we went there to attend the christians for the mountains conference. it is a new coalition of christian people interested in helping to end Mountain Top Removal as a coal mining method. we hope to do this by sharing information with churches and mobilizing an informed response within christian communities. this is a picture of us in a small plane viewing MTR mining near charleston. the scale of the destruction is simply mind boggling.
anyway, at the conference howard presented a short summary of his recent paper on the environment and theology (please email me if you would like a copy...it is a brilliant overview of why evangelicals in particular should be actively engaged in 'creation care').
i loved this quote howard used. it is John Wesley waxing eloquent about all of creation finding redemption. Wesley is suggesting that there is more to salvation than "human soul harvest." I think this is an important reminder at this time of advent as we specifically recall the birth of Jesus in the manure and straw among the animals, mystics, and working people.
But will "the creature," will even the brute creation, always remain in this deplorable condition? God forbid that we should affirm this; yea, or even entertain such a thought! While "the whole creation groaneth together," (whether men attend or not) their groans are not dispersed in idle air, but enter into the ears of Him that made them. While his creatures "travail together in pain,"he knoweth all their pain, and is bringing them nearer and nearer to the birth, which shall be accomplished in its season. He seeth "the earnest expectation" wherewith the whole animated creation "waiteth for" that final "manifestation of the sons of God;" in which "they themselves also shall be delivered" (not by annihilation; annihilation is not deliverance) "from the" present "bondage of corruption, into" a measure of "the glorious liberty of the children of God."from his sermon on Romans 8:19-22
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