Is Americas new interest in environmental education and multicultural unity incompatible with Christianity?
Kjos: Many influential leaders accuse Christianity of separating us from nature and teaching intolerance. They don’t realize that only God can produce genuine harmony. God Himself told us to care for His creation (Gen. 2:5) and share His love everywhere (1 Cor. 13:1-13), and He promised to enable all who follow Him (Phil. 4:13). Yet, young Americans are flocking to Mother Earth rather than God our Father for wisdom and empowerment. In his bestseller, Earth in the Balance, Senator Al Gore diagnosed America’s root problem: “We have lost our feeling of connectedness to the rest of nature.”[2] To stop environmental abuses, he recommends earth-centered oneness. He writes: “A modern prayer of the Onadanga tribe…offers another beautiful expression of our essential connection to the earth: ‘O Great Spirit, whose breath gives life to the world and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze…make us wise so that we may understand what you have taught us.'”[3] Then Gore — who says he is a Baptis
