Sunday, November 6, 2016

Diocese of Alaska stands with Standing Rock


12 comments:

  1. By a quick Google search I assume by "Standing Rocks" they mean the Indian tribe who is opposing an oil/gas pipeline? And by "Diocese of Alaska" I assume this is the OCA, and based on the pic and all the priests/deacons I assume this is probably a seminary, or perhaps Diocean headquarters? Is there a bishop in that pic (is that him in the center?)?

    Question for those who would (actually often are) turn the Church into the direction of left wing/misanthropic political activism such as "the environmental movement" - Do you think Christ came and preached the Gospel of "save the earth" ;)

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    1. Good stewardship of the gifts of God is, I would think, a commandment and not so susceptible to the traditional Left-Right dichotomy.

      In fact, the only conflict that matters at this point is globalism vs. nationalism. Should the interests of multinational, secular corporations and their consumers be given more weight than that of Nations living on their lands?

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    2. Frankly, environmentalism is a 'conservative' cause, which is why it is already being conflated with racism.

      http://anti-gnostic.blogspot.com/2014/11/you-heard-it-here-first.html

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    3. So - it's not Standing RockS (plural). It is Standing Rock (singular), more specificly the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. However, as for the "Indian" tribe - though of course they are NOT really Indian, since Indians live in India!!! ... whereas Native, Indigenous or First Nations people live in America - The tribe is the Hunkpapa Lakota and the Yanktonai Dakota ... Just FYI ;)
      So while you're "googeling" - maybe next time do it less quickly!!
      As someone else on here mentioned - the conflict at Standing Rock is not primarily an environmental one, though there are concerns for the safety of their water. The pipeline in questions was originally planned for just north of Bismarck and Mandan. Both city council rejected the proposal because they were concerned for their drinking water, so the project was rerouted to just outside of reservation land (however well within 1851 treaty land) because as always nobody really cares about what the indigenous people of the land should drink.
      The issue at Standing Rock is one of justice versus injustice! God is moving on behalf of the Natives of this land. He is empowering them everywhere and raising up strong leaders among them who know His son Yeshua. They are strong ministers to their own and will be the harvesters to bring many into the Kingdom of Heaven. In 500 years the Native people of this land have been dealt injustice after injustice! MANY of the injustices and atrocities were committed by the church! So to see a part of the church stand up for them is refreshing and healing in many ways. It would take me ALL day to go into detail of how unfair the State of North Dakota, the Army Corp of engineers and of course the oil industry has been treating the Standing Rock tribes and its supporters.
      And while I certainly believe that God loves it when His children are good stewards of His creation, the perhaps bigger issue is that God is a God of justice!! And He's going to bring justice to the original people of the land!

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  2. Apologies for typo. I think it's more that the Diocese of Alaska, being largely made up of Indians, feels a very strong kinship with the Indians whose land is being used as a pipeline with dangerous consequences for a people already forced across the country into a land chosen by the government.

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  3. The abuse of native peoples at the hands of the American government is a living memory for the people of Alaska. Also, the natives, especially those in the villages, are suffering most from climate change. This is an expression of solidarity rooted in their own experience and not a matter of ideological activism.

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  4. yes, I think Christ would preach the Gospel of "Save the Earth"
    Do you think he would be for the widespread destruction of the environment?

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  5. Actually, the original dispute is not about environmentalism. It's a property dispute over the land-usage legal issues.

    The company argues that it went through all the arduous legal channels to have their pipeline approved. The tribe had several opportunities to block this from happening.

    Now, with all their money invested, blue-collar workers hired, ordinary people's lives committed to this project, the tribe wants it stopped.

    I have great sympathy for the Native Americans and their concerns about the pipeline. In fact, if they had complied with the law, the US government would have bent over backwards to give them every little thing they asked for.

    I'm just not sure it's fair to fire Joe pipe-digger and make his family suffer because the tribe failed to comply.

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  6. The nation is criss crossed with pipelines underground working 24 hours a day delivering the oil that makes our incredible lifestyle possible.
    It is the safest way to transport oil.
    Folks who are against pipelines delivering oil should sell their vehicals get off the grid go back to outdoor toilets and no electricity.



































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    1. A quickie Google search took me to a Wikipedia page titled "List of pipeline accidents in the United States in the 21st century." I didn't have time to do any more thorough searching than this (emailing while on a break at my job). The article lists oil & gas pipeline failures. It has pretty much one footnote reference per accident, and there are 593 of them. Remember, they are only listed since the year 2000. Even if you don't value Wikipedia as a serious data source, 593 accidents (noteworthy enough to have generated a press report) is an awful lot of incidents for something you're claiming is so safe.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_the_United_States_in_the_21st_century

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    2. You are looking at a bureaucratic "incident report" list - the vast majority of those 593 "incidents" are EPA required paperwork that are no more significant than you spilling a bit of paint in your garage...

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  7. "Do you think he (Christ) would be for the widespread destruction of the environment?"

    Yes, yes I do:

    "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10)

    Unfortunately, too many in the Church would have us take up this particular idol - the earth as something to be "preserved" or taken on its own separate from it's destiny (and its salvation - the "new creation"). The modern "environmental movement" is not about Christian stewardship at all, but rather rests on the *secular* division of the material/profane from the spiritual.

    One of the key signal's that the Church's still nascent encounter with the "modern world" has not gone well is the willingness by some (such as the EP/Istanbul) to quite uncritically take up this particular misanthropic cause. Oh well, like so much of what the EP has done in the last 100 years or so it is a spiritual (and of course worldly) failure...

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