EEN Letter to Trump on Pruitt

Scott Pruitt (source: Wikipedia)

I am one of the signatories to the letter below from the Evangelical Environmental Network to President-Elect Trump.  (See here for the full list and more details).  While I might have chosen a different balance of emphases if I had been writing by myself, I am encouraged that this strong group of believers has been able to join together behind the request that Scott Pruitt, a longtime foe of environmental regulation of many different kinds, not be nominated to lead the EPA.

I don't know how effective this letter will be by itself - probably it will have very little effect.  But a resigned fatalism will have less.  So I am pleased to try to make an impact.  With "big government" in Washington no longer the best court of appeal on "big future" questions - like climate change - we owe it to our communities to be more active on a local level, to show the benefits to families and towns and cities and states here and now, form preparing for the coming storm.  See Joseph (Genesis 41) - though one must admit he had "big government" on his side.

Anyhow, here is the letter.

Dear President-Elect Trump:

Congratulations on your election as President.  We write you as evangelical and Catholic pro-life Christian leaders who share your faith.  We pray that God gives you the wisdom and compassion you need to be the leader He is calling you to be.

Psalm 72:13 says a righteous king “will have compassion on the poor and needy, and the lives of the needy he will save” (NASB).  Jesus also teaches us to care for the vulnerable (e.g. Mt. 25), and when God created humanity he commanded us to be good stewards of His creation (Gen. 1:28; 2:15). Together these are linked in our defense of life: from the moment of conception until natural death a whole life ethic permeates both Catholic social teaching and the evangelical commitment to the sanctity of life, as articulated by The National Association of Evangelicals. Caring for God’s creation is a matter of life and our faith compels us to act, especially to reduce pollution.  We have made important progress while our economy has continued to grow, but there is vital work still to be done.

More than half of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air.  Air pollution has been linked to birth defects, low birth weight, premature births, stillbirths, and infant deaths. One-in-three children in the United States suffer from asthma, allergies, ADHD, and autism – all with links to fossil fuels and petrochemicals.  Methane and other organic compounds leaking from natural gas production have been reported to cause birth defects and early term births, and these pollutants make it next to impossible for states like California, Texas, and Pennsylvania to reduce smog to safe levels.  Climate change is one of the greatest challenges our nation faces, including health impacts like the increase of vector-borne diseases like Lyme disease, dengue fever, and Zika.

Given these threats to the vulnerable, who as Christians we are called to defend, we ask you to withdraw Attorney General Pruitt as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA Administrator plays a crucial role in defending all of us from the health consequences of pollution, especially vulnerable populations like the unborn, children, the elderly, those with heart and lung conditions, and others with special susceptibilities.  Mr. Pruitt’s past actions suggest he would not defend the vulnerable from pollution.

All of us desire pure air and clean water and the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to aspire to the abundant life that Jesus’ brings.  Unfortunately, that opportunity is hindered by pollution that poisons the minds, lungs, and hearts of our children, born and unborn. 

Let us work together with all Americans to create a healthier and more prosperous future, one that the next EPA Administrator helps bring about.  This will require another candidate in place of Mr. Pruitt.
We would be happy to discuss this with you.  Thank you for considering our request.

Sincerely,

Full Wave Rectifier

Cover of Fleming Rutledge's book

I have just finished reading Fleming Rutledge's monumental and magnificent book "The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ".  This is not a book review (I hope that may come later).  It's just a sidenote that arises from some of her vocabulary.  But a sidenote that meant a lot to me.

One of the many things that intrigue and delight me in the book is Rutledge's insistence on translating the δικαιοσυνη... word group by "rectification", "rectify", and so on rather than the more usual "justification/righteousness". There is even a footnote (note 76 on page 337) making the connection with "rectification" as the term is used in electrical engineering - turning alternating current into direct current or, as the footnote puts it, "making alternating currents flow in the same direction". As this thought bumped around in my mind I remembered - back from the days when as a teenager I spent hours building electrical devices of various sorts - that there are two kinds of rectifier: the half wave rectifier and the full wave rectifier. 

Half-wave vs full-wave

Presented with an alternating current input (current that is alternately flowing in a positive and a negative direction), a half-wave rectifier produces a positive-only current in the simplest possible way: it blocks or discards the negative part of the cycle, while keeping the positive intact. [See the top part of the diagram to the right.] In terms of the analogy that Rutledge's footnote suggests, this is like a God who will purify human existence by simply excluding its negative aspects, its sin and evil and fallenness.

A full-wave rectifier [lower diagram] is more complicated and expensive.  Instead of simply discarding the negative parts of the cycle, it does something more difficult: it turns them around. Again, in terms of analogy, the full-wave rectifier suggests a God who will take up and transform the whole human being - broken heart, misdirected desires, oppressed spirit and all - and transform this entire person into one who is genuinely "whole", integer, having integrity.  Not amputation (the half-wave picture) but transformation.

The "rectification" presented in Fleming Rutledge's book is full-wave rectification.  Nothing else will do.

Day of Remembrance for Lost Species

(Reposted by permission from Nothing New Under The Sun, by Byron Smith).

This is the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola), aka Bramble Cay mosaic-tailed rat. On earth, there are over 2,200 rodent species comprising about 40 per cent of all mammal species. What's one rat?

And the Bramble Cay melomys is amongst the most insignificant of rats. It is not particularly genetically distinct from a number of other similar species of melomys. It's never been useful for any human project. We've never hunted it for fur or meat. No child has ever had one as a pet. No tourists have ever paid to see one. It may perhaps be considered the least of all mammal species.