{"id":1162,"date":"2007-08-01T10:34:24","date_gmt":"2007-08-01T10:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html"},"modified":"2007-08-01T10:34:24","modified_gmt":"2007-08-01T10:34:24","slug":"joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html","title":{"rendered":"Joel Hunter: Suspicious of the Green Gospel?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070801_green.jpg\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\">Highly suspicious. That\u2019s what I was.<br \/>\nI was invited to a meeting whose participants were considering proposing something along the line of \u201cGreen Gospels.\u201d After all, I am an evangelical, and being involved in anything that has to do with treating the scriptures with a particular perspective carries with it the danger of perverting the original intent.<br \/>\nPleasantly surprised. That\u2019s what I was when I attended the meeting with Christians of impeccable spiritual and intellectual character. Under the able leadership \u2013 and delightful English wit and accent \u2013 of Martin Palmer (secretary general \u2013 that title always sounds like an oxymoron to me \u2013 of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation), the panel outlined the task.  We were to provide a commentary that would feature the centuries-old writings of Christian teachers, leaders, and poets as they thought through the relationship of God and creation. We also could uncover the context within which Jesus taught and the gospel writers wrote.<br \/>\nThe emphasis on environmental appreciation is a recent one, you say? Au contraire! We who care about learning what scriptures have to do with nature are part of a long line of theological and intellectual contemplatives.<br \/>\nJust last week someone stopped me in church and said, \u201cPastor, our small group wanted to do a study on what the Bible says about protecting the environment. But I looked under my topical index and could only find one passage!\u201d Ah, there\u2019s the rub. There is so much historic context (much of it Jewish writings) that underlie the scriptures we have that most of us are unaware of how often the created world is referenced in the Bible.<br \/>\nAnd the problem is not just a denotative, analytic ignorance. It is a lack of passionate engagement. The gospels are not just concerned with creation as a background fact; creation is a source of inspiration. Therefore, who better to add to the commentaries than poets and mystics rather than just technical biblical scholars?<br \/>\nSo we will see this project through. Maybe Christians won&#8217;t be the only ones inspired by learning more about the scriptures we have. Maybe those more interested in reading about the environment will be inspired to know its Creator.<br \/>\n<strong>Rev. Joel C. Hunter<\/strong> is the senior pastor of Northland church in Longwood, Florida. The &#8220;Green Gospels&#8221; gathering was hosted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.conservation.org\/\">Conservation International<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Highly suspicious. That\u2019s what I was. I was invited to a meeting whose participants were considering proposing something along the line of \u201cGreen Gospels.\u201d After all, I am an evangelical, and being involved in anything that has to do with treating the scriptures with a particular perspective carries with it the danger of perverting the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Joel Hunter: Suspicious of the Green Gospel? - God&#039;s Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joel Hunter: Suspicious of the Green Gospel? - God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Highly suspicious. That\u2019s what I was. I was invited to a meeting whose participants were considering proposing something along the line of \u201cGreen Gospels.\u201d After all, I am an evangelical, and being involved in anything that has to do with treating the scriptures with a particular perspective carries with it the danger of perverting the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-01T10:34:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070801_green.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Joel Hunter: Suspicious of the Green Gospel? - God&#039;s Politics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Joel Hunter: Suspicious of the Green Gospel? - God&#039;s Politics","og_description":"Highly suspicious. That\u2019s what I was. I was invited to a meeting whose participants were considering proposing something along the line of \u201cGreen Gospels.\u201d After all, I am an evangelical, and being involved in anything that has to do with treating the scriptures with a particular perspective carries with it the danger of perverting the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html","og_site_name":"God&#039;s Politics","article_published_time":"2007-08-01T10:34:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070801_green.jpg"}],"author":"God's Politics","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/08\/joel-hunter-suspicious-of-the.html","name":"Joel Hunter: Suspicious of the Green Gospel? 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