And if so, who is to blame? Everyone one who works for the company that pollutes? All of us driving around in our cars? How do we drive to seminary and take our kids to school without sinning? Do I have to give up my barbecue?
A Vatican official has listed drugs, pollution and genetic manipulations as well as social and economic injustices as new areas of sinful behavior.
Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti said in an interview published on Sunday by the Vatican’s daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that known sins increasingly manifest themselves as behavior that damages society as a whole.
Girotti, who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican body that issues decisions on matters of conscience and grants absolutions told the paper that whilst sin used to concern the individual mostly, today it had a mainly a social resonance, due to the phenomenon of globalization.
[…]
When asked to list the new areas of sinful behavior, Girotti denounced “certain violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments, genetic manipulations.”
He also mentioned drugs, which weaken the mind and obscure intelligence; pollution; as well as the widening social and economic differences between the rich and the poor that “cause an unbearable social injustice.”
Isn’t it amazing, my Southern Baptist brethren that God would create a plant that was adversely impacted by the natural body functions of his creatures?
The Southern Baptists have also turned their attention to the environment and believe that it’s our moral imperative to care for creation and lessen our impact on the environment:
Prominent and influential Southern Baptist leaders called for a “unified moral voice” on the need for people to care for creation and to take a “position of prudence” in “taking responsibility for human contributions to global climate change” in a declaration signed by 46 leaders and released today.
Media Teleconference with Southern Baptist Spokespersons Jonathan and James Merritt and Danny Akin will conduct a media teleconference Monday, March 10, at 2 p.m. EST. They will make prepared statements and be available for one hour to answer media questions. To participate in the teleconference, call 1-800-918-9578. Demonstrating new conviction by key pastors, denominational leaders and heads of Southern Baptist institutions, the leaders signed a comprehensive declaration that stakes out positions far beyond former SBC statements and pledges to “give serious consideration to responsible policies that effectively address” environmental and climate change concerns.
The declaration identifies the denomination’s past pronouncements on the environment as “too timid” and moves beyond the resolution on global warming adopted at the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention.
“Today marks a new day for many Southern Baptists, as we pledge to take seriously Scripture’s creation care mandates in light of pressing environmental realities, said Jonathan Merritt, 25, a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and the project director who has rallied fellow Southern Baptists — including many leaders of the denomination — to address environmental issues. “Environmental crises are theological problems, and Southern Baptists will honestly engage these problems with a spirit of humility and compassion,” Merritt said.
So, would prudence dictate that we lessen our impact by restricting our population growth? OOPS, guess that wouldn’t work since it goes against another creation mandate 🙂
Maybe we should just limit our breathing. Isn’t it amazing, my Southern Baptist brethren, that God would create an environment that is adversely impacted by the natural body functions of his creatures.