Hello my friends,

I want you to know I really struggled on what to write about this week. There were so many things I wanted to process with you. So, because of this, I included a few bonus articles below. One is a theological reflection on selective prayer when it comes to praying for the president and the other is on how End Times theology is impacting American perception as well as policy when it comes to the Middle East. I hope you find them helpful.

Today I wanted to process with you about the theology of land within the Bible and how that might call us to respond today as followers of Jesus to the onslaught on our environment and public lands proposed in the "Big Beautiful Bill," that has passed the house and is heading to the senate.

Bonuse Articles:

​-End Times Obsession and the Cost of Indifference.​

​-“We just need to pray for the president!” -A Theological Critique of Selective Prayer.​

Recommended Resources:

​-The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy by Matthew D. Taylor. Some of you have been asking me about the New Apostolic Reformation movement that has led much of the surge in Christian nationalism within Evangelical circles for the last decade. So, I wanted to include this book written by a religious scholar who has dedicated a significant portion of his career in studying the movement. If you are interested in this topic, this book is the best place to start.

​-ICE agents scatter as SD Bishop Pham, other clergy visit immigration court. I just thought this was a beautiful example of Christ like advocacy and nonviolent resistance to injustice and wanted to share it with you.

Okay, onto today's newsletter.

​

This Land is Not for Sale: An Idaho Pastor's Plea for Creation.

​

As many of you might know, I was born and raised in Idaho. Except for a few years attending Seminary in Kansas City, I have lived here my whole life. Even during my world travels, something about the Idaho wilderness still kept calling me back. I am an avid fly fisherman and backpacker. Rebecca and I quickly discovered our shared love for the outdoors while we were dating and spent many of our dates exploring the Sawtooth Wilderness together. There is just something so holy about this place.

I have stood in the clearest rivers at dawn, watched elk move silently through alpine meadows, and I've stood beneath stars that make you feel like the world is still good. These places are not just scenic—they are sacred. They are sermons in soil and stone. As a follower of Jesus and a pastor in this land, I cannot help but see the love through which all the earth was made. I also cannot remain silent when what God has called “good” is being sold off and stripped down for profit.

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” currently gaining traction threatens not just healthcare, public services, national debt, and the rule of law, all while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy, it also threatens the environment and our public lands. The bill not only includes the roll back of many environmental measures, but it requires the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture to identify and offer 0.5% to 0.75% of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands for sale . That equates to a mandated minimum of 2.1 million acres and up to 3.3 million acres across at least 11 Western states, including here in Idaho. As I wrote this article, I saw the surprising news that our Idaho senators voiced opposition to this proposition. Also, the House attempted to include just over 500,000 acres in Utah and Nevada was thankfully later removed after widespread pushback.

The widespread pushback must continue, because the current mandate of millions of acres is a scale that conservation groups say threatens public access, ecosystems, and local economies, and even the health of our children.

For those of us who follow Jesus, it is an affront to the soul of our shared responsibility as stewards of God’s creation. Especially when this is being carried out by an administration that is constantly claiming to stand for "Christian values." To treat land, water, wildlife, and wilderness as mere commodities—up for sale to the highest bidder—is a violation of both Scripture and conscience. This is not stewardship. It is desecration.

Scripture’s Call to Stewardship, Not Exploitation

In Genesis 2:7, God forms humanity from the ground (adamah) and places them in the garden “to till it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew here—avad and shamar—means to serve and to protect. Humanity was never given license to strip creation bare. We were called to tend it with reverence, the way one tends a vineyard or watches over a flock.

In Genesis 9, after the floodwaters recede and the ark comes to rest, God speaks—not just to Noah and his family, but to every living creature. It’s one of the most overlooked yet powerful aspects of this passage: God’s covenant is not only with humanity, but with the birds, the animals, the earth itself.

“I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you…”

(Genesis 9:9–10)

God includes animals and ecosystems in the promise. The rainbow is a sign not only that humanity will not be destroyed—but that creation itself is under God’s protection, God’s memory, God’s mercy.

Scripture also makes it clear that the land ultimately belongs to God, not to us. In Leviticus 25:23 for example, God says,

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.”

This reaffirms that we are to be stewards, not owners. God entrusts land to people not for domination, but for care, justice, and sustainability.

God even commands rest for the land itself. In Leviticus 25:1–7, God institutes the Sabbath year, where every seventh year the land is to lie fallow—no sowing, no harvesting—so that it may rest, just as people rest on the Sabbath. This command honors creation’s limits and reflects God’s rhythm of renewal.

But God’s concern for justice and restoration goes even further than this. In Leviticus 25:10, God commands that in the Year of Jubilee, every fiftieth year, land that had been taken, sold, or transferred is to be returned to its original family. This radical act of economic reset prevented generational exploitation and reminded the people that no one has a permanent claim on the Earth—only God does.

"And you shall return every one of you to your property and every one of you to your family.” (Lev. 25:10)

I always think of this scriptural concept when I think of how I as an American, with immigrant ancestors from Germany, Ireland, and Sweden currently live on land that was inhabited by and taken from the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Shoshone-Bannock peoples.

These teachings affirm that the Earth is not a commodity to be exploited, but a sacred trust to be honored. How we treat the land--and those that live upon it--reflects how we view the Giver of it.

The psalmist declares: “The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1). This ultimately means the mountains aren’t for sale. The rivers don’t belong to industry. The wild is not wasteland. It belongs to God. When we privatize what was meant for the common good—especially when we call such actions "beautiful"—we betray the Creator and trample what was meant to testify to God’s glory (Romans 1:20).

The prophets warned often of leaders who devoured land and crushed the poor in pursuit of wealth (Isaiah 5:8, Micah 2:2). The idolatry of endless expansion—more extraction, more drilling, more ownership—is not progress. It is plunder.

And Christ himself walked lightly upon the Earth. He taught us to look at the birds, the lilies, the fig trees—to pay attention to creation, because it still reveals the kingdom of God. How can we claim to follow Jesus while allowing God's creation to be gutted and sold?
​

Theological Errors That Justify Environmental Destruction

One of the greatest theological dangers circulating in Christianity today is a distorted eschatology (view of the end times). It is a belief that since God will one day make all things new, what happens to the Earth now doesn’t matter. Some even believe environmental concern is a distraction from “more important” spiritual matters. This is not biblical theology—it’s a license for destruction wrapped in theological dress.

God never gave us permission to trash what God clearly called good. Nowhere in Scripture does redemption mean abandonment. In fact, Revelation 11:18 offers a sobering warning: “The nations raged, but your wrath came… and the time came for destroying those who destroyed the earth.”

This passage reminds us that environmental devastation is not just a political issue—it’s a spiritual offense. To destroy the earth is to rebel against the One who made it. The Scriptures show no hesitation is expressing that those who exploit it in the name of progress or profit will answer to God.

Moreover, the Bible’s vision of the future is not about escaping Earth but renewing it. Revelation doesn’t end with heaven pulling us away and the earth exploding—it ends with heaven coming down and God dwelling with us in a restored creation (Revelation 21:1–3). We are not called to discard the Earth—we are called to participate in its renewal.

Climate Change Is a Discipleship Issue

To put this all in simple terms, the disregard and degradation of the Earth is not a peripheral theological issue. It is a matter of justice, discipleship, and neighbor-love. The poor are always the first to suffer from environmental destruction—polluted water, extreme heat, crop failure, and displacement. To deny the urgency of climate change is to deny the cries of the least of these.

Romans 8 tells us that creation itself groans, waiting for the children of God to be revealed—not to dominate, but to liberate. The question that is urgently put before us today is, will we be those children? Or will we stand by while the groans of the Earth are ignored and silenced?

Practical Ways to Speak Up for Creation

1. Reframe the Conversation Around Faith, Not Partisanship.

Say, “This isn’t about being liberal or conservative—it’s about being faithful. God made this land. We’re called to care for it, not cash it in.”

2. Share What the Bible Actually Says.

Use passages like Genesis 2:15, Psalm 104, Revelation 11:18, and Colossians 1:15–17 to show that creation isn’t disposable. Christ holds all things together—including the forests and rivers we’re told don’t matter.

3. Lift Up the Voices of the Vulnerable

Climate change and land exploitation disproportionately affect Indigenous communities, rural poor, and future generations. It is one of the major factors that is fueling mass human migration right now. Remind others: “Jesus always stood with the vulnerable—so should we.”

4. Tell Personal Stories

Speak of the peace you’ve found on the river, the holiness of stillness in the mountains. Help others connect their love of land to their faith—and the need to protect it.

5. Support Conservation Efforts and Speak Out

Encourage others to advocate for public lands, renewable energy, and climate policy rooted in justice. Find organizations like Patagonia that helps people get involved in advocating for protecting public lands. Contact your senators. Remind them: silence in the face of destruction is not neutral—it is complicity.

In this moment, to follow Jesus includes advocating for our sacred lands. To protect the wild. To speak for those who cannot, which includes all nonhuman life we share this planet with. To believe that what God made still matters—and to act like it.

May we teach our children not just to love the wilderness, but to defend it. May our prayers rise like incense through pine and smoke. And may the church be known not as those who ignored the groaning of creation—but as those who listened, wept, and responded.

"Big Thunder Prayer."

I thought it would be fitting to conclude with a prayer attributed to the Algonquin people written in the late 19th century. It's called "Big Thunder Prayers." As you read it, notice how strikingly similar it is to the themes we just read from the Bible above.

“The Great Spirit is in all things, is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground, She returns to us….

Give us hearts to understand;

Never to take from creation’s beauty more than we give;

never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed;

Never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth’s beauty;

never to take from her what we cannot use.

Give us hearts to understand

That to destroy earth’s music is to create confusion;

that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;

That to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a house of stench;

that as we care for her she will care for us.

Great Spirit, whose dry lands thirst,

Help us to find the way to refresh your lands.

Great Spirit, whose waters are choked with debris and pollution,

help us to find the way to cleanse your waters.

Great Spirit, whose beautiful earth grows ugly with misuse, help us to find the way to restore beauty to your handiwork.

Great Spirit, whose creatures are being destroyed,
help us to find a way to replenish them.

Great Spirit, whose gifts to us are being lost in selfishness and corruption, help us to find the way to restore our humanity.

Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind,
whose breath gives life to the world, hear me;
I need your strength and wisdom. May I walk in Beauty."