First, her open letter to her father.  The response is below.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anna-jane-joyner/an-open-letter-to-my-dadd_b_5254040.html

An Open Letter to My Daddy Who Doesn’t Accept Climate Change

Anna Jane Joyner 05/02/14 11:42 AM ET

This poignant letter is to my father, who is among the most powerful evangelical ministers in the world. Pastor Rick Joyner heads MorningStar Ministries, a global group with over 100 churches and partners in dozens of countries. My father won’t accept climate change is human-caused. In this Sunday night’s episode of Years of Living Dangerously, Showtime at 10 p.m., I take him to meet scientists and see the situation on the ground. I wrote this open appeal to him.

Dear Daddy,

As you know, combating climate change is my life’s work. I believe it is the greatest challenge of our time. I feel a deep duty, to both my faith and my generation, to spread this message. We are the first generation that knows how serious the stakes are, as well as the last to be able to do something about it in time.

I learned from you that we are called on to protect God’s creation and to love our neighbors. I write you today because we need your leadership to achieve a bright future for all of us — and our children.

Fossil fuels have brought the world many wonderful things, but now we know they come with a high price — an unimaginably high price if we don’t act soon to start transitioning off of them. We need to create a world where our energy needs are met without depending on fossil fuels that make us sick and heat up our planet. We can only do this together.

Daddy, I know you are someone who takes stewardship of creation as a moral mandate. I believe ignoring climate change is inconsistent with our faith. The risks are massive, and the science is clear. If we do nothing, our planet will face severe impacts, and billions of people will be hurt, most of whom contributed little or nothing to the problem. How is that just? How is that loving our neighbors?

Many people are already being negatively impacted, such as our friends, the oystermen, in Apalachicola, along with people from Texas to Bangladesh, from Syria to Staten Island — whose powerful stories are told in the Showtime series you and I appear in, “Years of Living Dangerously.”

It’s not just livelihoods at stake, it is our lives, God’s greatest gift to us. Daddy, will you use your voice to be a part of the solution? Christians are believers in resurrection, renewal, and salvation — even against all odds. We can help bring much needed light and healing to this situation, or we can allow misinformation and myopia to continue to be a hurdle to hope.

You are right, we do need truth. And now, more than ever, we also need action. I hope you’ll join me in working to overcome this great challenge, maybe the greatest are planet has ever faced. You and I both know our faith has risen to the occasion before and overcome great injustice and incredible obstacles. I hope we can come together, and do it now. For our planet and for each other.

Love you,

Anna Jane

Dear Ms Anna Jane:

We have not had the opportunity of introduction, and perhaps never will.  I do, nevertheless, address you in this open letter, as you addressed your father.

I read the open letter to your father (above), and I find fault.  Perhaps, similar to your dad, I too am a climate change “skeptic”, although not a combatant.  Perhaps I have not delved too deeply into the direct science, but, like most, I find my way on what is talked about.

Nevertheless, I consider your statements in the letter, and what I have heard elsewhere.  You write, quoting others, that this is the “greatest challenge of our time”.  I will come back to that in a moment.

I mark what you wrote about a “deep duty”.  But, what exactly is this “duty” that you speak of?  I am drawn to inquire on this.  On the one hand, it speaks of a requirement, the fulfillment of some higher code.  Yet, you say that this is a deep duty to both your “faith” and “your generation”.  How so?

I would ask you simple questions, only.  Honesty can come only by those.  So, I would ask, how has your life come under bond to this particular call?

When we ask God what He requires of us, He says it is to do justice and love mercy.  Does He then add to that?  When we see the many, many needs around us, how do we choose to focus on one–this one, and not that one?  When we consider “climate change”, why not illness, poverty, crime, government ills?  For the sake of questioning.  When a duty is not directly indicated by the the Bible, as this one is not, the calling to it bears all the more burden of proof that we have indeed heard Lord correctly regarding it.  Should we hear incorrectly, we could in the end that much of our work was for naught.

Yet, you also speak of a duty to “your generation”.  This is more perplexing.  In what way are we ever under any obligation to the “world” in this way?  Consider this.  Is the Father duty bound to any man in anything He has done?  Not at all.  All that He has done, He has done out of His goodness and His love.  It can be a hard thing to maintain this perspective, knowing how great a debt He has relieved us of, and yet He maintains that we are not beggars to this grace, but sons.  But, this is our Father.

And, so I remark on your words about duty.  Of what source is it?  Of course, we could say it is to “love” them, but there are a hundred thousand ways to love them, and many of them more direct and impactful.  In reality, what is truly more important?  A world that will slowly get hotter and hotter, or a multitude of this generation that will stand before the one with the eyes like a burning fire before His Great White Throne.  One lasts for a moment, the other for all of time.

God did not have any obligation to send His Son.  He did so out of compassion, and His great love. And, so I remark on the efforts for duty.  Of what are you obligated?  God the Father places no debt upon us, but that we love one another, as we love ourselves.  He initiates no action except for the one born out of a free choice, not pain.  But, duty is not the same as love.

When we come to the table with our own expectation of how love must be, we are nearly always mistaken.  Love is always free, and it must grow that way.  It is in the process of that freedom that we see that men have choices, and they are responsible for the choices they make.  And, yet, when we come through the door of Christ, we must walk in forgiveness.  For, forgiveness, well expressed, is living with the consequences of another person’s actions.  We all have to do that, for we were all born of Adam–accursed, and bent toward sin.  We are all “innocent”, yet we are all condemned.  And, so while I have been hurt by many others, it is still my choice to forgive.  And, this is for my benefit and His fame.

And, so love looks sometimes different than we might expect.  I cannot save everyone.  Jesus did not even go throughout all the world, even though He was their Savior, but only to Israel.  But, when a foreigner came to him, He merely replied that He was not sent to her, and would have left her be, except for her faith. But, each person, no matter what comes to them, is responsible for living in the aftermath of others good and bad choices, as well as their own. And, to recognize that for myself, and to recognize that for other people, means I might not be able to fix everything myself, but I can be free, and that means life.

You mentioned in your letter to you father what you learned.  You wrote that you learned to protect God’s creation and to love our neighbors.  Both noble aspirations, of course.  But, let me ask you a simple question.  What of love for God?  I know it’s in there, but, let me ask you, why isn’t it named?

As I am sure you are aware, all of God’s perfect law hung upon two basic commands, to love God with all we are, and to love each other as yourself.  And, so, while perhaps you could write it off as a thing of the moment, I observe that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

But, consider Paul’s letter, when he talks about not muzzling the ox.  In speaking of it, referring to the Mosaic Law, he said that God did not write the command for the animal, but for man.  Now, it wasn’t that God did not care about the ox, but that the commandment was not written for the animal–oxen can’t read.  God wrote the command for the man, that the man might plow in hope and reap in hope.  Hope was the command, really, when you get right down to it.  And, God knew that if man worked in this hope, that he would by his very nature want good things to come to his beast as well.  But, you can’t legislate hope in a man, but you can keep him from muzzling the ox and being a pig about his work.  So, you see, in the keeping of the first and second commands, you really do end up living the one you mentioned–the creation is taken care of automatically.  And, this is also the solution to any “climate change”, ultimately.

And, this is what concerns me.

You see, I, too, used to have a great heart for “climate change”.  I recently turned 39, yet while I was in college (which I attended for some seven years, obtaining two bachelor degrees), I was greatly concerned with the environment.  One of the verses that always stood out to me was one from Isaiah, “Woe to those who join house to house and field to field, until there is no open space left in the land, and you are left utterly alone”.  There is something about lack of open spaces, that is just as destructive to human existence as is any greenhouse gas pollution.  Those who live with no space between their houses, no empty places just for the wind to blow and the heart to wander are left in an thin, emptying space, suffocating for the fresh air of the Spirit.  In being so joined together that there is no vacancy, we are left without correspondancy.  Yet, you do not hear this trumpeted in the media.

It wasn’t until towards the end of my studies that I, a Christian my whole life, and an attender of Christian school from 4th grade through graduation, began to seek after what more I had begun to hunger for in God.  While I considered environmentalism extremely important, I could not rectify the issues that so few in the church seemed concerned on the one hand, and my need to give a greater importance to God in my life on the other.

In the midst of seeing my struggle, someone suggested, “Why don’t you lay that down for a while and concentrate on Jesus? ”

For me, it was the right advice.  You see, I had known God my whole life, but I didn’t really know Him all that well.  I’d been in church, and I paid attention, and even listened and learned.  I even tried to live for Him.  I was bored in church.  It’s all so basic, you see?  At least, that’s what I thought.

The thought of laying it down was hard for me, though. I had heard statements like yours, and others.  I heard about the great burden.  I heard about the great need.  I heard about something to live for, and something to work for.  Something worthwhile.  A real cause.  The “greatest challenge of our time”.  But, that’s just it, isn’t it?

You see, it feels good to rescue people.  Especially for people who have been “little” their whole life, and finally get a chance to feel “big”.  To finally have something that’s bigger than themselves, that empowers their creativity, their gifts, and their humanity.  To find something to get angry over, that’s worth fighting for, it almost feels like life.  For people who haven’t had all the type and amount of nurture and support, who found that “helping” other people made them “fit”, becoming a rescuer, an advocate, and someone who can bring “change” seems like such a “right” thing.  After all, Jesus said we should be the servant of all, didn’t He?  Yet, it comes at the cost of disrespecting oneself, every single time.

I remember, recently, on Facebook of course, a picture of a well-known preacher that put things in better focus than I can possibly out-do at this moment.  It revolutionized my mind.  It showed a picture of a nice house, not a mansion, but just a nice house.  And, the picture had this caption–When a socialist sees a house like this, they say “No body should be able to live like this.”  When a capitalist sees this house, they say, “Everybody should be able to live like this.”

What it does is assuage our guilt.  We don’t have to feel bad about having grown up with privilege if we feel we are giving things away.  Having things, but not feeling worthy on the inside, is one of the most devastating things to live in.  But, God calls us sons.  Consider.  Is it any less godly to merely be a steward and be blessed with stewarding those resources to the people who should receive them.  Your father himself would not be the minister he is now if he had given way all he had simply to meet the “need in hand”, or attempted to show false humility and claim he didn’t own anything.

But, that’s where the Kingdom entered in.

You see, it isn’t really about that, even if it is.  As I’ve come to know, the greatest challenge of our time, of any time, is each man’s own individual heart.

You really have to step away, sometimes, and look at it from a distance.  That is, that duty that sits upon your shoulders.

I was convinced, as you seem to be, that this indeed was one of the most important topics for us to cover, of our time.  I was motivated out of a sense of duty.  It took time, focus, energy.  And, all the while, God the Father, the most wonderful and fulfilling and perfect God with the perfect solution for everything has always been right there, and I had hardly known Him.  I didn’t have a prayer life.  I spoke to Him throughout the day some and read His Word, but I didn’t “keep in step” with Him.  I didn’t even known how!

Here I was, so convinced that I was under a duty of the faith, but this duty didn’t come from the Word of God, and it didn’t come from God Himself (how could it, when I didn’t even know His voice?).  Where did it come from?  I was motivated in doing it, had begun some activism type things on my own, but I certainly didn’t get this burden from heaven.  So, what was it?

There’s another verse, that, over the years, God has impressed upon me, perhaps remembering the time when I did pursue the issues of the environment regularly, in memorial.  It is 2 Chronicles 7:14-15.  It reads, just quoting it roughly, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sins, and I will heal their land.”  You see, right there is God’s promise in the last line of it–He will heal our land.  The answer to “global warming”, whatever you want to call it, is a prayer meeting. Seriously.  It’s in crying out to God for our sins.  And, it’s solution will be walked out in the feet who of those who, whether they know it or not, were inspired from above, because God heard our prayers.

I imagine, if we knew everything, we would know that the real solution to all climate change is sitting on a shelf somewhere, forgotten in some warehouse, overlooked and gathering dust.  It probably already exists. Why isn’t it brought to the forefront?  Because His people aren’t praying, and because of that, God is holding off His promise to heal even the land itself for another day.  It will NEVER come, unless God’s people ask and keep on asking.  It’s that simple.  Is this cruelty and a heavy-handed God?  Of course not.  No more than when He drove them out of the Garden in the first place.  It was love, that they might learn to love Him, and no longer live in perpetual death.

But, it really goes deeper than that, doesn’t it?  Remember that thing about the “no open space left”?  You see, there are greater perils on this planet than it burning up from CO2.  Just because they don’t make the news doesn’t meant they’re not there.  There’s something the Bible talks about called men’s love growing cold.  That’s much worse. Consider, if you solved all of climate change, and we continued on the direction we were going, we could all be cold, alone, isolated, and completely miserable on the inside, all the while the planet is doing fine.  For, consider for a moment…  When I prayed with Lou Engle in Fort Mill in 2007, I learned even more that most post-abortive women have a difficulty receiving and giving love?  Especially to their next child?  It’s sort of like that with the Earth.  When men sin, things don’t work like they should, and it really doesn’t matter whether it’s an exhaust pipe or whatever, men out of harmony with their creator destroys the Earth.  That is why God hasn’t stepped in to do anything about it.  Because he lets them.  Because love has to be free.

When God’s people live in harmony with His Ways, like with not muzzling the ox, man lives and respects God’s Earth.  Yet, when man merely attempts to solve the surface issues, he treats only symptoms and never deals with the actual cause of the disease.

So, God says to do the simple thing.

You know, you talk about a “deep duty”..  Well, that’s fine in itself.  But, Jesus said that the greatest person of all was the one like a little child, who merely did what he saw His Father doing.  See?  The most profound answer lies simply in following the Father’s lead.  I could chase a thousand different problems like flies.  But, it is when I simply yield my choices to Him that I find His perfect step forward.  One little thing could turn the tide, if it is the right thing.  One little seemingly random occurrence, seemingly insignificant, can overthrow nations, if God is the author.  It doesn’t take great faith, it just needs unmixed faith.

But, the problem is rescuing.  We are, indeed, called to be servants, but not to rescue.  There is a greater danger, to me, than climate change, and that is a heart left alone.  Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.  What fallowness of heart and of soul lies within the places and spaces of men, that they look upon their fellows and they cannot even see them.  Their eyes do not search beneath the surface of their skin, to the inner man within.  What kind of world is that, pollution or no?  How is the climate change of the condition of the hearts of men and women, so far from love, any less of a danger than that of the physical Earth?

You are right to point out the suffering plight of many a seemingly disconnected bystander.  Yet, there is still a point of you needing to be their champion.  This is the classic victim, persecutor, rescuer roles as depicted in the Karpman triangle going back to the 1960s.  So long as you are their hero, you have something to do.  You are validated, you have a purpose, and you have a mission.  So what.  So flipping what.  You know?  I mean, let’s get real.  What if God, in His mercy, wiped away the climate change in a day, and you were left with nothing but blue skies and green meadows?  Would you be content to live outside, with nothing but a simple life to keep you calm, and no great challenges to face?

If you can’t, you aren’t really living for the faith anyway.  If you couldn’t see this solved, and not have your identity buried in it, you are not living for heaven, nor for God, nor for others, but merely, as it is seen in so many ministers today, only for yourself. That’s not love, that’s flesh, no matter how pretty of a face you want to put on it.

Get in touch with that burden.  Why do you feel a need to rescue?  Why does it make you feel alive to “help” someone, and to do “good”?  You see, when we don’t address the inner rage and the feelings of worthlessness, anything we do makes us feel better, and gives us our identity.

But, if what you do is who you are, you’re merely a performer, not a “son”.  You are not under any duty of the Gospel, but merely the pressures and yokes of this world and of the age.  If you cannot first simply “be”, and then from that place of “being”, do what He shows you, you have done nothing at all, and history will pass you by as you spend your money and time and effort on a worthless vision.  Consider what John the Baptist said…  All the men are like grass, and their glory is as the flowers of the field.  Here today, and tomorrow, thrown in the fire.

When you live in a spirit of judgment, either against your parents or yourself, harboring a deep need to be somebody, what you do no longer flows out of an expression of who you are as His child, but is simply something you are doing to cover your own sense of guilt, worthlessness, and self hatred.

This world is not in need of leaders like your father, Mr. Joyner, to stand up and lead the charge.  That is merely politics.  No, but every great thing in the Bible was done by no-body’s.  It was done because God waited until it was impossible, picked a man (or woman) with no ability whatsoever, and in proving that it was not by their strength at all, He did it through them anyway.  From Gideon, to Sampson, to all the hero’s of the faith.  Though they were weak, they were made strong in the power of God through faith.  That is the solution.

The climate is in a mess because men are.  Like that ox..  What was the Ox’s biggest problem?  It was not the muzzle, it was not being overworked, nor was it the harness.  It was not even the sun beating down on his head.  Instead, the ox’s only problem was that man was living outside of proper relationship with his Creator, and that brought disorder into the world. A thousand laws might slow down the destructive effect upon the creation, but it would never stop it until hope arose.

You mention truth.  And, indeed, what men need is the truth.  But, I challenge you, like someone did to me.  Why don’t you lay down the activism, and work on being His child?  Why don’t you just step away from it, for at least a season, and spend a while in a room, alone with God.

Learn to let go, so you no longer need the anger to survive.  It was useful for a season, to get you out of the complacency, but now, let us learn peace.  That is more powerful than anything else.  If it can calm a storming sea, Peace can save you and me.  There is a Joy that is only in Him.  While it may sound offensive to some, the words of Psalm 91 are the reality.  A thousand may fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand, but it will not come nigh me.  I didn’t want them to fall.  I tried to stop them.  But, at the end of the day, I did what I was supposed to do, and God calls me clean.

I guarantee you.  If you are truly called to continue in climate change, God will make a way.  Nothing can stop the flow of God.  If you learn to follow Him, He can lead you back into it.

But, what I’d imagine is that you might come up face to face with an even bigger challenge than you’ve ever dreamed of.  Learning to love.

It’s easy to get angry at injustice.  For anyone with a sensitive soul, whose old enough to breathe, and has had a few things done wrong to them over the years, there’s plenty of pain if we haven’t learned to give it to the Lord.  The inward struggle is enormous.

Yet, time and time again, Jesus’ words prove faithful, as found in John 3:19-21…  v21  Those who do truth come into the light so that it may be plainly seen that what has been done has been done through God.  And, Luke 11:36, If your body is full of light, with no dark corners, it will be like the light of a lamp is shining on you.

The path is in freedom, forgiveness, and love.  And, when you really get down to it, the anger you feel when you think of climate change is really the inner injustice you feel over yourself, your own self hatred, and your own unforgiveness and bitterness towards those who never saw you for “who you are”.  It really is.

1 John 1:7 – If we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with another….

In His Name.

 

Benjamin