The Greening of the Cross

With the end of the Cold War easing the threat of all-out nuclear battle, attention has shifted to reversing the pollution that threatens us everywhere. Surprisingly, the ecological movement has become more religion than science. Thomas Berry of Fordham University calls man's ecological responsibility "preeminently a religious and spiritual task."¹ The 1990 Global Forum held in Moscow, with delegates from 83 countries, called for "a global council of spiritual leaders"² and the "creation of an inter-faith prayer...a new spiritual and ethical basis for human activities on Earth."³

Carl Sagan, the recently deceased high priest of cosmos worship, declared that "any efforts to safeguard and cherish the environment need to be infused with a vision of the sacred."⁴ What could an atheist have meant by "sacred"? Ten years earlier he had said, "If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to revere the Sun and stars?"⁵

No, it does not. Reverence does not pertain to things but to persons. To reverence the impersonal creation instead of the personal God who created us is a perversion designed for escaping moral accountability to the Creator. God indicts those who worship the creation instead of its Creator (Rom:1:18-23 [18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; [19] Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. [20] For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: [21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. [22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, [23] And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
See All...); and warns of the corruption of morals and behavior which results (24-32).

This pagan spirituality is ideal for uniting all religions together with science into a world religion. Al Gore, a Southern Baptist, has said that ecological problems can only be solved through a "new spirituality" common to all religions and that saving the Earth "requires reuniting science and religion."⁶ Pope John Paul II enthusiastically endorses this idolatrous partnership:

Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish. ...Such bridging ministries must be nurtured and encouraged. Nowhere is this more clear than in the current environmental crisis....It has the potential to unify and renew religious life. (Emphasis in original.)⁷

To suggest that science could benefit Christianity denies the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture and leads to the errors of the religious science cults. We explained in February why Roman Catholicism takes this heretical view. Furthermore, science itself is turning back to the occult, as we document in my new book, Occult Invasion. There is no doubt that the occult will be a major factor in the coming world religion. Addressing the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations Secretary-General called the world back to the pagan worship of nature:

To the ancients, the Nile was a god to be venerated, as was the Rhine, an infinite source of European myths, or the Amazonian forest, the mother of forests. Throughout the world, nature was the abode of the divinities that gave the forest, the desert or the mountains a personality which commanded worship and respect. The Earth had a soul. To find that soul again, to give it new life, that is the essence of Rio.⁸

It takes but one more small step to Al Gore's worship of Mother Earth as the goddess Gaia. On January 23, 1997, "The Gaia Mind Project" held a "Simultaneous Global Meditation and Prayer." The goal was to "initiate a shift in our understanding of our relationship with Gaia...in which we recognize ourselves as the living Earth's emergent self-reflexive consciousness...[and] to help...potentiate global healing."⁹

The "Gaia hypothesis" is taken seriously at gatherings of scientists seeking to restore and preserve the Earth. Goddess worship is, of course, promoted by feminists, even by some who call themselves Christians. Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, has written Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing. Consider the "Re-Imagining God, the Community and the Church" conference held in 1993. One of the speakers was Chung Kyun Kyung, a South Korean Presbyterian. In her plenary address to this "Christian" gathering, Chung declared,

I want to share three images of God...and how these... [goddesses] transformed my Christianity....Kali, Quani, and Enna [are]...my new Trinity....Kali is...a Hindu image. Quani is Buddhist....Enna...is the indigenous goddess of Philippines...."¹⁰ [W]e are here together, in order to destroy the patriarchal idolatry of Christianity....¹¹

Instead of being excommunicated from her church and shunned by the Christian community for such blasphemy, Chung is highly honored. The Pilgrim Press of The United Church of Christ published a book in 1995 titled Remembering and Re-Imagining. It was all about this conference, which the press release said "shook the very foundations of mainline Protestantism. Denounced by many, but considered the Second Reformation by others, it...was an event that revealed in many ways a new understanding of faith, of God, and community."¹²

Chung, who is in great demand as a speaker, gave a plenary address at the Seventh World Council of Churches (WCC) International Conference in Australia in 1992. One trembles even to quote her diatribe against God the Father and the Holy Spirit and her wicked perversion of Christianity. Yet the WCC delegates gave Chung a standing ovation. Ecumenical Press Service reported,

Combining verbal fireworks with a performance by Korean and aboriginal dancers, Chung rendered a dramatic evocation of a female Holy Spirit. ...[which] she linked...to that of Hagar..." exploited and abandoned by Abraham and Sarah." Chung then burned bits of paper bearing the names of other exploited spirits--which she said were full of "han," the Korean word for anger....Chung said, "I also know that I no longer believe in an omnipotent, Macho, warrior God who rescues all good guys and punishes all bad guys...."¹³

Eighteen times Chung summoned the spirits of the dead who have suffered injustices and claimed that "without hearing the cries of these spirits, we cannot hear the voice of the Holy Spirit....Don't bother the Spirit by calling her all the time." Added Chung, "I hope the presence of all our ancestor's spirits here with us shall not make you uncomfortable."¹⁴

The practice of calling up discarnate spirits is common to shamanism around the world and has become part of the environmental movement. The return to nature comes through in almost all communications from the spirit world. For the shaman, the spirit entities encountered in trance are connected with the earth. Eagle Man, a modern shaman, boasts of the Native Americans' "deeply spiritual relationship with nature." He adds, "Getting back to nature will be the key to saving the planet."¹⁵

It is these very demonic "spirits of ancestors" associated with the worship of Earth which hold pagans in bondage and fear. Ancestor worship is the heart of voodoo, Santeria, Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddhism and almost all the "isms," including Catholicism in its communication with and worship of the "saints," especially "Mary." Newspapers around the world reported,

Pope John Paul II sought common ground [in West Africa] with believers in voodoo Thursday, suggesting they would not betray their traditional faith by converting to Christianity [Catholicism]. On the second day of his 10th African pilgrimage, the Pope held a dramatic and emotional meeting with priests of the vodun....The Pope told the voodooists that just as they draw on their ancestors for their religion, so do Christians [Catholics] revere their "ancestors in the faith...."¹⁶

In March 1991, the Southern Baptists' Christian Life Commission, directed by Richard Land, "held its first environmental seminar. Later that fall, the United Church of Christ convened an environmental summit for minorities...." The largest black denomination, the National Baptist Convention USA, involved itself in environmentalism at about the same time.¹⁷ Also in 1991, Evangelicals for Social Action (Ron Sider, executive director) helped to organize a gathering of scientists and religious leaders to discuss rescuing the environment. Several mainline denominations and leaders, including Robert Schuller; World Vision's president, Robert Seiple; and Asbury Theological Seminary president, David McKenna, enthusiastically supported this largely pagan movement.¹⁸ So did Christianity Today, which reported favorably upon this conference without mentioning that it arose out of Moscow's occult/New Age "Global Forum."

One of the ecumenical environmental groups which evangelicals have joined is the "Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment." It is based at New York's huge Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a bastion of New Age/ecumenical/Antichrist deception, where a female "Christa" was displayed on a cross. Its appalling dean, James Parks Morton, declares, "We are increasingly being called to realize that the body of Christ is the earth—the biosphere—the skin that includes all of us."¹⁹ Similarly, Richard Austin, one of the speakers at the EarthCare '96 conference, declared, "Christ is fully God and fully Earth....He came to save the world...I hear the Bible calling us to redeem from destruction the Creation."²⁰

In fact, Christ said that He was "not of this world" (Jn:8:23And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
See All...). He urged His own to be heavenly minded, not earthly minded (Mat:6:19-21 [19] Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: [20] But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: [21] For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
See All...; Lk 12:33; Jn:12:25He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
See All...; 18:36), and promised to take them out of this world to His Father's house of many mansions (Jn:14:1-6 [1] Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. [2] In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. [4] And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. [5] Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? [6] Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
See All...). This world is "reserved unto fire against the day of judgment...the heavens shall pass away with a great noise...the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Pt 3:7,10).

Mikhail Gorbachev is now president of the ecological watchdog organization, Green Cross International, headquartered in the Hague. Green Cross? How dare Gorbachev or anyone else turn the Cross, red with Christ's blood shed for our sins, into something green! Yet this is exactly what is happening to the message of the Cross through the environmental movement. It is a humanistic attempt to restore the lost paradise of Eden without acknowledging that the problem is man's rebellion against his Creator and that Christ's death for our sins is the only basis upon which there can be reconciliation. Christianity is subtly being redefined.

The "Greening of the Cross" is a growing movement not to be taken lightly. At the "Re-Imagining God" conference attended by many professing evangelicals, Chung Kyun Kyung summoned "the spirit of Earth, Air, and Water" and declared,

For many Asians, we see god in the wind, in the fire, in the tree, in the ocean. We are living with god, it is just energy...it is in the sun, in the ocean, it is from the ground and it is from the trees....If you feel very tired and you feel you don't have any energy to give, what you do is you go to a big tree and ask tree, "Give me some of your life energy!"²¹

What Chung says is not far from Al Gore's tree hugging. Nor is it unrelated to Norman Vincent Peale's declaration: "God is energy. As you breathe God in, as you visualize His energy, you will be reenergized!"²²

Gorbachev says that the main purpose of Green Cross is "to bring nations together ...to stimulate the new environmental consciousness...returning Man to a sense of being a part of Nature." To require man to act like he's "part of Nature" is an admission that he is not. Nature's creatures need no such urging. This return to nature, however, is a powerful factor in encouraging the immorality of today's world.

There is no "right" or "wrong" in nature. Clearly it is not "wrong" for a volcano to spue forth poisonous gases. Whatever nature and her offspring do is simply "natural." If man is a product of nature through evolution, then whatever he does must likewise be natural. As for all the furor raised over the possible extinction of a species, such as the spotted owl, hasn't evolution been doing away with species for millions of years? By destroying creatures standing in his way, man, the ultimate predator, would only be fulfilling his evolutionary purpose as the "fittest" species able to "survive" at the expense of all others.

One cannot logically believe both in evolution and the environmental movement. Evolutionists should neither be concerned for "endangered species" nor for the ecological well-being of this planet. If man, as a result of the evolution of his brain and nervous system, succeeds in destroying the earth in a nuclear holocaust or ecological disaster, that must be accepted as a natural act in the evolving universe.

The mere fact, however, that man can reason about ecology and the survival of species indicates that he is not the product of such forces, but, having the power to interfere with them, must have a higher origin. Man was created in the image of God. Only an intelligent Creator could have brought mankind into existence. Consequently, the solution to human problems is not in hugging trees and getting in touch with nature and listening to the earth, but in getting in touch through Jesus Christ with the God who made us and in submitting to His will.

Yes, the pollution and wanton exploitation and destruction of the environment are foolish and wrong. The folly and evil, however, of worshiping Mother Earth and treating each species as sacred and having the same rights as humans is of at least equal magnitude. Yet that philosophy is being embraced widely. As Bereans, we need to challenge Christians biblically concerning their involvement in a pagan green movement. And we need to take advantage of legitimate ecological concerns to explain to the unsaved their cause and the only solution in Christ. TBC

Condensed and adapted from Chapter 11 of Occult Invasion: The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church, 1998.

Endnotes

1. Earth & Spirit: The Spiritual Dimension of the Environmental Crisis, International Conference brochure sponsored by Chinook Learning Center, Seattle, WA, Oct. 19-21, 1990.
2. The Moscow Plan of Action of the Global Forum on Environment and Development for Human Survival, Jan. 1990 (final draft), 9.
3. Ibid., 12.
4. Ibid.
5. Carl Sagan, Cosmos (Random House, 1980), 243.
6. The Oregonian, Sept.13, 1992, Forum 4.
7. Parade Magazine, Mar. 1, 1992.
8. Cited in Ground Zero (C.T. Communications, Box 612, Gladstone, MB R0J 0T0, Canada, Oct./Nov., 1996), 8.
9. From a brochure promoting the event and sent out by Marilyn Ferguson and her Brain/Mind Newsletter.
10. Foundation, July/Aug. 1994, 6-7.
11. Christian News, Mar. 21, 1994, 8.
12. Christian News, Feb. 5, 1996, 1.
13. O Timothy, 11:3, 1994.
14. O Timothy, 9:1, 1992.
15. Ed McGaa, Eagle Man, Rainbow Tribe: Ordinary People Journeying on the Red Road (Harper San Francisco, 1992), 3.
16. Los Angeles Times, Feb. 5, 1993.
17. Laura Sessions Stepp, "Creation theories aside, they join forces to save the Earth," The Morning News Tribune (May 24, 1992), A3.
18. "Religious Leaders Join Scientists in Ecological Concerns," Christianity Today (Aug.19, 1991), 49.
19. Tarrytown News (Nov. 1984), 5.
20. Calvary Contender (June 15, 1996).
21. Christian News, Mar. 21, 1994, 8.
22. Norman Vincent Peale, PLUS: The Magazine of Positive Thinking, 37:4, May 1986, Part II, 23.