Find Security in Christ -Jeff Iorg

When my insecurities became so obvious they could no longer be ignored, the questions became, “What do I do about them? How do I find genuine security?” And, the more basic question, “Is it wrong to want to feel secure?” 
The desires for security and significance are not sub-Christian. God has made every person with the same basic desires and drives. There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel secure. The problem is we often satisfy this deep longing in destructive ways. Perhaps you have seen yourself in the earlier description of symptoms of insecurity in a leader. The solution is not eradicating your need to feel secure. The solution is finding security from a proper source. 
A basic doctrine of the Christian faith is the security of the believer. I grew up in a part of the country populated by influential churches that did not believe this doctrine. I heard many passionate debates about “once saved, always saved” between Baptists and friends from other groups. That was my early exposure to the security of the believer. The focus was on eternity. If you were saved now, you would be saved forever. My early understanding of this doctrine meant it was more about tomorrow than it is about today. 
Understanding my need for personal security drove me to reconsider the doctrine of the security of the believer. After significant study, this breakthrough came in my understanding: The security of the believer is as much about today as it is about eternity. The security of the believer means all who trust Jesus for salvation will always be secure with him. But it also means we are as secure NOW as we will ever be. Your security in Jesus is not something you get when you die. You received it when you were saved. You are as secure in Jesus right now as you will ever be! 
The security of the believer is not a cold, sterile doctrine to be debated. It is a present spiritual reality to be enjoyed! The beginning point of overcoming insecurity is renewing your mind with biblical truth about your security in Jesus. Your security as a believer, particularly as it relates to leadership, can be summarized in the following key statements.
God and Jesus make you secure. In John 10:28-29, believers are portrayed as being held tightly in Jesus’ hands. Jesus and all believers are portrayed as being held tightly in God’s hands. Jesus promises “no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” and that he and the Father “are one.” This imagery means God guarantees your secure relationship with him through Jesus Christ. This simple conviction is the foundation of your security as a believer: God and Jesus hold you securely in relationship with them. 
That is comforting! Your security comes from your relationship with God. You are not responsible for your security, for somehow finding emotional health that produces security, or creating a sense of personal security. You are secure because God has secured you to himself. He has given you identity and infused you with value as his child. 
Security emerges from a relationship. We seem to know that intuitively. Seeking security in wrong relationships is the problem. Doing this ultimately causes leaders to abuse relationships. We might compulsively serve people to gain their approval and blessing. We might develop an immoral relationship seeking inner satisfaction. Or, we might compromise inappropriately to keep our job. 
Right principle, wrong applications! You should seek security in a relationship but in the right relationship – with God through Jesus. Seeking it in any other relationship – your wife, child, mother, father, or followers will leave you empty and longing. Like a sugar high, it may satisfy for a while but will leave you deflated. 
The only source of real security is your relationship with God through Jesus. He validates you, blesses you, accepts you, and gives you worth. In him, you are secure so you can choose to live securely and feel secure.
True security resists all threats. Jesus makes two other promises in John 10:28-29 related to our security. He promises we are so secure “no one” can harm us and we have “eternal life.” This has two applications related to your security. 
First, no one can take away the security you have in God through Jesus. You will be tested repeatedly and often at this point. Leaders sometimes deal with difficult people. We are criticized, ridiculed, and rejected. Our proposals are analyzed, dissected, and vilified. People offer “constructive criticism” on what we wear, drive, and do in our leisure time. They comment on how we raise our children, comb our hair, and maintain our home. 
Serious critics write poisonous letters, make appointments to formally rebuke you, gossip aggressively, or otherwise attack you publicly. No matter how strong you are or how unfounded the attacks, they still hurt. Critics rob insecure leaders of their sense of God’s abiding blessing. While feeling the emotional sting of criticism, secure leaders are not controlled by their critics. They rest in the security they have in the one relationship that really matters. 
Second, this security is forever. Remember, it is not for the afterlife only, but for this life as well. Specifically, no matter what the present or future holds, you are and always will be secure. You can live through public criticism, loss of status, bad decisions, and other personal attacks because you are secure. You can also survive personal loss, family illness, financial setbacks or whatever else the future has in store for you. Your security in your relationship with God through Jesus can stand up to anything that comes at you. 
This is the great, often untapped reality of the security of the believer. You are as secure in Jesus right now as you will ever be. You are as secure now as you will someday be in heaven. You are secure…so live it and enjoy it!
Secure leaders are free to obey God. When Jesus taught about our security, he also said his followers “listen to his voice” and “follow him” (John 10:27). Jesus recognized an important reality: People are often controlled by their need for security. Security is such a strong need, compelling drive, and powerful thirst, that whatever satisfies the need will be obeyed. Leaders who draw security from God through Jesus are free to obey God. 
One young leader’s deep insecurity led him into Internet pornography. Looking at graphic sexual images gave him a satisfaction he did not experience in other ways, not even in a sexual relationship with his wife. He mistakenly thought the intense, but brief emotional release he felt while viewing pornography would satisfy his deep inner longings. In short, in a twisted yet powerful way, he looked to pornography to prove his manhood and establish his security. 
No matter how sinful he felt, how much self-condemnation he experienced, or how many times he promised God he would never do it again his compulsive pattern only deepened. Ultimately, an emotional breakdown resulted. The steady love of his wife, the wise counsel of elders, a no-nonsense accountability group, and the support of his church created the environment for him to change his behavior. But, the behavior only changed when he realized Internet pornography was not his problem. Pornography was his symptom. Deep insecurity was his problem. 
You will satisfy your thirst for security. The drive for security is not the problem. How we satisfy it is. If people liking you makes you feel secure, you will please people at all costs. If accomplishments make you feel secure, you will be driven to get things done. If physical pleasure, however fleeting, gives you a sense of security you will pursue those passions. You will obey the compelling urge that feeds your need for security. But, if your relationship with God through Jesus is your source of security, you will obey God. 
Secure leaders are confident without being arrogant. They are relaxed without being lackadaisical. Secure leaders rest in the reality their relationship with God is their defining source of value, worth, and well-being. They have nothing left to prove, nothing left to conquer, and are not beholden to anyone. Secure leaders are free to obey God – and there is no greater freedom!
Renewing your mind, really feeling secure. Changing a core understanding like your source of security happens at both a point in time and as a process over time. It starts by accepting the truth that the only legitimate source of security is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That is a “point in time” decision you must make based on truth – revealed, absolute, non-negotiable truth from the Bible. 
Hammering down that stake, affirming your conviction about your security is the first step. The second step is more challenging. You must practice the spiritual discipline of confronting wrong thinking, destructive behavior, and bad habits built on your foundation of false security. This requires meditation, prayer, reflection, accountability, and difficult choices. Foundational to these disciplines is renewing your mind through Scripture memory. Choose key passages about your security in Jesus Christ and commit them to memory. Allow them to reprogram your thinking – to renew your mind – and give you a new outlook on yourself and what gives you true worth. When you do this, real change will come through real choices. 
Do not be discouraged if this is a prolonged process. I still pray often, meditating on Scripture affirming my security in Jesus, and asking for strength to make decisions in obedience to him alone. Temptation entices me to give in to old patterns. But the good news is those temptations are waning as years of walking in new truth about security creates new and better habits. 
God wants you to be secure in him and lead out of that powerful certainty. Break the bondage of insecurity and devilish false security from sources that can never satisfy! Become a secure leader in Jesus Christ.

Symptoms of Insecurity 2

When my insecurities became so obvious they could no longer be ignored, the questions became, “What do I do about them? How do I find genuine security?” And, the more basic question, “Is it wrong to want to feel secure?” 
The desires for security and significance are not sub-Christian. God has made every person with the same basic desires and drives. There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel secure. The problem is we often satisfy this deep longing in destructive ways. Perhaps you have seen yourself in the earlier description of symptoms of insecurity in a leader. The solution is not eradicating your need to feel secure. The solution is finding security from a proper source. 
A basic doctrine of the Christian faith is the security of the believer. I grew up in a part of the country populated by influential churches that did not believe this doctrine. I heard many passionate debates about “once saved, always saved” between Baptists and friends from other groups. That was my early exposure to the security of the believer. The focus was on eternity. If you were saved now, you would be saved forever. My early understanding of this doctrine meant it was more about tomorrow than it is about today. 
Understanding my need for personal security drove me to reconsider the doctrine of the security of the believer. After significant study, this breakthrough came in my understanding: The security of the believer is as much about today as it is about eternity. The security of the believer means all who trust Jesus for salvation will always be secure with him. But it also means we are as secure NOW as we will ever be. Your security in Jesus is not something you get when you die. You received it when you were saved. You are as secure in Jesus right now as you will ever be! 
The security of the believer is not a cold, sterile doctrine to be debated. It is a present spiritual reality to be enjoyed! The beginning point of overcoming insecurity is renewing your mind with biblical truth about your security in Jesus. Your security as a believer, particularly as it relates to leadership, can be summarized in the following key statements.
God and Jesus make you secure. In John 10:28-29, believers are portrayed as being held tightly in Jesus’ hands. Jesus and all believers are portrayed as being held tightly in God’s hands. Jesus promises “no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” and that he and the Father “are one.” This imagery means God guarantees your secure relationship with him through Jesus Christ. This simple conviction is the foundation of your security as a believer: God and Jesus hold you securely in relationship with them. 
That is comforting! Your security comes from your relationship with God. You are not responsible for your security, for somehow finding emotional health that produces security, or creating a sense of personal security. You are secure because God has secured you to himself. He has given you identity and infused you with value as his child. 
Security emerges from a relationship. We seem to know that intuitively. Seeking security in wrong relationships is the problem. Doing this ultimately causes leaders to abuse relationships. We might compulsively serve people to gain their approval and blessing. We might develop an immoral relationship seeking inner satisfaction. Or, we might compromise inappropriately to keep our job. 
Right principle, wrong applications! You should seek security in a relationship but in the right relationship – with God through Jesus. Seeking it in any other relationship – your wife, child, mother, father, or followers will leave you empty and longing. Like a sugar high, it may satisfy for a while but will leave you deflated. 
The only source of real security is your relationship with God through Jesus. He validates you, blesses you, accepts you, and gives you worth. In him, you are secure so you can choose to live securely and feel secure.
True security resists all threats. Jesus makes two other promises in John 10:28-29 related to our security. He promises we are so secure “no one” can harm us and we have “eternal life.” This has two applications related to your security. 
First, no one can take away the security you have in God through Jesus. You will be tested repeatedly and often at this point. Leaders sometimes deal with difficult people. We are criticized, ridiculed, and rejected. Our proposals are analyzed, dissected, and vilified. People offer “constructive criticism” on what we wear, drive, and do in our leisure time. They comment on how we raise our children, comb our hair, and maintain our home. 
Serious critics write poisonous letters, make appointments to formally rebuke you, gossip aggressively, or otherwise attack you publicly. No matter how strong you are or how unfounded the attacks, they still hurt. Critics rob insecure leaders of their sense of God’s abiding blessing. While feeling the emotional sting of criticism, secure leaders are not controlled by their critics. They rest in the security they have in the one relationship that really matters. 
Second, this security is forever. Remember, it is not for the afterlife only, but for this life as well. Specifically, no matter what the present or future holds, you are and always will be secure. You can live through public criticism, loss of status, bad decisions, and other personal attacks because you are secure. You can also survive personal loss, family illness, financial setbacks or whatever else the future has in store for you. Your security in your relationship with God through Jesus can stand up to anything that comes at you. 
This is the great, often untapped reality of the security of the believer. You are as secure in Jesus right now as you will ever be. You are as secure now as you will someday be in heaven. You are secure…so live it and enjoy it!
Secure leaders are free to obey God. When Jesus taught about our security, he also said his followers “listen to his voice” and “follow him” (John 10:27). Jesus recognized an important reality: People are often controlled by their need for security. Security is such a strong need, compelling drive, and powerful thirst, that whatever satisfies the need will be obeyed. Leaders who draw security from God through Jesus are free to obey God. 
One young leader’s deep insecurity led him into Internet pornography. Looking at graphic sexual images gave him a satisfaction he did not experience in other ways, not even in a sexual relationship with his wife. He mistakenly thought the intense, but brief emotional release he felt while viewing pornography would satisfy his deep inner longings. In short, in a twisted yet powerful way, he looked to pornography to prove his manhood and establish his security. 
No matter how sinful he felt, how much self-condemnation he experienced, or how many times he promised God he would never do it again his compulsive pattern only deepened. Ultimately, an emotional breakdown resulted. The steady love of his wife, the wise counsel of elders, a no-nonsense accountability group, and the support of his church created the environment for him to change his behavior. But, the behavior only changed when he realized Internet pornography was not his problem. Pornography was his symptom. Deep insecurity was his problem. 
You will satisfy your thirst for security. The drive for security is not the problem. How we satisfy it is. If people liking you makes you feel secure, you will please people at all costs. If accomplishments make you feel secure, you will be driven to get things done. If physical pleasure, however fleeting, gives you a sense of security you will pursue those passions. You will obey the compelling urge that feeds your need for security. But, if your relationship with God through Jesus is your source of security, you will obey God. 
Secure leaders are confident without being arrogant. They are relaxed without being lackadaisical. Secure leaders rest in the reality their relationship with God is their defining source of value, worth, and well-being. They have nothing left to prove, nothing left to conquer, and are not beholden to anyone. Secure leaders are free to obey God – and there is no greater freedom!
Renewing your mind, really feeling secure. Changing a core understanding like your source of security happens at both a point in time and as a process over time. It starts by accepting the truth that the only legitimate source of security is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That is a “point in time” decision you must make based on truth – revealed, absolute, non-negotiable truth from the Bible. 
Hammering down that stake, affirming your conviction about your security is the first step. The second step is more challenging. You must practice the spiritual discipline of confronting wrong thinking, destructive behavior, and bad habits built on your foundation of false security. This requires meditation, prayer, reflection, accountability, and difficult choices. Foundational to these disciplines is renewing your mind through Scripture memory. Choose key passages about your security in Jesus Christ and commit them to memory. Allow them to reprogram your thinking – to renew your mind – and give you a new outlook on yourself and what gives you true worth. When you do this, real change will come through real choices. 
Do not be discouraged if this is a prolonged process. I still pray often, meditating on Scripture affirming my security in Jesus, and asking for strength to make decisions in obedience to him alone. Temptation entices me to give in to old patterns. But the good news is those temptations are waning as years of walking in new truth about security creates new and better habits. 
God wants you to be secure in him and lead out of that powerful certainty. Break the bondage of insecurity and devilish false security from sources that can never satisfy! Become a secure leader in Jesus Christ

Symptoms of insecurity-Part 1 Jeff Iorg

 

How does insecurity express itself in leaders? How can you recognize the telltale signs of an insecure leader? What outward evidence gives away the inner insecurity that drives someone who appears so successful?
Symptom 1: The inability to say no without feeling guilty. Leaders have many demands placed on them. Saying no to requests for appointments, for requests to attend meetings or community activities, to fundraising appeals, and to demanding church members is difficult. Some leaders struggle with saying no because of the deep sense of fulfillment and value they receive from saying yes. 
One pastor told me every time a church member called, no matter what they wanted, he felt obligated to respond. He told me of repeated instances when he would be sitting down with a bowl of popcorn to watch a movie with his family, or preparing to go to his son’s ballgame, or dressing for an evening out with his wife and the phone would ring. Off he would go, usually in a non-emergency situation, to meet the immediate “need” of the caller. This pastor simply could not say no. He was addicted to the affirmation people gave him for being such a high-performance pastor. 
This was a competent, intelligent, effective pastor who was leading a growing church. He told me, “I think we can grow to 1000. That’s about how many people I can take care of.” By “take care of,” he meant, “personally attend to.” I challenged him to consider his ministry style, what was driving him, the long-term impact on his family and his health. He assured me “It’s all under control. And after all, God has called me to sacrifice for my people.” 
This pastor had grown up in an abusive home with little or no affirmation from his father. He was rewarded for his spiritual zeal as a teenager by well-meaning church members and soon became addicted to Christian service. Combined with natural charisma, intelligence, and excellent speaking skills, this brother seemed like the ideal pastor – the kind of hard-working, hard-praying, hard-preaching man of God every church wants! 
Over time, his wife became disillusioned and discouraged with his neglect and warped understanding of ministry. She insisted he devote more time to her and their children. He promised to do better, but like an alcoholic drawn to the bottle, he could not break his ministry habit. He needed his “affirmation fix” daily to meet his deep insecurity. He craved the sense of belonging, importance, and value that came from admiring church members. After a while his wife stopped asking for this attention and starting acting defiantly. Her behavior became erratic and out of character. Outsiders questioned her “rebellion.” Insiders knew she was not the problem. 
All this came to a head when his wife, desperate for the attention her husband could not and would not give her, left him for another man. Some blamed her for being an adulteress (and, yes, she was). But few knew the whole story. This family came apart, not because of a woman’s lust, but because of the unsatisfied thirst of an insecure pastor. 
One symptom of insecurity in your life may be the inability to say no without feeling guilty. You crave the admiration, affirmation, or even adulation others give you. You have a deep thirst for security, as all of us do, but you are satisfying it in destructive ways. You are unable to say no. Secure leaders, on the other hand, can say no because they are not dependent on constant affirmation from others.
Symptom 2: The inability to take risks and fail. Leaders are decision makers who are willing to take risks and possibly fail. Having the “high failure tolerance gene” is necessary for any leader who innovates, changes paradigms, or attempts new ventures. 
Yet, some leaders become immobilized at this point. They are unable to take risks because of fear of failure, of what people will think, or of losing status in their church or community. They often wonder, “How will this decision make me look if it fails?” These leaders are status conscious, not because of pride, but because their fragile sense of security cannot tolerate much failure. 
One young minister withered in his ability to take risks. He made some decisions early in a new ministry that were not popular. They were good decisions that produced solid results, but they were not popular decisions. The critics nibbled at him like a thousand gnats. Over time, this young leader became more and more wary. He was unwilling to make decisions because he could not stand the “ego hit” of the criticism that would come his way. Eventually, he simply froze! He stopped leading entirely. 
You may be like this. You may have been more willing to take risks and make decisions earlier in your ministry. But the critics wore you down! Now you gauge the wind before every decision. You wonder how people will respond (normal course of consideration for a leader) but base your decision on how you will feel after they respond (a symptom you have a security problem). 
Everyone wants to be liked. That’s not the issue. The problem is avoiding decisions, risk, and possible failure in order to avoid displeasing people. You crave the security favor with others provides and you are unwilling to do anything to jeopardize those relationships. A former college president told me he had difficulty recruiting businessmen to serve on his board with pastors. Why? The lay leaders were frustrated with pastors’ inability to make unpopular decisions because they are notorious people-pleasers. While that may sting, it is unfortunately true too much of the time. 
Insecure leaders are immobilized by possible failure. Secure leaders make decisions, including those fraught with potential failure, concerned for but not controlled by the opinions of others.

Discovering God’s will as an individual, as a church and as an Association of churches.

If a  regional superintendant informed us that he will be accountable to an Associational executive committee where the "final nominations to the executive committee will be made by the existing executive" who will serve three year terms for a max of 9 years, does this constitute an autocracy?  When the representatives of the churches express concerns for accountability over autocratic leadership, and the removal of annual elections for this proposed permanent arrangement,  does the Superintendant have the right to withhold information or voting rights from churches  that might oppose his institution of this autocracy? What are your thoughts?

“This appears to be totally out of kilter with Baptist polity, which relies heavily on the priesthood of all believers in seeking God's will rather than one person lording authority over others.” -Steve Lemke

Profanity and Swearing

Recently Phil Boatwright remarked at Baptist Press:

"I will set before my eyes no vile thing" (Psalm 101:3).

-- "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them" (Ephesians 5:11).

-- "Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22).

Recently I viewed a war film made in 1949. "Battleground" was star-studded with a powerful script that revealed a division of American troops under fire at the Battle of the Bulge. It unnerved me, it moved me and it enlightened me. "Battleground" entertained while reminding viewers of the horrors of war. Now, because this was 1949, actors had to find other ways of expressing fear and frustration than by profaning God's name. Today's argument: "Today, we are more realistic. Men in battle swear." True. But movies are an art form. Or so we're told over and over each award show season.

The art of storytelling is most effective not just when it shows who we are, but when it suggests what we can become. An art form should aim up, not just humor our baser instincts. Though this concept has nearly been forgotten in Tinseltown, dialogue should be a salute to a use of language, not an abuse of it.

While there was no cussing, "Battleground" didn't disappoint. Who in the middle of a film goes, "Where's the cussing?" If the story is well told, you will be affected by the narrative. 

We can't walk through a mall or stand in line at McDonald's without hearing some curse word, and all too often it is a profanity. We've gotten to where we shrug it off. But listening to obscenity in a movie you paid for is a different matter. Why pay to be offended? That doesn't make sense to me.

I picked out language to make my point. Our culture seems to embrace other excesses in order to be amused. Perhaps we have evolved into beings capable of processing any amount of abuse Hollywood puts before our eyes, but is that what our Creator intended for us? The Bible is God's guideline for living, and it applies to every part of our lives, including how we entertain ourselves.  -Phil Boatwright.

 

I had a very interesting conversation last year with several Australian War heroes. Some were “Rats of Tobruk”, others “coast watchers”.. some had fought in Papua New Guinea.. and others in Greece or in Palestine.

The issue under discussion was swearing in war films.  Their response: In real warfare men rarely swear.  There is a sense of the frailty of life and the near reality of facing God as our Judge that takes away the desire to swear.

One stated that he had sworn more in the last year or so than he had ever sworn throughout the War.

He wondered if the movie makers hadn’t rewritten history to lower the nations morals.

I wonder too.

Family Drug Support

All Baptist churches are well advised seriously consider the implications of allowing their churches to be used by the Family Drug Support people.  Family Drug Support agreed to pay a Newcastle church a regular donation to cover the costs of their use of the building. After several warnings over 9 months the church involved has excluded them from their buildings. 

An Inconvenient Truth from Baptist Press

Global warming alarmism falling apart in light of 'Climategate' and IPCC errors
By E. Calvin Beisner
Jan. 22, 2010
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=32123

BURKE, Va. (BP)--One of the most alarming warnings in the 2007 Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was that Himalayan glaciers -- on which hundreds of millions of people depend for regular water supply from their annual contraction and recovery -- are in grave danger from global warming. "[I]f the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high," the report said (NOTE (1)).

But to the curious, there was a telltale sign that something might be amiss. The IPCC's rules require that all assertions in its assessment reports be based on published papers in refereed journals. But in this instance, the citation at the end of the sentence was "(WWF, 2005)." "WWF" is the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental advocacy organization that publishes no refereed journal and has a well deserved reputation for exaggerated claims.

As it turns out, "(WWF, 2005)" wasn't the end of the story. As reported this week in TimesOnline in the UK (2), "the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before...." And news stories aren't refereed. Further, this news story was "based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist...." And to make matters worse, "Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was 'speculation' and was not supported by any formal research."

That's not all, though. Hasnain says his "speculation" was based on a report he was bringing to Britain -- a report that was not, and never would be, peer reviewed or published. But even that report didn't say or imply that the glaciers could disappear by 2035. But WWF cited it in a campaign piece in 2005 -- and it was that campaign piece that the IPCC cited as its source. But even the campaign piece didn't suggest that the likelihood of the glaciers' disappearing by 2035 was "very high." That, apparently, was the utterly baseless addition of whoever wrote that part of the IPCC report. In reality, even if the IPCC's predictions about anthropogenic (manmade) global warming (AGW) are true, it would take hundreds of years -- not 28 -- for the Himalayan glaciers to disappear, if they ever would.

"If confirmed," TimesOnline continued, "it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research." Well, it is confirmed (3). And it is a serious failure. And there are others. For just three examples, the IPCC wrongly claims that

-- global warming has led to increased economic losses from hurricanes -- citing as support work by Roger Pielke Jr. that actually says the opposite (4).

-- sea level rise accelerated in the late 20th century because of global warming and constitutes a grave threat to low-lying population centers; but in reality the late 20th century had no acceleration in sea level rise (5) and, contrary to widespread claims, low-lying south Pacific island nations like Tuvalu are not endangered by sea level rise, because there has been no sea level rise there during the period in question (6).

-- late-twentieth-century global temperature rise was more rapid than other temperature rises from 1850 onward, giving rise to the assertion that it must be manmade, when the claim rested on what statisticians call an "end point fallacy," and a valid graph of the same data showed no increase in warming rate (7).

COUNTER ARGUMENTS

There is much more, though, to cause thoughtful people to doubt even the best documented of the IPCC's claims about AGW. The claims rest on the assertion that twentieth-century warming was more rapid, and brought global temperature higher, than anything in history. And those claims rest on the reliability of two things: our knowledge of twentieth-century temperatures, and our knowledge of pre-twentieth-century temperatures, with which to compare them. But both of these are highly in doubt. If recent warming was matched in the past, it could just as easily be a repetition of natural warming. And unprecedented warming is an absolutely essential piece of the argument for AGW.

First, recent temperature. It has recently become clear that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has cherry-picked temperature data (8) to over-represent low-altitude and urban data (which are artificially warm) and under-represent high-altitude, rural data (which are cooler), thus exaggerating apparent warming. And Russian scientists have discovered that the Hadley Center for Climate Change at the British Meteorological Office has similarly excluded over 40% of Russian temperature readings (from cooler areas) and used readings from only 25% of reporting stations (from warmer areas), again exaggerating apparent warming (9). These and a general failure to adjust adequately for urban heat island effects have resulted in depicting the late twentieth century as warming more, and faster, than it did (10). Indeed, since the failure to adjust for heat island effect by itself led to doubling apparent warming, the recent discoveries of cherry-picking at NOAA and Hadley suggest that the real warming was even less than half the claimed.

Second, historic temperature. Our knowledge of pre-twentieth-century temperature depends largely on the methods of paleoclimatology. Those, in turn, rest largely on the use of annual tree growth rings as a proxy for temperature. The work of a small group of dendrochronologists -- who study such things -- is the whole foundation for the claim of unprecedented recent warming.

OTHER AGW FRAUD

But Climategate -- the disclosure (11) of thousands of emails, computer programs, and other documents from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the UK -- revealed scandalous scientific misconduct (12) of monumental proportions by the world's leading paleoclimatologists, particularly the dendrochronologists -- enough that it has crippled the credibility of the entire field of science and seriously tarnished the reputations of its inner cadre of researchers. Their own communications demonstrate unequivocally that they fabricated, fudged, cherry-picked, destroyed, and suppressed data, ran it through computer programs designed to show warming no matter what the underlying numbers, corrupted the peer review process, sought to intimidate scientists and journals that dared to dissent, and successfully controlled what information became accessible to the IPCC as the basis for its assessment reports.

By their mishandling of data, the paleoclimatologists were able to convince many people, including in the IPCC, that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) had never happened. The exposure of the frauds restores those well-attested phenomena -- and demolishes the case that recent warming was the least bit unusual. On the contrary, the MWP was warmer than the recent warm period, and the LIA was much colder, and it now becomes clear that warming since the mid-nineteenth century is, as AGW critics have been saying for years, merely another natural cycle of Earth's warming and cooling.

One of the consequences of Climategate appears to be the replacement of peer review with a different phenomenon: peer-to-peer review (13), a less formal but much more intense and, it appears, reliable way of discovering and correcting errors in scientific publications.

BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

Why should all this be of interest to Christians? Partly because these findings support the Biblical revelation that Earth and its climate system are the product of a wise Creator -- who would not be likely to design it so that a minuscule change in atmospheric chemistry (CO2 rising from 0.027% to 0.039%) could force catastrophic climate change. Partly, too, because they demolish the case for adopting climate control policies costing trillions of dollars: If anthropogenic CO2 emissions didn't cause dangerous warming, curtailing them isn't going to prevent it.

But partly, too, because these revelations should drive home two other Biblical points.

First, they illustrate the importance of the command in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 to "test all things, hold fast what is good." Sad to say, even some evangelicals uncritically accepted claims of AGW, and on that basis recommended policies that would cause significant harm to many even in wealthy countries but would slow or stop economic growth in poor countries, condemning their peoples to more generations of the high rates of disease and premature death that abject poverty brings.

Second, they illustrate the Biblical doctrine of sin -- particularly, what theologians call the "noetic effects of sin." Sin can seriously hinder human ability to think straight. And crooked thinking is written in capital letters all over Climategate.

Christians Take a Biblical Stand

Even before Climategate became public in late November, the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation -- a network of theologians, pastors, other Christian leaders, scientists, economists, and other scholars dedicated to applying Biblical world view, theology, and ethics coupled with excellent science and economics to economic development for the poor and responsible environmental policy -- had finished a major new study, A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming (14), and An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming (15), based on it. The Declaration has now been signed by about 500 people, including over 150 leading pastors, theologians, scientists, economists, and other leaders (16).

The documents conclude that climate change is overwhelmingly natural, not manmade, and that wise policy will promote abundant, affordable energy to promote economic development to lift the poor out of poverty.
--30--
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., is National Spokesman of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation (www.CornwallAlliance.org) and has written more about Climategate at http://www.cornwallalliance.org/blog/item/in-praise-of-scientific-piranhas-the-legacies-of-climategate/.

NOTES:
(1) http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-6-2.html
(2) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece?
token=null&offset=0&page=1
(3) http://www.thegwpf.org/international-news/429-indian-government-slams-ipcc-for-false-alarm-over-himalayan-galciers.html
(4) http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-does-pielke-think-about-this.html
(5) http://www.junkscience.com/jan04/nils-morner_1.pdf
(6) http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/paperncgtsealevl.pdf
(7) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/17/lord-monckton-reports-on-pachauris-eye-opening-copenhagen-presentation/
(8) http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf
(9) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/16/russian-iea-claims-cru-tampered-with-climate-data-cherrypicked-warmest-stations/
(10) http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/jgr07.html
(11) http://www.eastangliaemails.com/
(12) http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-climate-e-mails-and-the-politics-of-science
(13) http://www.cornwallalliance.org/blog/item/in-praise-of-scientific-piranhas-the-legacies-of-climategate/
(14) http://www.cornwallalliance.org/docs/a-renewed-call-to-truth-prudence-and-protection-of-the-poor.pdf
(15) http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/
(16) http://www.cornwallalliance.org/blog/item/prominent-signers-of-an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/