April 22nd was Earth Day. It has been so declared in the United States and in the United Nations, and the way the press likes to talk about it, the whole world celebrates it and finds solidarity, equality, fraternity, or some other variety of the above in this “celebration”. An absolute pile of fertilizer if there ever was one! The world of our times is forever tied to an inferiority complex (our collective Sin nature) which prompts us to go running and hide our true condition behind a veneer of good intentions - just like Adam and Eve tried to do behind fig leaves after they sinned in the Garden of Eden.

This year’s Earth Day came two weeks after the Passover/Easter week, and as I said in the last article, the difference between the celebrations is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hope that comes from Him. He is the Truth. Earth Day and everything that it denotes is abject falsehood. A falsehood that is more revealing now, during this COVID-19 crisis, than any time previously.

Several Hollywood celebrities posted pictures on social media of how they “celebrated” the day. Several hugged trees; others shared their “inner thoughts” with their “mama”/”mother earth”; several were in the lotus position (common in Hinduism and other Eastern Mysticism beliefs) hoping to channel the good thoughts toward “the health of the planet”, while bemoaning and cursing those who were skeptical of the idea of global warming and its threat to the existence of the Earth. After all (they tell us), global warming caused the Coronavirus! In actuality, the virus was from a science lab in Wuhan, China - and what might actually stop it is the heat of the sun during summer (i.e. global warming).

It does not matter to me that Hollywood personalities such as Alyssa Milano and others make such grandiose fools of themselves on Earth Day. They have no science to back up any of their predictions that the Earth is going to be destroyed or that humankind can do anything about it if such a catastrophe was going to happen. And yet they scream, cry, and curse, saying that it is all caused by man's negligence, even though the latest data and information supports none of their assertions. These are not scientists or scholars and they are not in the least interested at hearing the viewpoint of the scientists on the other side. Former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental activism, used to begin his speeches decrying anyone who was skeptical because “99% of scientist agree on the fact of global warming.” He would then assert that entire continents were going to be flooded when the polar ice caps melt, and polar bears were going extinct because of this reason. Both assertions are false but no one is going to take his Nobel Peace Prize away. The good news is that his last documentary film on the subject almost completely tanked (failed in motion picture terms) at the box office!

The craziness of these people is legitimized or accepted for a few reasons. In Gore’s case, he sits on the board of Apple - his activism has achieved tremendous amounts of money as well a prize seat in the eclectic highbrow community of the Tech Giants and other Globalists. Hollywood personalities use their activism for really only one thing: to draw attention to themselves by using the veneer of concern. It goes the other way as well. No one is going to take Apple to task for its various violations towards nature or people. After all, they have former Vice President of the United States/Nobel Peace Prize for Environmental Activism Albert J. Gore sitting on the board of directors!

These activists who wear their cause with such obnoxiousness to the outside world usually turn off most thinking people. To be honest, if these people were truly sincere, they should go to China, India, Africa or some of the other parts of the Earth and see what life is truly like, before they decide to express their outrage at the United States. I challenge them to do so. But they will not for the simple fact that they are too scared to do that. Nor do they even consider what hardship is truly like in many places of the world, let alone the fact that “freedom of speech and expression” are almost exclusive to the West and especially in the United States, and definitely not in those countries which are also some of the worst violators. For several countries, they just do not care for the simple reason that they are trying to make their countries better. Some years ago, I saw two scientists slap down a United States college student who would fit in the category of people who push the insane predictions of global warming without taking a good look at the science or the reality of everyday life in other parts of the world. She actually cursed at the two professors! They responded brilliantly by first saying that true science is never subject to popular vote or majority thinking for the simple fact that the majority can be wrong; Christopher Columbus and Steve Jobs proved that! Secondly, they stated that electricity and the advent of washing machines have done more to alleviate the plight of impoverished people in parts of Africa than the religion of global warming and environmentalism - this is a provable fact - something that student in some liberal studies program could not understand, and really did not want to.

The person who really irritated me these last few days was the “Bishop of Rome”/the “Vicar of Christ”/the “Chief Shepherd”/the Pontifex Maximus of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis I. I always had a suspicion that the Pope did not really believe the liturgy or dogma of the Church that he leads. I seriously doubt (unless one is well-versed in the Faith) most Catholics probably will not care too much, and yet they trust this man to lead them to heaven, or to get them there somehow. Over the course of these last few days and weeks, I have come to the conclusion that they should take a close look at the Pope, and their “faith” - or they will end up in a far worse place than heresy: they will end up in Hell itself. Pope Francis has given the Earth a personality equal to God. No, I think I should go one step further: the Pope has given the Earth a personality greater than the God of the Bible. As reported in American Magazine (a Catholic Journal), “God is good and always forgives”, the pope said, however, “The Earth never forgives: if we have despoiled the Earth, the response will be very bad. Because of our selfishness, we have failed in our responsibility to be guardians and stewards of the Earth...We have polluted and despoiled it, endangering our very lives.”

The Pope expressed his deep appreciation for the many international and local movements and initiatives that have been created in an effort to raise awareness and stir people's consciences, and he said it will still be necessary “for our children to take to the streets to teach us the obvious: we have no future if we destroy the very environment that sustains us...We have failed to care for the Earth, our garden-home; we have failed to care for our brothers and sisters. We have sinned against the Earth, against our neighbors and ultimately against the Creator, the benevolent father who provides for everyone and desires us to live in communion and flourish together,” he said. It is imperative that people restore “a harmonious relationship” with the Earth and with the rest of humanity, he said. It requires a new way of looking at the Earth, not as a “storehouse of resources for us to exploit,” but as a sacred gift for sustaining all of humanity. “If I ask the Lord now what he thinks, I don’t think he will tell me something very good. We are the ones who have ruined the work of the Lord!” the Pope said. The Pope said so many natural tragedies “are the Earth's response to our mistreatment.” “In today’s celebration of Earth Day, we are called to renew our sense of sacred respect for the Earth, for it is not just our home but also God’s home. This should make us all the more aware that we stand on holy ground!” Pope Francis said, an “ecological conversion, which stems from a loving and respectful contemplation of the Earth’s beauty and leads to concrete action, is needed.”

Perhaps the Pope should check out what he believes in his theology - particularly in regards to Soteriology (theology of Salvation), Pneumatology (the Holy Spirit) - and wonder if he believes in anything that is written in the Bible that he supposedly is speaking from, because the foundation of what he said is completely wrong, and the details are all faulty. If he wanted to achieve a better Earth and a better Humanity, he would have remembered (especially in the light of the Easter week) that both could only be achieved at and through the Cross of Calvary. The children, like Greta Thunberg, who “are taking to the streets” and calling the adults to account have yet to see life. I would say they are all the receptacles of parents with agendas and the type of craziness that assumes that humanity has in its control the power to alter creation. It does not. But instead of trying to calm that craziness, they fan the flames in the name of good intentions, not understanding that in 10 years, either said children will be hospitalized because of disillusionment or real insanity, or dead. They will be used to the maximum by nefarious political groups, lobbyists, or institutions until their craziness cannot be put up with anymore, and then they will be abandoned to a place where no one cares about them anymore, the cameras are not forthcoming anymore, and the world stage has moved on while the world-at-large remains as it always has been - a place full of people destroying themselves in Sin (all the above happened to a guy named Abby Hoffman who was “peace activist” during the Vietnam War period. He had a very sad ending to his life. But that is for another day).

The Pope should have preached the Gospel; instead, he decided to stand alongside the Paganism that Earth Day really represents. There are a couple of points that the Pope gets wrong: 1.) In the beginning, God created the Earth - the Earth did not exist before God nor can it exist apart from God. No, true Christians do not believe in the “Clockwork Theory” in which God basically creates the world and universe and leaves it to its own development. Mankind's daily existence, as well as those of all the beasts, birds, and sea creatures, are all because of God’s creative handiwork (Psalms 19). Physically, mentally, and spiritually, we are all dependent on God. There is no basic goodness without God for the simple reason that the God of the Bible is holy and not subject to human frailties or imperfections - in a word - Sin. Pope Francis seems to be trying to fit ideas from secular humanism, paganism, Eastern Mysticism and God of the Bible in a perfect union, except he cannot. Which brings us to the second point: Christian theology does not allow for the Earth to be its own personality capable of exerting justice, judgement, curses or blessings. The Earth is not in and of itself a sentient personality. We believe that it carries Life - but that is because God literally spoke the Word of Life that permeates this Earth. The idea that the Earth has its own personality is the religion of the Environmentalist and it is completely antagonistic to the Bible. Environmentalists generally believe in something they call “mother Earth.” The deity that is most associated with the Green Movement comes from Greek mythology; her name is Gaia. She is referred to (among many titles) as the “spirit of Earth” by the activists and that is what all of the activists in these “green causes” worship. It has nothing to do with science but rather the idea that we can reach a utopian state - what John Lennon called the “brotherhood of man” - through the cause of “saving the planet”. “Mother Earth” is constantly in danger at the hands of industrialists and capitalists, who threaten the planet by taking her resources by which “she” lives and “preserves us”. This has been peddled to children as far back as I can remember.

One of the biggest attempts of indoctrination with this idea came when I was in middle school, by means of environmental superheroes called Captain Planet and the Planeteers. In the program, Gaia (the “spirit of Earth/mother goddess) has to save the world from said evil monsters who appear as human beings (barely portrayed as that) and the conglomerates they run that are destroying the Earth by deforestation, oil production, toxic spill, and other “environmental tragedies” - all of which are happening with absolute reckless abandon and capriciousness. She then finds some teenagers from four corners of the planet to whom she gives 5 rings of “earth power” (earth, wind, fire, water, heart - I am not sure how they included this last one but the creators of the show did anyway) by which they can summon the hero Captain Planet whose powers are synonymous to Superman’s, except his weakness is toxic waste and pollution thrown on him. He is revived by getting splashed with clear water. He and his team would then engage in their “holy crusade” of saving the planet.

The show was the brainchild of some illustrious personalites such as Ted Turner (the founder of CNN), and included some of Hollywood’s best actors and actresses as voice talents. It was geared toward the younger generation with the intense fury of what the Church world used to know as “hell-fire preaching.” At the end of every episode was a “moral lesson” to be learned, given by the characters on the show as well as live actors and actresses who wanted to be a part of “educating the next generation.” The target audience was children like Greta Thunberg, who lend this cause an air of intensity, innocence, and good intention. But, is it true? Do we know where such ideas will lead us, and do we honestly think that all the nations in the world are so possessed with “goodness” that they would sincerely adjust their national/economic/personal interests in furtherance of preserving the planet? That is completely false.

What this second point does is elevate the Earth to the place of deity: it becomes its own god and idol, and just like in the ancient world, peoples will become slaves to the false deity rather than free beings responsible to God Almighty. Preservation of the planet will go absolutely hand-in-hand with the preservation of the state. And then all the tragedies that have happened in the 20th century in the name of such “preservation” will come back ten times worse for the simple reason that mankind had prostrated itself to a false god in the name of good intentions.

Why the Pope decided to use the imagery he did when he said "God would forgive us, but not the Earth" is something I cannot understand. Perhaps it goes with his upbringing in Argentina. Unlike his previous two predecessors (John Paul II and Benedict VI), preserving the Roman Catholic Church against heresies and pastoring the flock by focusing on the life of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture are not the primary concerns of the present Pope. He came to his position against the backdrop of scandals within the Roman Catholic Church and declining church attendance all over the world. The prevailing idea was that if the church would be more socially conscious, it would paint the church in a new light before the secular world. The world would know what the Church was for rather than only what the Church was against - which, of course, always kept the Church in a negative light; at least that was the prevailing reasoning.

There is nothing wrong with good intentions, but regarding the true Christian's Church, Jesus Christ and Him crucified must be first and foremost. Any idea or desire that we try to push forward to the world without this primary message is nothing but a menace. But Pope Francis has totally lost this point. He seemed to take the viewpoint that the Church institution itself is what saves people - and whatever it takes to bring people in there, then that would be done. One did not need to make clear announcements about doctrine or theology, but rather, muddled or confused homilies on those “old points” would suffice to soothe the conscience of the people. Instead of drawing people to the Gospel and the person of Jesus Christ for salvation and life change, it would be a lot simpler to take the story of Jesus Christ and identify with social causes; focusing on individual change was...counterproductive. And so it was no big deal to join with unbelievers and heathens in peddling an idea of a false god.

All creation belongs to God, and not to any of His creation. This leads us to the third point: only by drawing close to God will anyone make this world a better place. There is no way to exert goodness other than by the God of the Bible. The only positive change or good that has ever happened in the world has happened through people who were led, influenced, or directed by the Bible. It does not happen any other way. The Apostle Paul made that clear in the book of Romans, stating that nature itself is a messenger of God (Romans 1:18-23) as well as the Law which God gave through Moses to the people of Israel (Romans 3; Romans 7:7-13), and through them, to the world. Through the first, mankind everywhere understood that they were not animals and - to quote the Darwinist - “survival of the fittest does not apply”. They would understand that there was a Creator and that somehow, someway, they must pacify His anger by avoiding total anarchy on Earth (one proof of this is that several cultures and civilizations have an account of Noah’s Flood - though embellished with their unique inventions.) The idea of an ultimate judgement was in the heart of all mankind, or would come into the heart of all mankind in due time.

God intended Israel to be His messenger. The Ten Commandments focused the attention of the world on that Creator. This is still true. Present in the halls of congresses, parliaments, and the chambers of judicial courts all around the world is the stern monument of the Ten Commandments. It is a reminder to the world that there is a Creator, and the type of anarchy or rebellion that will bring down His judgements must at all cost be avoided.

The Apostle Paul makes it very clear that the Law is the “school master”. Its very nature is to give us a sense of futility by making us realize how imperfect we are as human beings in trying to “be perfect” or to achieve “perfection”. Neither is possible in the natural world since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, and yet the Law of God shows all humanity from where we have fallen: from that perfection which God put Adam and Eve in the beginning. The liberal, environmentalist, Darwinist, atheist, agnostic, pagan, heathen and anyone else who ignores that Truth cannot explain the reason why they pursue that perfection. Otherwise, why would anyone have a second thought to save the Earth?

Paul makes it clear that the New Testament which is revealed in the whole person and message of Jesus Christ is the completion - the only way that the Law is perfected in a person’s life and by which this world can become a better place. Without Jesus Christ, our existence would be futility indeed! All our good works, as the Prophet Isaiah and the Apostle Paul said, would be nothing more than "filthy rags" without Jesus Christ. I will give you an example of this: In January, Hollywood had its Golden Globe Awards. The Golden Globes is one the most prestigious awards given in the entertainment industry (just right behind the Oscars), covering both television and the movies. This year’s awards ceremony was famous for two reasons. The foremost reason was the absolutely brilliant - and savage - monologue by comedian Ricky Gervais, the master of ceremonies. He is an atheist, but with wonderful cynicism, skepticism, sardonicism and a brilliant wit, he turned his “guns” on the hypocrites and crazies in that audience: the wealthiest, most powerful, most “celebrated” people in entertainment. It was incredible and appropriate when one takes a look at the second reason - a woman named Michelle Williams, who won the award for Best Actress in a TV miniseries, boasted about her abortions: “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose (to abort her unborn baby).” She continued: “To choose when to have my children and with whom, when I felt supported and able to balance our lives, knowing as all mothers know, the scales must and will tip towards our children. Now, I know that my choices might look different than yours, but thank God, or whomever you pray to, that we live in a country that is founded on the principle that I am free to live by my faith and you are free to live by yours.” I wonder if this actress and the people who applauded her listen to themselves or even think about what they just spouted. I am betting not. Not the slightest bit of a sense of irony! She closed her speech by saying “No trophy is worth more than a child’s life. Sacrificing our children to pursue our dreams is the total antithesis of women’s empowerment.” Can this woman be right? I would ask Pope Francis that question.

What this woman said is as wonderful a lie as the words of the snake to Eve in the garden of Eden. And, with the backdrop of good intentions and the applause of fools and the attacks on masculinity (which they call “toxic”), it made it palatable to the psyche. But, what is this woman claiming she did in regard to her abortion or abortions? To use her own words - she claims faith as the moral anchor of her decisions - I then must say she like those who celebrated Earth Day are prostrating themselves to false god. Let me go one step further: they worship Lucifer, the Prince of the powers of the air, the Devil himself. And this is not for just this actress, but also those who prostrate themselves to any idea, practice, or trend. I would ask Pope Francis a second question using this actress as an example: has this made the world a better place? It is a known fact that the pro-choice abortion peddlers, who constantly try to change the terms so that they can confuse the public as to the ugly reality of their beliefs, are very much part of the celebrants of Earth Day, as are so many others in the liberal left despite the fact that nothing that they say has anything to do with science, but rather anti-God-of-the-Bible dogmatism.

It has been said before and it must be reiterated often: the only positive change that has ever happened on this Earth has been through people who have focused on Jesus Christ despite the weaknesses of their lives, drew closer to Him, and subsequently became ready to help the world around them as God gave them the perspective and purpose to get involved. In other words, before a person decided to “make the world a better place”, they would have to start off bettering themselves. That was the message that was sadly lacking in the Pope’s homily on Earth Day. He could have and should have focused on mankind’s need for the resurrected Savior. Instead he came up with “ecological conversion” with religious overtones far removed from the Faith that he claims to uphold that may give him kudos with a heavily left-wing press, but will damn the souls of many in the name of good intentions.

What is the Pope and all the other activists implying exactly? Is he and the rest saying that somehow capitalist countries are the problem? If so, then he is purposely blinding himself to reality. Money given to resolve problems in third-world countries achieves absolutely nothing if the people who are receiving it cannot stand up for themselves and become productive. You may feed the poor, but you do absolutely nothing good by feeding them for the rest of their lives while they remained indolent. Technology - one of the outcroppings of Capitalism - emerged and keeps on emerging as businessmen reinvested their money into making their endeavors more efficient, and the lives of workers did not stagnate in painful misery. It is a known fact that many parts of the world such as India, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Korea, and Japan were nations that saw massive development because of gigantic investments from the free market West. And yet the Pope and the other Environmentalist refuse to see it. They rather choose to celebrate Earth Day!

Earth Day is related to only one international talking point: global warming. What about famine? What about war? What about the horrors of human trafficking? What about trying to find solutions to water shortages and droughts in many of the dryer areas of the Earth? What about the persecution of Christians and other minorities groups in placers Burma and Bangladesh, the Middle East, and other parts of the world? None of that has anything to do with global warming, but are far more pressing and time sensitive than global warming, and yet, these serious problems are hardly covered in the world press. And theoretically, some of these issues could be handled since they are man-made problems, but no; who wants to talk about Personal Responsibility with regards to God first?

The Pope would have served the world better had he understood that Sin is mankind’s worst problem, and that the only way to solve that problem was to look on the one who died on the Cross of Calvary and follow Him. But I guess that’s too hard.