BUEN articles & updates

A Prickly Subject to attract folk to church!

On the Saturday 29 February, Haywards Heath Baptist Church put on an ‘Eco Fair’. It attracted twenty-two organisations and groups ranging from Community Energy Pathways (Renewables) to Hurst Hedgehog Haven (very prickly). Wakehurst was represented as well as the RSPB. Sussex Green Living and Lindfield Repair Café. The common denominator was a desire to care for the planet and its inhabitants. There was a series of talks/presentations throughout the day. And for once it was the local Baptist church which was leading the way and hosting the event.

Christians should be in the forefront of showing good stewardship of God’s creation and the people who live in it. Well done, HHBC! This is something other churches could do to show our local communities that as Christian we care for them and God’s world.




 

Knock, knock. Who’s there?

In the early days of the internal combustion there was serious problem. That spark which caused things to move caused a knocking sound. Engines broke and cars struggled; even planes sputtered.

A man called Thomas Midgley Junior discovered something to prevent this, and make the machines go more smoothly. This was tetraethyl lead. What a difference it made – to cars and planes especially. In WW2 it gave the RAF planes an edge over the Luftwaffe. And made him a lot of money.

In time it was noticed that the effect was not only on the engines, but on the workers in the factory. Hallucinations involving butterflies were the start. Then violent behaviour. Then death. Five men died and three hundred more got sick, to the point of never recovering. Lead is poisonous. The inventor, Thomas Midgley, himself had suffered some of the symptoms early on. But this was progress! Leaded petrol was the way forward. The doctors and scientists who opposed this were “fanatical health fans” and American government agreed. Let’s get on with it and review in twenty-five years (but failed to so). When I was serving petrol in a garage as a teenager we sold leaded fuel, and then offered an extra shot of Red-X for those who wanted it when we went over to unleaded. It was a century later before we realised the full effects of leaded petrol.

Thomas Midgley’s next project was solving the problems presented by refrigerators, which could be highly dangerous. He came up with a much ‘safer’ chemical – one carbon atom plus two chlorine atoms and four fluorine atoms. He showed this to be ‘safe’ by using it on himself in a public demonstration. Again, such great progress!

The effects of tetraethyl lead means that in the USA alone, seven million tons of it has been put into the atmosphere – and are still there, in the water, in the soil and in people’s blood. Chloro-Fluorocarbon, or CFCs, are no longer generally used when they were found to be causing a hole in the Ozone layer.

Today we are also facing the problems of ‘forever chemicals’ [(Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also PFAS, PFASs)]. These chemicals are in our food, on some of our cooking pans and even on some of our children’s clothes. They take their name from the fact that they do not decompose or break down, and we have growing amounts of them in our bodies.

As a Christian I believe I am a steward of God’s world, not an owner. I have a duty of care towards His world, and to the people who live here. I am not a “fanatical health fan”, I am not a Luddite, but progress should not mean that profits come before people. I guess that folk like Midgley never set out to poison others, or the world, but that happened and still happens. Christians should be at the forefront of looking after His world and taking care of those who live here.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24.1

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Jesus (Rev 3.20) – will you let me in?

With acknowledgements to Nate Dimeo The Memory Place

Creation

If we believe that the world is God’s creation then we should be those who delight in and worship God for the wonders of His creation – and to some extent that’s the easy bit.

We should also examine and change our values, choices and life-style decisions.  We should be those who live lightly in this world, showing love for our neighbours, love for His creation, love for future generations and most of all, love for God and gratitude for all He has provided us with.

We're called to be stewards of His Creation. We are not the owners and we cannot go on abusing His world and using up its resources.

This is not about loving creation rather than people. We are not Pantheists. For example, animals are not more important than people. Caring for maltreated donkeys is not more important that caring for refugees. We are supposed to love people and use things. Today too many love things and use people. God is a God of relationship and if we are to be like Him then we have to learn that relationships are always more important than things, than stuff. Galations 5.6b "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

Jesus is coming – plant a tree: This is about caring for his world. But it is also about the long-term, about knowing there is a job to be done for the sake of the next generation. The man who plants a tree may never get to see its fullness – but those who come after will. What are we leaving for our children?

Monty Don – tree planted 20 years ago now his favourite – Chinese proverb “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the second best time is today."
“He that plants trees loves others besides himself.” Thomas Fuller