(Queensland, Australia) — Is there a dark side to religious environmentalism?
Between 6 -18th November, the UN climate conference COP27 was held on the Sinai Peninsula in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. What may not be so well-known is that religious leaders from across the three monotheistic faiths signed the Jerusalem Climate Declaration just prior to the climate conference. Their stated aim was to encourage and empower religious communities around the world to curb climate change.
It has been revealed that interfaith leaders also gathered at the conference to call for climate justice and a ceremony of repentance, during which a ‘New Ten Commandments’ was conceived. The organisations responsible for coordinating this were the Elijah Interfaith Institute and its Board of World Religious Leaders; the Interfaith Centre for Sustainable Development (ICSD); the Peace Department (a US non-profit organisation) and climate activist Yosef Abramowitz.
However, the ‘New 10 Commandments’ are not so new: the 10 commandments of climate change were devised some time ago by Pope Francis. An article from 2015 cites the Pope calling for a ‘cultural revolution’ to halt the ‘disturbing warming of our planet’ – the actual document being 184 pages in length. It is no surprise that Pope Francis is a leading voice in promoting the coming together of world religions to address what is widely perceived as an existential crisis: he has always encouraged inter-religious dialogue and collaboration. This was clearly demonstrated in the first-ever Pope Video message on his Monthly Prayer Intentions in 2016, in which he made the assertion that regardless of religion we are all children of God. The video featured representatives of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, all of whom proclaimed their respective beliefs in God, Jesus Christ, Allah and Buddha and who then declared their common belief in love.
Scripture, however, disagrees with the Pope – we are all made in the image of God, but we are not all children of God. In John 1:10-13 we read: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
In our times the focus of this interfaith movement appears to be what is commonly termed the climate crisis. One of the plans was to hold a large ceremony of repentance on Jabal Musa, purportedly the biblical Mt. Sinai site. However, only a small group of faith leaders were allowed due to security concerns. As we know Mt. Sinai is a sacred place of revelation: it was the place where God’s Ten Commandments were revealed to Moses and written by the finger of God on two stone tablets.
Read more at: harbingersdaily.com