanding of many issues, but it will do greater justice to the truth that any idea of what is "spiritual" must include all that is of the Spirit of God, rather than meaning "non-material" as is too often popularly assumed. A more biblical recognition of the role of the Holy Spirit in creation should protect us from that.

Then thirdly, we must re-examine how our work in evangelism, which in one form or another makes up such a major part of normal missionary endeavour, is affected by a recovery of our understanding of God as Creator, and people as his creation. Once again this may seem to be of limited relevance, but in fact the reverse is true. If we begin from the understanding that in common with all people, both those who call themselves Christians and those who don't, we are created human beings, we are immediately spared from a disastrous "us and them" posture. Whatever our good intentions, we need to accept that this has been widely misunderstood as elitism or arrogance. We share the gospel with those who hear it, it is for all of us, no matter what stage we may have reached in hearing or receiving it. There is a kind of created community here. Furthermore we understand that everything about all people is in some measure created - body, soul, spirit, person. The old and agonised discussions about the priority of evangelism over social work, and maybe the newer ones about the importance of creation care, set against evangelism, can only survive if we regard people, quite unbiblically, as souls on legs, or some other disembodied entity. God's care is manifest to all his creation, and not merely a part of it. His care is for the created person, in need of redemption in all its fullness, and not merely for some non-material entity deemed to be eternal. Moreover, the understanding that all people, in every place and in every condition, share an equal status as created beings gives us a renewed motivation for crossing cultural barriers, and reaching out everywhere with the good news. No human community should be overlooked, or regarded as less important. Chris Wright has pointed out that the affirmation of Psalm 24:1 is similarly intended to be a contentious challenge, a call to mission "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it." Above all, we must be aware, because of the fact that the word was made flesh and lived among us, that whatever our preaching or talking, it will often be our embodiment of the message that speaks loudest. Once again our model is the ministry of Jesus, whose words served as explanation for the mighty works of God, and whose action in laying down his life and taking it up again brought our redemption. Tellingly we celebrate that now in a meal together, and not just in words. We cannot neglect the material reality that embodies our verbal evangelism. Who we are is as much our preaching as what we say.

Finally the simple actions which involve us in exchanges with the Creation can be looked at and seen for what they are - either as grateful or exploitative, potentially worship, or thoughtless and indifferent. How do we use paper, or electricity, or transport, in our work? What is left for the future when our work is complete? Do we recognise any constraints and limits, and how are the other members of God's creation affected by our projects?

So - if we see the growth in the number of environmental missions we should rejoice, but then beware of thinking we can leave any of this to the professionals. For as we have seen, whatever our work or our life, it is inevitably something that we will all do, and the choice we face is merely whether we will do it well or badly, whether we will do justice to the gospel, or will distort it.

Be Agents Of Change

From The Star: Christian conservation organisation A Rocha brings people of all religions together in saving the planet. (By Soo Ewe Jin)

Ghillean Prance: ‘We will only achieve the major changes needed in our lifestyle if it is backed up by religions".

FOR prominent British botanist and ecologist Prof Sir Ghillean Prance, nothing excites him more than to be able to get his hands dirty in the field.

He has been even busier since his retirement and was recently in Malaysia to contribute accounts of two plant families (Lecythidaceae and Chrysobalanaceae) to the Flora of Peninsular Malaysia, two species produced by the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM).

During his two weeks here, he did field work in the forest reserves of Johor and elsewhere, and also spent considerable time at the FRIM herbarium.

Despite his busy schedule, the former director (1988-1999) of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, Britain, managed to attend Sunday service at a church in Petaling Jaya, which he declared to be one of the highlights of his trip.

Prance, a devout Christian, is currently the president of Christians in Science, a British organisation of scientists, teachers and science students concerned with the dialogue between Christianity and science.

Come October, Prance, who was knighted in 1995 for his contribution to the environment, will be appointed the chairman of A Rocha International.

He speaks passionately about A Rocha, a Christian conservation organisation founded by Peter Harris in 1983 which now has a presence in 18 countries.

“Since A Rocha is growing rapidly I am aware that this will take a major commitment of my time. However, A Rocha’s work is so important, especially in today’s climate of environmental destruction,” says Prance.

Peter Harris, founder of A Rocha, a Christian conservation group.

“An important part of A Rocha’s work and indeed, that of many environmental organisations, is to help people realise the serious nature of the environmental crisis and that it is God’s creation.

“The crisis is hitting hard now as food and fuel prices rise and it will get worse unless we take stronger action soon. An organisation like A Rocha can help because of its firm ethical base based on the teachings of the Bible. I feel that the growth of A Rocha is a sign of hope in a deteriorating world. A Rocha brings Christian hope to the issues in a most positive way.”

Prance feels the environmental crisis is so great “we need people from all religions to respond.”

“The people who have a moral ethical and spiritual dimension to their lives are more likely to approach the enviromental problem in a positive way. We will only achieve the major changes needed in our lifestyle if it is backed up by religions,” he says.

“The growth of interest by the religions of the world (including Islam) is a sign of hope. However the change won’t come easily and we will need to work hard to be agents of change, and be equipped with the necessary ethics and morality needed to make such a change.”

Harris, in a separate e-mail interview, explains that the organisation “is a practical response to the urgent need to reconcile the way we live with a sustainable future for the wider creation.”


Prof Sir Ghillean Prance with Norsham Yaakob from FRIM, with whom he is working on the Barringtonia.

“Through carrying out community-based conservation projects we wanted to encourage the world’s Christian communities to see how caring for the environment is a natural, and indeed central expression of our faith,” he says.

“We also wanted to encourage people concerned about the environment to discuss not just what they do, but why they do it. Missing that discussion has led to many misunderstandings between people who then take different sides on questions that they could agree on. No one actually wants to wreck the planet!”

For Harris, the mission began with a field study centre in Portugal in the early 1980s. The centre was set up for research, education and advocacy work, and it hosts a multi-cultural community of people with a wide variety of environmental interests.

Since the mid-1990s that model has been taken up all around the world, and A Rocha projects appear in towns and rural areas, in very poor communities and some wealthy ones, all striving to show what sustainability can mean through a huge variety of different programmes.

Today, A Rocha has a presence in Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Netherlands, New Zealand/Aotearoa, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, Britain and the United States.


Prof Sir Ghillean Prance crossing the bridge to the entrance of Emergency Trail at Endau Rompin, Johor.
There is a growing awareness of environmental and conservation issues these days. Malaysians have seen An Inconvenient Truth and are now also hit hard by the rising fuel prices.

People are talking about living simply and saving for their future but not many are able to connect conservation issues, the preservation of habitats and wildlife, to the real issues that they face each day.

Harris agrees. “It is the connections that have gone missing. We simply don’t see how our daily choices – what to eat, how to get around, how to design our human communities – impact the world around us directly.

“In many places, biodiversity is rapidly diminishing and people are impoverished because those in the developed world don’t care how we ‘get’ what we believe we ‘need’”.

Harris believes that organisations like A Rocha (the name is Portuguese for The Rock) can help by making those relationships real – through the natural association of the church throughout the world, through understanding that God cares about these things, through education and right living ourselves.


Prof Sir Ghillean Prance with Norsham Yaakob from FRIM, with whom he is working on the Barringtonia.

Like Prance, he also believes in getting people of other faiths involved as well, and cites the work of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (www.arcworld.org) as a good initiative.

Although A Rocha is relatively young compared to other conservation organisations, it has done its part to hold back damaging developments on the Alvor estuary in Portugal over the last 20 years; restore some of the Aammiq wetland in the Bekaa valley – one of Lebanon’s last remaining wetlands; and work for the creation of a 28.32ha country park in a particularly polluted and unpromising area of London, not far from Heathrow airport.

“We’ve also been glad to see hundreds of schoolchildren in Kenya get funding for education through our ASSETS (the Arabuko-Sokoke Schools and Ecotourism Scheme) programme,” says Harris.

For Harris and Prance, there is no denying that environmental consciousness has grown over the years and people understand the significance of protecting the environment.

Their Christian faith propels them forward in this regard.

As Prance, who also worked on The Eden Project puts it, “In all my travels and scientific expeditions, I see God’s handiwork everywhere.”

“The future would be frightening if not for the hope that faith can bring and the change that it could cause in environmental behaviour.”

For more about A Rocha, visit arocha.org.

WHY CREATION IS WAITING FOR THE CHRISTIANS?

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Biblical Environmental Stewardship Conference
Date: Saturday 18 Jul 2009
Time: 9am - 3pm @ CDPC
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Registration closing date: 13 July 2009
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Peter Harris will be here in Malaysia as a speaker for the conference.

We Just Can't Do As We Please!

Selected excerpts from From Vantagepoint
by Melissa Ong, a filmmaker engaged in conservation work zooms in on the need for creation restoration and encourages all to get involved!

THE ENCOUNTER WITH A ROCHA
A Rocha (Portuguese for "the rock") is an international Christian conservation NGO working to show God's love for all creation. When I first found A Rocha through Google on the Internet, it was like finding my long lost family and I just had to work for them. The other search results were disappointing. Basically, a whole lot of Christians condemned the movement as unbiblical, a form of new age spirituality, and connected to worship of Gaia. A Rocha turned out to be very biblical, totally legit, and they didn't just talk about creation care, but actually did practical conservation work. I was so happy (my husband, Dan, said I was jumping up and down). I didn't feel alone anymore!

That was 2003. I had been in the local television industry for about eight years writing and directing TV programs and documentaries. I loved making shows about Singapore's natural heritage and the environment. A turning point came when I was in Japan for another environmental series for youths. I felt really moved by the Japanese activists who were doing amazing work and I couldn't help but ask myself, "Why aren't Christians doing something about the environment? We are supposed to be stewards, right? What does the Bible really say about the new creation?"

Immediately, A Rocha (AR) got an email from me: "Do you have a media department? I would like to make films for AR." At that time, I had just resigned from my job as an Executive Producer at a production house and I wanted to give more time to missions and conservation. Well, they didn't have a media department, but Peter Harris, the founder of AR wrote to encourage me and also sent his book Under The Bright Wings. It's the story of how AR started in Southern Portugal. This book changed my life because it articulated something I felt for deeply, but didn't have the theology or language to express. A year later, Peter and his wife Miranda invited Dan and I to join the AR International team as volunteer filmmakers for one year. By then, we had met in Singapore, organized a little AR conference at the Singapore Bible College and gone to Bangkok together to run an AR booth at the Third IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2004. We had become dear friends.

So Dan and I raised our financial support through friends, bought camera equipment, and a souped-up laptop for video editing. In March 2005, our church sent us off on an itinerant life which has led us to France, Portugal, UK, Kenya, and Canada to film what God was doing to restore His creation. It's a dream come true to serve God in this way.


HOW TO GET INVOLVED
If you'd like to know how you can support or partner with us in our work (communications and creating Chinese resources), we'd love to hear from you. It would be wonderful to see an AR community group start in Singapore.

We need to ask ourselves: How can we be better stewards of God's creation? How can we love our neighbor? Who is our neighbor? In the environmental crisis, the poorest people are most at risk. It can be quite overwhelming. Where do we start? Shopping and eating are a big part of Singaporean culture. I'd like Singaporeans to be more connected to where their food comes from and for Christians to eat responsibly as a spiritual discipline. Can we ask the Holy Spirit to show us how we can shop and eat in ways that honor communities and places? It's important to ask where does this come from? How was it grown, produced or reared? Do I need to buy this new thing or can I borrow it, fix the old item or stick with what I already have?

You don't have to be a field biologist to volunteer in A Rocha although we do need them! When Dan and I were in Canada, there was a colorful mix of volunteers: those who helped in the Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) project and worked in the organic vegetable garden, businessmen who gave good advice, people who fixed the lawn-mower, carpenters, helpers in environmental education with the kids, children who weeded, and environmental studies students doing surveys.

Like all charities, A Rocha also needs people who can give or know of others who can. I would be happy to exchange emails, meet with people, go to home groups, and to show the A Rocha films.

"If God is really at the center of things and God's good future is the most certain reality, then the truly realistic course of action is to buck the dominant consequentialist ethic of our age - which says that one should act only if one's action will mostly likely bring about good consequences - and simply, because we are people who embody the virtue of hope, do the right thing... Our vocation is not contingent on results or the state of the planet. It is simply dependent on our character as God's response-able human image-bearers." - Steven Bouma-Prediger

Melissa Ong and her husband Dan Tay are a filmmaking team based with A Rocha in Singapore. Melissa produces video tools for A Rocha teams (find them on our Creation Care video resources page). They are also making A Rocha's work known amongst Chinese-speaking audiences. You can contact her at melissa.ong@arocha.org.

A Rocha: Christians In Conservation

Husband and wife team Daniel and Melissa were in CDPC recently to introduce their work in A Rocha, a conservation organisation with a Christian ethos. It is presently (2008) in 18 countries worldwide, where it undertakes scientific studies, and engages communities in conservation work and environmental education. I'm happy that some church member(s) who have read Total Truth were inspired to explore this ministry.

Why Christians in conservation?
There are at least four good reasons for Christians to be involved in conservation.

Love
Christians believe that God made the world. When we make something, whether it be as life-changing as giving birth, or as quick as sketching a picture, we care about what happens to our creation. So it's easy for us to understand that God cares deeply about all his creation. The Bible makes this clear in many passages, e.g. Psalm 50, verses 10 & 11, where God says "every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine." Studying, thankfully enjoying and caring for the world that God has so wonderfully made is an obvious way for us to show our love for him.

Obedience
Christians are called to obey God in every part of their lives. In the Bible, we find that the first wish expressed by God, concerning men and women, was that they would rule over "the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground" in a way that reflects his own image. Not just his power, but his unselfish love, mercy and tender compassion. Tragically, because we are human, and sinful, our rule has often been characterised by cruelty, greed and short-sightedness, but this was clearly not God's intention. If we desire to obey God, then we must look for ways in which we can be good and responsible stewards of the natural world.

Justice
The environment is an issue of justice. Often it is the poor who suffer first when the environment is damaged.

Hope
Those who care about the environment can easily become depressed. The news is so often profoundly disturbing: the destruction of forests, the disintegration of coral reefs, the extinction of species, over-fishing, global warming and a multitude of other disasters and gloomy forecasts can cause us to wonder if there is any point in even trying to take action. But the Bible provides much-needed grounds for hope. The Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Hosea foretell a time of human and environmental harmony. In the New Testament, Jesus is described not just as the Saviour of fallen mankind, but as the one for whom all creation was made - and as the one through whom all creation will one day "be liberated from its bondage to decay" (Colossians 1, verses 15-17; Romans 8, verses 19-23). We do not know how all this will be accomplished, but we are given motivation and hope. We can be sure that the Almighty God who created and sustains his world wants all his people to be actively involved in his great plan to redeem the whole of creation.

This is just a brief introduction to the biblical basis of A Rocha's work.

The Gospel in All Its Forms

Like God, the gospel is both one and more than that.
by Tim Keller

The gospel has been described as a pool in which a toddler can wade and yet an elephant can swim. It is both simple enough to tell to a child and profound enough for the greatest minds to explore. Indeed, even angels never tire of looking into it (1 Peter 1:12). Humans are by no means angels, however, so rather than contemplating it, we argue about it.

A generation ago evangelicals agreed on "the simple gospel": (1) God made you and wants to have a relationship with you, (2) but your sin separates you from God. (3) Jesus took the punishment your sins deserved, (4) so if you repent from sins and trust in him for your salvation, you will be forgiven, justified, and accepted freely by grace, and indwelt with his Spirit until you die and go to heaven.

There are today at least two major criticisms of this simple formulation. Many say that it is too individualistic, that Christ's salvation is not so much to bring individual happiness as to bring peace, justice, and a new creation. A second criticism is that there is no one "simple gospel" because "everything is contextual" and the Bible itself contains many gospel presentations that exist in tension with each other.

No single gospel message?
Let's take the second criticism first. The belief that there is no single basic gospel outline in the Bible goes back at least to the Tubingen school of biblical scholarship, which insisted Paul's gospel of justification was sharply different from Jesus' gospel of the kingdom. In the 20th century, British professor C.H. Dodd countered that there was one consensus gospel message in the Bible. Then, in turn, James Dunn argued in Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (1977) that the gospel formulations in the Bible are so different that we can't come up with a single outline.

Now hundreds of websites of young Christian leaders complain that the older evangelical church spent too much time reading Romans rather than Jesus' declaration that "the kingdom of God is at hand." But to be true to first-century Christians' own understanding of the gospel, I believe we must side with Dodd over Dunn. Paul is emphatic that the gospel he presents is the same as the one preached by the Jerusalem apostles. "Whether it was I or they," Paul says, referring to Peter and the others, "so we preached and so you believed" (1 Cor. 15:10-11). This statement assumes a single body of gospel content.

One gospel, many forms
So yes, there must be one gospel, yet there are clearly different forms in which that one gospel can be expressed. This is the Bible's own way of speaking of the gospel, and we should stick with it. Paul is an example. After insisting there is only one gospel (Gal. 1:8), he then speaks of being entrusted with "the gospel of the uncircumcised" as opposed to the "gospel of the circumcised" (Gal. 2:7).

READ ON!

Apakah alam semesta itu kekal adanya? Atau memiliki asal-muasal?

Translate: English

Beberapa orang percaya bahwa alam semesta ini kekal adanya dan tidak memiliki suatu asal-muasal. Teori matematika memungkinkan suatu jumlah yang tidak terhingga dan ini menyebabkan asumsi akan mungkinnya ketidak terbatasan dalam suatu peristiwa.

Norman Geisler dalam bukunya menekankan bahwa ada dua jenis kekekalan: kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) dalam dunia matematika dan kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) dalam dunia nyata.

Kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) dalam dunia matematika itu mungkin. Tetapi kekekalan ini hanya dapat dihubungkan terhadap sesuatu yang abstract (sesuatu yang tidak memiliki suatu dimensi). Sebagai contoh: adanya jumlah titik-titik yang tidak terbatas (titik imaginasi) diantara tepi meja ke tepi lainnya.

Kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) dunia nyata itu ada hubungannya terhadap sesuatu yang pasti dan nyata. Kita bisa memiliki jumlah titik-titik yang tidak terbatas dari tepi buku yang satu ke tepi lainnya (sesuatu yang abstract). Tetapi kita tidak bisa memiliki jumlah buku yang tidak terhingga dalam dunia nyata.

Kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) dalam dunia matematika tidak akan mungkin untuk di-terapkan dalam dunia nyata. William Lane Craig, Phd, memberikan suatu ilustrasi yang jelas mengenai hal ini.

Pernyataan pertama: Saya memiliki sejumlah kelereng yang tidak terbatas dan saya akan memberikan seluruh kelereng yang saya miliki kepada anda. Maka kelereng saya tidak tersisa satu pun.

Pernyataan kedua: Saya memiliki kelereng yang jumlahnya tidak terbatas dan saya hanya akan memberikan kelereng dengan nomor yang ganjil dan saya akan menyimpan kelereng yang bernomor genap. Maka jumlah kelereng saya akan sama jumlahnya dengan kelereng anda (sama-sama tidak terhingga).

Pernyataan ketiga: Saya hanya akan memberikan kelereng yang bernomor 4 keatas kepada anda. Jadi kelereng saya tinggal tiga.

Illustrasi ini menunjukan bahwa kekekalan dalam dunia nyata itu tidak mungkin untuk terjadi karena kesimpulan yang saling bertolak belakang.

Pernyataan pertama: tidak terhingga - tidak terhingga = 0

Pernyataan kedua: tidak terhingga -tidak terhingga = tidak terhingga

Pernyataan ketiga: tidak terhingga -tidak terhingga = 3

Disini kita dapat melihat bahwa ketika kita mungurangi jumlah yang tidak terhingga terhadap jumlah lain yang tidak terhingga, kita hanya dapat menghasilkan hasil yang berbeda. Hal yang sama juga dalam kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) peristiwa-peristiwa yang terjadi di masa lalu ( mari kita gantikan kelereng dengan peristiwa-peristiwa). Kekekalan (ketidak batasan) peristiwa di alam semesta itu sangat tidak mungkin, oleh karena itu alam semesta semestinya memiliki awal. Kekekalan (ketidak batasan) peristiwa di Alam semesta itu sangat tidak mungkin, oleh karena itu alam semesta semestinya memiliki awal.

Kalaupun ada jumlah peristiwa yang tidak terbatas/kekal (Ingat bahwa asumsi akan jumlah peristiwa yang tidak terbatas/kekal hanyalah suatu konsep/ pemikiran yang tidak bisa dihubungkan dalam dunia nyata), ini tidak bisa membuktikan tentang adanya peristiwa awal/ mula-mula. Karena harus ada penyebab awal agar suatu peristiwa bisa muncul (hukum sebab dan akibat).

Kesimpulan:

1. Ada dua jenis jumlah kekekalan: Kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) dalam dunia matematika dan kekekalan dalam dunia nyata.
2. Menerapkan kekekalan (ketidak terbatasan) dalam dunia matematika ke dunia nyata hanya akan menghasilkan kesimpulan yang bertolak belakang.
3. Alam semesta tidak bisa memiliki ketidak terbatasan peristiwa di masa lalu, oleh sebab itu alam semesta memiliki asal muasal.

Bibliography
Geisler. Norman. L, 2006, “Baker Encyclopaedia of Christian Apologetics (8^th ED.)”, Kalam cosmological argument, p. 399, Baker Academic, United States of America.

Strobel. Lee, 2004, “The case for a creator”, The evident of Cosmology: the pathway of mathematic, p. 102, Zondervan, United States of America.

Melihat Karangan ini dalam bahasa English

CONSUMING OURSELVES TO DEATH

CONSUMING OURSELVES TO DEATH
iCommentary by Living Lee

I attended a technical talk by a world water and climate change expert from the University of Western Australia yesterday and was quite taken aback by what he told us about the state of our planet. Global warming is predicted to raise sea levels by about one meter in the next 50 years. What that means is many coastal areas where we live and grow our crops will be drowned and many places rendered uninhabitable.

In addition to that large areas like the Amazon will be destroyed by water deficiency while other areas will suffer flooding. Many people will be displaced and have to migrate to other places in order to survive. The scientists have also taken much of the guesswork out of predicting changing climatic patterns by very sophisticated real-time monitoring systems that are already in place all over the world.

The thing that struck me most during the talk was not the technical aspects but the human aspect of the problem that the speaker highlighted. How did we end up messing up the self-healing feedback systems that has kept the water, carbon and other cycles in balance for most of our planet's history? He attributed it to humans having developed a psychological reliance on technology.

We have adopted demand management and created a consumer culture gone mad. People, especially in the developed world, are buying and accumulating like there is no tomorrow without realising that they are using up tomorrow's resources today and making future generations pay for our greed.

Where did all this madness come from? He listed down three sources of social stress that bring about the dissatisfaction that make us consume.

They are:
(1) relative poverty: you are happy with earning a dollar a day if you have a job and everyone else around you earns about the same but you'd feel deprived in an affluent society;

(2) if you feel you have no control over your future;

(3) if you don't feel needed and are disconnected from others in your community.The interesting thing was how the above is connected to the loss of the spiritual when it was replaced by the physical. Man indeed cannot just live by bread alone (Matthew 4:4). He will remain dissatisfied and continue to try to fill that emptiness in his being
by stuffing it with things until he finds God.

What should we do as Christians?

(1) Continue to preach the gospel and invite the lost to taste and see that the Lord is good. Only God can satisfy and meet all our needs.

(2) Turn away from following the crowd in how we live and utilise the resources of this earth. We are to be responsible stewards not mindless consumers going for the bigger house or more powerful car just because we can afford it (or can borrow enough to pay for it) and not because we need it.

(3) We must establish credible communities in our churches and other social structures to meet the loneliness in man where he is valued for who he is rather than what he owns. Everyone is welcome and needed in our communities. Be counterculture and may we be found faithful when Jesus returns.

Inconvenient Truth: Global Warming

Elder Kee Huat was the Director of Energy Efficiency & Innovation Unit, Suruhanjaya Tenaga which provided him a unique perspective into the issue of global warming and creation care. Last Sunday, he gave an informative and passionate plea for action to the Church. Listen to the audio sermon here

The Powerpoint slides would provide some research data he compiled, painting a grim picture of current situation that requires our response. Towards the end, he gave a Christian response similar to the Creation, Stewardship sections of the Lausanne Evangelical Commitment to Simple Lifestyle document.

He also draws resources from Richard Foster's Discipline of Simplicity for personal application:

"The inward reality of simplicity involves a life of joyful unconcern for possessions. Neither the greedy nor the miserly know this liberty.

If what we have we receive as a gift, and if what we have is cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety.

However, if what we have we believe we have got, and if what we have we believe we must hold onto, and if what we have is not available to others, then we will live in anxiety."

What are some outward expressions of Simplicity?

- Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status.
- Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
- Develop a habit of giving things away: de-accumulate
- Refuse to be duped by gadgetry: time saving devices almost never save time.
- Learn to enjoy things without owning them: beach, parks public libraries...
- Develop a deeper appreciation for creation. Walk whenever you can, smell the
flowers, watch birds.
- Develop plain simple talk.
- Reject anything that breeds the oppression of others.
- Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the Kingdom of God.

Only the simple are free. All others are tyrannised by the ambitious self, the demand for recognition thru things, and preoccupation with the opinion of others.

The majesty of Mulu: Beyond the caves

Shirene Chen, a member of the Total Truth learning community, shared about her wondrous encounter with the Mulu Caves in Malaysiakini.

"I understood the meaning of “web of life” in the many instances that I had caught glimpses of how every thing, down to the cockroach and guano, has a purpose and a place beyond its sole existence that is designed to proliferate and support the life of other living beings. I had spent many moments marvelling incredulously at the intelligent design that is built into every biological system in the jungle and I promise myself that the next time that I come to Mulu, I will not bother to climb any mountains but will just devote time to discovering the thinly veiled secret designs of this abundant, amazing web of life.

And I am feeling absolutely proud that Malaysia has safeguarded this wonderful
showcase of creation so well."