"We desperately need to recognize that we are the guests not the masters of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism." Mikhail Gorbachev, Chairman of the Board, Green Cross International

"No sane person seeks a world divided between billions of excluded people living in absolute deprivation and a tiny elite guarding their wealth and luxury behind fortress walls. No one rejoices at the prospect of a life in a world of collapsing social and ecological systems. Yet we continue to place human civilization and even the survival of our species at risk mainly to allow a million or so people to accumulate money beyond any conceivable need. We continue to go boldly where no one wants to go." (David C. Korten, "When Corporations Rule the World")

"The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged. And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth." Revelation 11:18

THE RUSSIANS WERE FLABBERGASTED

We swerved in and out of the two-lane streets of the Presidio next to San Francisco Bay. Our little group of Russian tourists had no idea where I was taking them-they simply thought we were heading for an underside view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Little did they realize they would shortly stand aghast at the small two-story gambrel cottage where the International Green Cross headquarters, headed by the deposed President Mikhail Gorbachev, stood in obscure testimony to the once mighty colossus of the Soviet Union.

I was amused. More than reluctantly these Russian coal miners, now in 1994, were coaxed by me to get out of our large van and literally enter into this unbelievable sight-a military facility donated by the US to Mikhail Gorbachev's fledgling, altruistic ideal at earthly redemption: The International Green Cross.

Sight seeing is one thing-peering into "how are the mighty fallen" is quite another! "How could this have happened? Gorbachev winding up in this hole in the wall underneath the Golden Gate Bridge in an old US Coast Guard facility huddled amongst warehouses and rickety old buildings of little import?" The surreal scene of it all was altogether bizarre, eerie, and even prophetic in its condescension. My Russian guests, most from Siberia, left this esoteric experience flabbergasted, embarrassed, and even angered that their once dynamic, articulate, and feared leader of the world's largest communist empire had embraced such a humiliating conclusion to his ignoble career. Alas! President Vladimir Putin this month bemoaned the Soviet Union's demise: "The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE? . . . "THE GLOBAL ETHIC"

Lee Penn in his article A Case Against the United Religions Initiative (URI) exposes the soft underbelly of Gorbachev's real agenda. How on earth (no pun intended) did folks like Mikhail Gorbachev, former California Senator Alan Cranston, George Schultz, et al, get behind this slogan: Give Humanity a Chance, give the Earth a future?

"I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. Look at the sun. If there is no sun, then we cannot exist. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals" (an interview with Gorbachev).

Penn deliberates on the New Age religion of Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the likes of Ted Turner, who like Episcopal Bishop William Swing (founder of URI), back the new "Global Ethic" and its "Declaration of Human Responsibilities" in their new "Earth Charter." Gorbachev calls the Earth Charter, the new religion of Ecology (a.k.a., the GREEN CROSS) . . .

". . . a kind of Ten Commandments, a 'Sermon on the Mount,' that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century and beyond . . . the protection of the Biosphere, as the Common Interest of Humanity, must not be subservient to the rules of state sovereignty, demands of the free market or individual rights" (The Earth Charter: The Green Cross Philosophy).

The religious philosophy behind the Green Cross, epitomized in Bishop Swing's URI, is strongly supported by dissident Catholics like Hans K?ng, who like Gorbachev, wish to use government power to create a world utopia by ridding the earth of what the Bible terms "The Merchants of the Earth" who clearly represent that "million" mentioned by David C. Korten, whose greed and avarice are Biblically denounced in the Almighty's ultimate judgment upon those who "destroy the earth!"

Now, how can I say all this in one breath? It appears that I concur with the underlying assumption of both Korten and Gorbachev that somehow we must stop the ecological madness imposed upon and corrupting the earth. Those who "destroy the earth" are naught but conniving exploiters of earth's resources whose ultimate judgment the Almighty holds in special contempt!

However, embedded within the Global Ethic of the Left is a fervent and repulsive hatred of the Cross of Christ and its defining demarcation against all for which it stands. Indeed, listen to the beguiling words of Bishop Swing:

"The time comes, though, when common language and a common purpose for all religions and spiritual movements must be discerned and agreed upon. Merely respecting and understanding other religions is not enough . . . the nature of the United Religious would be to focus on: 1) the whole human family; 2) the whole health of our planet; and 3) the whole realm of living species, and to offer the unique gifts of religions . . . there will have to be a godly cease-fire, a temporary truce where the absolute exclusive claims of each (religion) will be honored but an agreed upon neutrality will be exercised in terms of proselytizing, condemning, murdering, or dominating. These will not be tolerated in the United Religions zone" (A Case Against the URI).

The survivability of the URI or Gorbachev's International Green Cross is of no concern . . . the "religious philosophy" behind the Left's efforts is . . . "We can't afford fundamentalists in a world this small" (Paul Chafee; transcribed by Lee Penn from URI-provided tape of URI forum at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, held on 2/2/97).

BATTLE OF THE CROSSES

A convergence of political and religious interests from the Left has coalesced around the Green Cross, juxtaposed to their antithesis: The Religious Right.

Amazing how religion, especially the Christian religion-its use or lack thereof-is manipulated by Left and Right. While traveling through Kentucky, and throughout the Midwest of the USA, several years back, and shortly after 9/11, I witnessed a most remarkable sight blazoned on the double doors of country churches and atop church steeples . . . and, since a picture's worth a thousand words . . .

Can I ask you . . . has not the Cross of Christ been politicized by both the Christian Right and by the Religious Left? Come on now . . . just who's using the Cross for their own agenda? The truth of the matter is altogether clear . . . politics and religion (be it from Left or Right) fully understands the dynamic of religious support for their political agenda and visa versa (i.e., religion realizes its need for political support)).

THE WORLD FORUM

Former U. S. Senator Alan Cranston was not only the co-organizer of The World Forum but acted as the chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation (the funding mechanism behind the International Green Cross). The Cranston/Gorbachev alliance was/is straightforward:

"First discuss the state of the world, what might be done about it, what the options are and what practical steps might be taken. Issues include how to get weapons under control, mediating disputes, protecting the environment and creating a climate for rational development."

However, without the "religious component" under girding the political designs to change the environment, the goals and aspirations of organizations like the World Forum and the International Green Cross, are doomed to irrelevance and political solitude. Thus, those who embrace the Green Cross and who "rediscover a reverence for all life and respect for the sacredness of the whole of Planet Earth" must get clergy and laity to accept the gradual development of their New Religion by "retooling" both clergy and lay religious leaders in the philosophy of "spiritual ecology."

SPIRITUAL DYNAMIC YES, BUT WHICH ONE?

Korten has hit on something . . . something utterly profound, when he states:

"Our spiritual awakening may be integral to our political awakening. Alienation from our spiritual nature has left us exposed to manipulation by both the advertisers who turn our longing for spiritual connection into an insatiable quest for money and the political demagogues who connect this quest with the corporate interest. . .

The complete article/links/graphics can be found on the www at http://www.the-tribulation-network.com/dougkrieger/green_cross.htm

Doug is a member of the "LastDaysNetwork" . . . a group of evangelical writers committed to presenting news analysis of major events as they relate to Religion in Politics. Christianity's immediate impact upon the American body politic is more profound today than it has been since the formation of the "experiment." To discard the impact that religion, in particular, the Christian religion, has upon American politics is utterly absurd . . . to "speak from the inside" of American evangelicalism and its resurgence upon the political scene during the last ten years, is a unique perspective that Doug, Dene McGriff, and other writers within the Tribulation Network/Last Days Network possess . . . you'll enjoy their perspectives immensely whether you agree or disagree; for one thing, you will see a side of this equation that is absolutely different from most you observe . . . and, NO, you won't be "Left Behind!"