The Most Important Question

I grew up in church. I remember on many occasions being told that the most important question in life is, "If you were to die today, are you sure you will go to heaven?" It is a question many folks where I live think is the most important question. The question leads eventually to adopting the theory of substitutionary atonement, reciting the sinner's prayer and so forth.

I no longer think that this the most important question. I had doubts that it was terribly important even as a child. Nevertheless, church and peer pressure, my own sense of eight-year-old guilt and a desire to please led me to pray the sinner's prayer, receive Jesus into my heart, get baptized, and become a tract carrying ambassador for "the most important question." Today, this question doesn't even make my long list. I think it is a silly question and a distracting question from the far more critical questions of life.

What are the most important questions for us as individuals, as the church, and as a human race? Do you have a list? A question near the top for me these days is this one, "What am I (or are you) doing so that there will be a livable environment for our children and grandchildren?"

I think that this is one of the most if not the most important questions that the church should be asking itself. It is a religious, spiritual, moral, and ethical question. What on Earth are we doing for Earth?

On the front page of Sunday's Johnson City Press (and I am sure it is in your newspaper as well) is an article entitled, "New Climate Report Warns of Drought, Starvation, Disease," by AP science writer, Seth Borenstein. The article begins:

WASHINGTON — The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won’t have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.
At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.
Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.
For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.
The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming’s effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.
But some scientists said the overall message is not likely to change when it’s issued in early April in Brussels, the same city where European Union leaders agreed this past week to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Their plan will be presented to President Bush and other world leaders at a summit in June.
The report offers some hope if nations slow and then reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but it notes that what’s happening now isn’t encouraging.
“Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,” the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.
“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report.
The draft document says scientists are highly confident that many current problems — change in species’ habits and habitats, more acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen — can be blamed on global warming.
For example, the report says North America “has already experienced substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from recent climate extremes,” such as hurricanes and wildfires.
But the present is nothing compared to the future.
Global warming soon will “affect everyone’s life ... it’s the poor sectors that will be most affected,” Romero Lankao said.
And co-author Terry Root of Stanford University said: “We truly are standing at the edge of mass extinction” of species. (Read More)

The answer to this question won't be solved by reciting the sinner's prayer. This is the work of our generation. Will our churches provide the spiritual inspiration, will, intelligence, energy, imagination, and love to wrestle with this? It remains to be seen, but if this article is true, we have no time to waste.

This is why I find most theology, church politics, and church programming a waste of time. The church deals with things that are not important. I don't say this to make judgments but to ask if you don't feel this way too. Isn't it time to get to work--to educate people--to get political--and to care?

One way as the church to respond is to raise awareness by greening your church. The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program has a Green Church page with suggestions such as having your congregation take an environmental audit. We are undergoing one at my congregation. We have no delusions that we are saving the world, but you have to start somewhere.

What are we doing to ensure our children's future? It is an important question for us. What is your most important question?