Roll Over Menno

This is what you will find on the website of the Canadian Mennonite University:

Creation, Environment and the Bible
Resources
http://www.cmu.ca/library/CreationCareOnline.shtml

Compiled by Gordon Matties

Essentials

The Earth Charter (http://www.earthcharter.org/)
… is a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society for the 21st century. Created by the largest global consultation process ever associated with an international declaration, endorsed by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals, the Earth Charter seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The Earth Charter is an expression of hope and a call to help create a global partnership at a critical juncture in history.

Under this introduction to the Earth Charter, CMU recommends various green global earth care links, such as Colorado Interfaith Power & Light, for example, which offers reading material from all spiritualities about creation care.

Now about that Earth Charter…

“We know through Biblical prophecy that the end times will see a system of global governance and one world religion. We know that this framework will be used by the Antichrist to deceive many. You may not realize, however, how close we are to these events coming to fruition. This second article in our series on the United Nations, will explore the Earth Charter and the chilling groundwork it lays for just such events. (…)”

That’s from a very informative MUST READ article at Contender Ministries called :

THE EARTH CHARTER’S SPIRITUAL AGENDA
http://www.contenderministries.org/articles/earthcharter.php

This article will explain what the problem is with Christians being involved with the Earth Charter agenda.

Here is another MUST READ:

The Earth Charter’s Unholy Ark
By Berit Kjos
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/2002/ark.html

ROM Index: over the top

Why is Laura Kalmar, editor of the MB Herald, quoting Thomas Merton in her article called “Don’t Be Afraid”? (See page 3, November 2007, Mennonite Brethren Herald, here.) When someone quotes a source, that denotes respect or admiration for the author and the quote. By nonchalantly and favorably including a quote, isn’t the MB Herald endorsing that quote? So, does this mean that Laura Kalmar has been reading the writings of Thomas Merton? He may have said some nice things, but if she knew the following facts, would she still be reading and quoting him?

“Thomas Merton has perhaps done more than any other twentieth-century figure to make the life of prayer widely known and understood… His interest in contemplation led him to investigate prayer forms in Eastern religion. Zen masters from Asia regarded him as the preeminent authority on their kind of prayer in the United States.” –Can Right be Wrong? (www.understandthetimes.org/commentary/c70.shtml)

“It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, … now I realize what we all are …. If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are …I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other … At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth … This little point …is the pure glory of God in us. It is in everybody.”
FROM A TIME OF DEPARTING BY RAY YUNGEN (quoting Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander [1989 edition, 157-158]

Catholic lay monk Wayne Teasdale says this of Thomas Merton:
“Thomas Merton was perhaps the greatest popularizer of interspirituality. He opened the door for Christians to explore other traditions, notably Taoism (Chinese witchcraft), Hinduism and Buddhism.”
(Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions - Wayne Teasdale)

‘I’m deeply impregnated with Sufism.‘” Thomas Merton, from The Springs of Contemplation, p. 266

See these related Roll Over Menno posts:

More Mertonish Mennonite Mush

Mennonites or Mertonites?

ROM Index: HIGH

Why is it that the Mennonite Central Committee of BC are so into saving the earth these days?

For example, under ‘New Resources’ (here), they list a book called Creation and the Environment: An Anabaptist perspective on a Sustainable World. If you look in this book at amazon.com (here), you can see it’s basically a book about sustainability and going green, which is a buzzword for the new earth centered ideology (see here). But then, this should not be surprising, as we all know of the MCC’s involvement with the UN.

Also listed under ‘New Resources’ on the BC MCC site is Readings from the Perspective of the Earth (The Earth Bible Series) which you can see here. This is based on the idea that the earth is a sacred living organism (Gaia hypothesis).
On that Earth Bible page you will see ‘Earth Bible Progress Reports’. If you click on that, you will notice (under Earth Liturgies, bottom of the page) a hymn that has been rewritten into an “Earth Bible Re-write”:

The new Earth Songs emphasise not only the web of creation and the interconnectedness of nature, but also the need to respect Earth as sacred and listen to Earth as a living subject. One song was sung as a themesong at opening of the 2001 Asia Pacific Earth Charter Conference in Brisbane. The Earth Bible was also part of one of the workshop sessions.

A traditional hymn that devalues Earth commences, ‘Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.’ An Earth Bible re-write of verse one that song follows:

You who watch the highest heavens
Wond’ring where God’s mansions are;
You who hope to spot an angel
Spinning like a falling star;
Earth is calling,
Earth is calling,
Come back home and rest in me,
Come back home and rest in me.

Think about that for a moment. Who is that song about, who is it to? We all know who the angel is who falls to earth. It’s in the Bible. So apparently, according to the ‘Earth Bible’, a hymn asking God to guide us through this land in which we are pilgrims devalues the earth and needs to be re-written. And this is what the Mennonite Central Committee supports?

Are Christians supposed to focus on saving the earth to bring in the kingdom of God? The MCC says so. Is that what the Bible says? Is the MCC promoting green dominion theology? Meanwhile, as good little Mennonites give money to the MCC for disaster relief around the world, they have no idea they are contributing to the world’s Gaia/Earth Charter/Sustainablity system.

Here is some related reading:

Is Earth Our Mother?

Calling the Spirit of Gaia

See other Mennonite Earth Care links here:
http://mcc.org/careforcreation/resources/

And here:
http://www.mennocreationcare.org/Home/RESOURCES

ROM Index: high

Why is Mennonite Church Canada selling books by Joyce Rupp? See here:
http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/resourcecentre/QuickSearch?search=joyce+rupp&Search=Search
(6 books and 1 tape)

Joyce Rupp has a degree from the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. Transpersonal psychology has to do with your “higher self.” It is the study of experiences, beliefs and practices that suggest that the sense of self can extend beyond our personal or individual reality.

Joyce Rupp can be found here on the Living Spiritual Teachers Project where it says that she is a ‘sensitive teacher of the wisdom of Sophia.’ In fact, she has written Prayers to the Feminine Wisdom, or Goddess Sophia, here.

Some of the sessions she teaches at her spirituality retreats are about growing spiritually, listening to God, igniting the fire, servant leaders, etc. She even quotes Thomas Merton. Isn’t it interesting that Joyce Rupp’s New Age spirituality sounds so much like the spiritual formation that is being brought into today’s churches through Leadership Network, Willow Creek Association, and Purpose Driven resources?

ROM Index: high