Praying to plants!?
As we edge closer to the Lord’s return, it seems those who do not ground themselves in the truth of the Word are becoming increasingly deluded. The lightning rod of climate change is one area in which people are becoming outright fanatical. Sadly, this applies not only to unrepentant mankind (who see Earth as the mystical goddess Gaia) but also to Christians.
One of the most bizarre examples I have recently seen has just made headlines in the United States. A liberal theological seminary there now has staff and students confessing their sins not to God, but to chrysanthemums, tree ferns and assorted cacti. I wish I was kidding, but sadly I am not. One article says as follows: Students at Union Theological Seminary prayed to a display of plants set up in the chapel of the school, prompting the institution to issue a statement explaining the practice as many on social media mocked them. “Today in chapel, we confessed to plants,” the nation’s oldest independent seminary declared on Twitter. “Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honour. What do you confess to the plants in your life?”
By uttering this prayer, the students have made it abundantly clear that they do not believe God sustains them, only the plants. This is false worship, plain and clear. However, we were warned that in the end times, people would worship the creature more than the Creator. This is a prime example of that prophecy.
However, instead of admitting the error of its ways, the Seminary dug its heels in and issued the following statement:
We’ve had many questions about yesterday’s chapel. In our worship, our community confessed the harm we’ve done to plants, speaking directly in repentance. This is a beautiful ritual. We are in the throes of a climate emergency, a crisis created by humanity’s arrogance, our disregard for Creation. Far too often, we see the natural world only as resources to be extracted for our use, not divinely created in their own right - worthy of honour, thanks and care. We need to unlearn habits of sin and death. And part of that work must be building new bridges to the natural world. And that means creating new spiritual and intellectual frameworks by which we understand and relate to the plants and animals with whom we share the planet.
What this nonsense indicates is the willingness of people to ascribe glory and holiness to nature. However, we should believe that honour, glory, majesty and power belong only to God, who created the universe. Believing anything else means that you have fallen into idol worship, which God condemns. In fact, when you study the Tribulation judgements, you will find that God destroys many idols during that time, forcing people to look aside from idols in order to truly and finally answer the question: what will you do with the Lord Jesus Christ?
Sadly many will choose the path that leads to eternal damnation.
But before people accuse me of denying the biblical mandate to care for creation, let me point out there is a distinct difference between good environmental practices and the changes sought by climate change proponents. We are to take care of this world and be responsible managers of it. But we are not to worship it and nor are we to replace the biblical gospel with a false green gospel which requires us to worship the Earth. The world is enamoured by Marxism, despite the fact it has destroyed nations and led to the death of countless people. Leaders are using the theory of climate change to centralise power, oppress people and generate more money for the wealthy. Call it what you will - climate change activism will lead to a global Marxist society and once people realise how many rights they have given up and how powerless they are against world leaders, they will regret the day they gave themselves over to fallible men and women who continually spout lies to advance their cause.
Mark Steyn recently summed up the attitude of apostate churches when he wrote:
Most mainline Protestant churches are, to one degree or another, post-Christian. If they no longer seem disposed to converting the unbelieving to Christ, they can at least convert them to the boggles they of soft-left political cliches, on the grounds that if Jesus were alive today He’d most likely be a gay Anglican bishop in a committed relationship driving around in an environmentally friendly care with an ‘Arms Are for Hugging’ stoker on the way to an interfaith dialogue with a Wiccan and a couple of Wahhabi imams.
This gives us pause to consider which version of Jesus we show to the world - the Jesus of the Bible or one of our own design? Be careful of your answer - souls depend on it.