Pondering Pastor

It seems that anything we can do to reduce the distance our food needs to travel before we consume it is a good way to reduce that food’s carbon footprint.  A new study described at LiveScience.com suggests that doesn’t play as important a role as the type of food we choose.

Substituting chicken, fish or vegetables for red meat can help combat climate change, a new study suggests.

In fact, putting these foods on the dinner table does more to reduce carbon emissions than eating locally grown food, researchers report in the May 15 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The production phase is responsible for 83 percent of the average U.S. household’s greenhouse-gas burden with regard to food, while transportation accounts for only 11 percent, the new study found. The production of red meat, the researchers conclude, is almost 150 percent more greenhouse-gas-intensive than chicken or fish.

“We suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than ‘buying local,’” the researchers write. “Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more greenhouse-gas reduction than buying all locally sourced food.”

Actually, it makes sense.

Pondering Pastor

In the “everything-that-happens-is-because-God-caused-it-to-happen” theology (that has advocates like Westboro Baptist Church) it seems that God wants to run Eight Belles in a heavenly race.  This, from the Baltimore Sun:

Yesterday morning, the filly’s trainer, Larry Jones, his eyes puffy and swollen from a near sleepless night, stood outside his barn still disbelieving.  “I keep looking, and she ain’t in there,” he said. “She ain’t coming back. As to why, we’d like to think God wanted her in his stable. He gave us signs all along the way that we were in the race we were supposed to be in. He [God] put her in that race and let her run a great race, and then he took her. “I know God doesn’t make mistakes. There’s a reason for this. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

This is the kind of theology that results in diabetic children dying because their parents rely on prayer rather than the God-given talents of physicians, pharmachologists, scientists, and others.

This is the kind of theology that ignores that there are consequences to human decisions.  (Did the jockey pull Eight Belles up short too quick?)  Did Eight Belles have an unknown previous injury?  Should we even be racing horses at all?

This is the kind of theology that is as fatalistic as believing that God has abandoned the world.

This is the kind of theology that ignores significant portions of Scripture.

Pondering Pastor

Mormon Articles of Faith #3

We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

Augsburg Confession Chief Article of Faith #3 - Concerning the Son of God

Likewise [the churches among us] teach that the Word, that is, the Son of God, took upon himself human nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary so that there might be two natures, divine and human, inseparably conjoined in the unity of one person, one Christ, truly God and truly a human being “born of the Virgin Mary,” who truly “suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried” that he might reconcile the Father to us and be a sacrifice not only for original guilt but also for all actual sins of human beings. He also “descended into hell, and on the third day he was” truly “resurrected.” Thereafter, “he ascended into heaven” in order to “sit at the right hand of the Father,” and he will reign forever and have dominion over all creatures. He will sanctify those who believe in him by sending into their hearts the Holy Spirit, who will rule, console, and make them alive and defend them against the devil and the power of sin. The same Christ will publicly “return to judge the living and the dead …,” according to the Apostles’ Creed.

Augsburg Confession Chief Article of Faith #4 - Concerning Justification

Likewise [the churches among us] teach that human beings cannot be justified before God by their own powers, merits, or works. But they are justified as a gift on account of Christ through faith when they believe that they are received into grace and that their sins are forgiven on account of Christ, who by his death made satisfaction for our sins. God reckons this faith as righteousness (Romans 3 and 4).

Commentary

The numbering of the two Articles of Faith diverge a bit here, but that is to be expected. There is no evidence I know about that suggests that Smith used Luther in the formulation of the Mormon Articles of Faith.

Much of the Augsburg Confession Article 3 relates better to Article 1 of the Mormon Articles of Faith, but admittedly, even that requires considerable additional reading to understand what Mormons claim about Jesus. The Augsburg Confession there quotes liberally from the Apostles’ Creed. I’ll not spend any more time here looking at this particular comparison. See installment #1 of this series for more detail.

The Mormon Article of Faith uses the term “Atonement of Christ”, but then immediately discounts what Lutherans (and most Christians) understand “atonement” to mean. As a theological term, atonement means “the doctrine concerning the reconciliation of God and humankind, esp. as accomplished through the life, suffering, and death of Christ.” In the Mormon Article of Faith, there is nothing explicitly stated that is accomplished by Christ. There was already salvation through adherence to the law before Christ. If salvation depends upon what we do to follow the law, then what is different in the means of salvation pre-Jesus to post-Jesus? What results in reconciliation of God and humankind for Mormons is “obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel”, made possible through Christ. It is not until the next Mormon Article of Faith that we even get to what those “laws and ordinances of the Gospel” are thought to be. The Mormon Article of Faith could have left off the “atonement of Christ” and nothing would have been changed because what follows negates the first part of the statement. (I’ll be blasted on that one, but I see nothing in the Articles of faith that would suggest that for Mormons Christ is either necessary or sufficient.)

Notice that the Augsburg Confession clearly indicates that “human beings cannot be justified before God by their own powers, merits, or works.” This would include obedience to any “laws and ordinances” that might be described in the Gospels. The term “grace” in the Augsburg Confession in fact signals that the forgiveness of sins is undeserved by humans and is “on account of Christ”. This is the appropriate understanding of “atonement of Christ”. Mormon Article of Faith #3 misses the mark in that the atonement of Christ is not sufficient in itself … it requires obedience. For Lutherans, even faith is considered a gift of the Holy Spirit, therefore there is no ability to lay claim to an accomplished reconciliation.

It is true that various Christian denominations differ on the understanding of human participation in salvation through obedience. Lutherans are careful to emphasize grace and God’s action as opposed to human action. Many claim we go to far. Obedience is a response to salvation. For Lutherans, it is not a condition required for salvation. Lutherans do not have a once “forgiven always forgiven” understanding as will be seen in future installments.

Pondering Pastor

Click here for part 1 of this series

Click here for part 2 of this series