Climate Change and P

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
Climate Change and P
Monday 21st June, 2021

The purpose of this weekly ‘Gospel and Culture’ blog is to assist pastors and Christian leaders to quickly understand ‘key’ issues of the day and how they might intersect with the Gospel, Church and with Christianity generally. It is essentially a ‘curated’ blog that raises between one and three current issues and directs you the reader to a reliable article, podcast and/or a website for further reading. It is my contribution to help us ‘think Christianly’ and to develop a Christian world-view. Jesus prayed for us in John 17, “I’m not asking you, Father, to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one………make them holy by your truth”.

Climate Change

Electric Vehicles(EV), The Clean Car Discount and ‘penalty’ fee/tax of up to $5175 if you buy a vehicle that emits high level’s of carbon. And then all those very clever and funny memes. It was all on last week as the ‘rubber hits the road’ on our so called new ‘nuclear moment’. To be honest I have yet to spend more time reading around this issue and understand the ins and outs. I did find watching this Q and A Special, Our Future very informative. Amongst a lot of other commentary the documentary points out that NZ has done a poor job to reduce its green house gas emissions since 1990. There are just 6 days left to view.

POV. I doubt many of us disagree that this is an incredibly important issue for the Christian community. We agree that we are called on by God himself to take good care of the earth, our temporary yet precious home. How we do that and when we do it and to what extent aren’t as straight forward. I have Christian friends who are farmers, others who own companies with a small fleet of vehicles with large combustion engines. It is confronting me and my car and then what about my jet ski parked in the drive? Ouch!

Here is a good starting place as far as a reliable resource is concerned. It is the World Evangelical Alliance’s, Creation Care Task Force and the work of Dr Katharine Hayhoe in particular.

P or Pee

You may have already seen this documentary last week Tuesday night on TV3. It is 45minutes of incredibly compelling viewing. We all know that this is a problem but the extent of it is something else…….unbelievable! And how is that NZ has become such a profitable market? Why, according to these drug bosses, do so many people love this stuff in NZ? Frankly its frightening, it’s destroying people’s lives (and their families) and it is very very sad. You have plenty of time to watch it but please do take 45 minutes to watch it here

Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.