Why I’m Giving to this Environmental Group
By Tish Harrison Warren, in the New York Times Opinion’s Giving Guide, 2022.
“Christians understand Isaiah’s prophecies as culminating in Jesus’ return, and that this vision of a restored heaven and Earth is the ultimate destiny of the universe. Still, some Christian traditions, particularly white evangelicalism, emphasize a more individualistic view of God’s work of redemption. In the evangelical church I grew up in, salvation was primarily seen as an internal, spiritual experience — getting “saved” or being “born again” — so that we could go to heaven when we die. In the readings of Advent, however, Isaiah shows how incomplete this view is. God’s intention, Isaiah seems to say, is not evacuation from Earth to some far away afterlife but the healing and restoration of all things, even the material world of oak trees and orangutans, jellyfish and jalapeños, mountain laurels and desert willows.”
