As Mother Earth ascends to the throne today, the Seattle Times has joined in the worship by quoting Leonard Forsman---a Native American and chairman of the Suquamish Tribe, who is quoting Chief Seattle.
The Times carried this headline yesterday: "Every part of this soil is sacred’: Restore respect for our shared home."
I was born and raised in Yakima and the Yakima Valley---near the Yakima Indian Reservation in central Washington.
I understand the ways of the tribes and some of their beliefs---I went to school and played with friends who were part of the Tribe.
While the Seattle Times preferred not to directly call everyone to some form of worship of the Earth today, they opted to quote Chief Seattle and use him to carry their message.
Be informed, not misled.
Welcome to Earth Day
Forsman says, "For thousands of years, our ancestors managed this region’s landscape based on our knowledge of the animals who share this region, and their habitats. This ecological knowledge was passed along from generation to generation, forming the foundation of our values and culture, until, at treaty times, our right to continue these practices was undermined."
So that worldview is formed by "ecological knowledge."
This change was memorialized by our ancestor, Chief Seattle, in the speech he delivered as negotiations with Washington territorial Gov. Isaac Stevens were wrapping up:
“Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.”
Today, after decades of work led by our fishers, elected leaders, and culture keepers, we have modern tools available to us to advocate for the health of our region’s ecosystems and the prospects for future generations. This Earth Day, much of that effort centers on supporting the Climate Commitment Act, restoring vital waterways and advocating for growth that makes room for a thriving natural world.
Forsman then ticks off each talking point of the Green movement relating it to his Tribe ---talking points include Climate Action, protecting salmon habitat by placing more culverts, and taking out dams in rivers.
He concludes: "In our ancestral tradition, the people, land, animals, and plants are inseparable — we all share the same spirit."
Actually, people, land, animals, and plants are not inseparable. That notion is essentially rooted in pantheism.
Earth is not a living organism, as the new age and other cults claim. Genesis is very clear on the order of Creation.
God created each component of Creation purposefully and carefully, creating man on the sixth day.
Genesis 1:27, 31 says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."
Genesis 1:26-28 says, "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Genesis 1:31 says, "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.(bold) We have become obsessed with the creation, rather than recognizing the Creator.
We have politicized the creation.
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) outlined new restrictions on oil and gas reserves along 13 million acres on a petroleum reserve in Alaska, claiming the move will conserve land that is important to the “Alaska Native people” and the “fish and wildlife.”
Just days before Earth Day, the restrictions would confine over 13 million acres of public land within the National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A) as part of the Biden Administration’s radical climate agenda.
State Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) called the move an “illegal” attack on the state’s oil and gas industry.
He said, “Today we are here to discuss how the Biden administration is fine with our adversaries producing energy and dominating the world’s critical mineral markets while shutting down those in America. Living in the most dangerous times since World War II… [Washington has allowed] dictators in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran” to “undermine our national security interests. The Biden administration is not normal, indeed this administration is deliberately undertaking policies to punish Americans and undermine our strengths while continuing to help our adversaries.”
A religion that worships the creation with man acting as god.
Ken Ham wrote an extensive article about how climate change has become a religion.
This is a link to his entire article posted on "X."
This is a summary:
Climate change has become a big topic in Western countries. But I say it’s not just a topic; it’s actually a religion—a religion that worships the creation with man acting as god. The climate change cultists have rejected the God of creation and His Word (the bible).
What is happening today re the Climate Change religion can really be summed up by this passage of Scripture:
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:21–25)
When people reject the true God and His Word the Bible, they will misinterpret why the world is changing—including the climate.
Do I believe in climate change? Yes I do, though very differently to what is being discussed by politicians and the media. I believe in biblical climate change. What do I mean by that?
There are two types of climate change the world needs to understand.
One concerns spiritual climate change. Now, the media reporters don’t discuss it this way, but as they write and talk about issues that are increasingly permeating the culture, such as gay “marriage,” transgender, abortion, and euthanasia, they are actually reporting on spiritual climate change.
The second climate change concerns the changing physical climates on the earth and discussions of whether man has caused these changes and whether this will lead to a doomsday scenario in the very near future.
Now, there is a connection between these two types of climate change that we need to understand. And it’s God’s Word that explains what I call biblical climate change.
The secular education systems of the entire world are, by and large, teaching generations of students that science has supposedly proved the universe and all life (including humans) arose by natural processes.
The more people believe that there is no God and that they arose by natural processes, the more they will build a worldview consistent with this belief.
Now, when people reject the Bible (including the book of Genesis) as a book of history, they reject the account of a perfect creation that has been affected by the entrance of sin and God’s judgment of death and the curse. They also reject the account of the geological, globally catastrophic event of the flood of Noah’s day.
God’s Word tells us that, because of man’s fall, the whole of creation now groans: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:22).
God no longer “holds together” the creation by the power of his hand (Colossians 1:17) in the perfect way it was originally made. Everything is running down because of the effects of sin. This affects every aspect of the physical creation, including climate.
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).
God is the one who will destroy the earth in the future. Yes another judgment, not by water but by fire.
Only by believing God’s Word and building a worldview on what God has revealed, will we understand true climate change.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.