I guess it’s fairly obvious that the earthwitness journal has moved to a new host, no?

All the journal entries and reader comments that were present at the old site have been preserved. I’ve actually improved a few of the old journal entries, touching up the language, adding pictures, and improving the indexing.

Let me know what you think, friends.

Friends, I want to make it clear that cheap feelings of moral superiority are not the point of this exercise.

…There seems to have been a particular incident that crystallized the transformation. That is what I want to talk about now.

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…This approach to justice gave every member of the community a strong reason to live a life of integrity — so that, if he or she ever found herself in court, perhaps accused wrongly of some crime, her testimony would be respected. There was a real incentive in this system to become the sort of person who could speak as a witness and be believed.

And what is maybe equally significant, this system also trained every member of the community to be alert for the sound and the signs of integrity, in the voices and actions of people around her or him.

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…As the seventh and final trumpet is sounded, the twenty-four elders who sit on thrones before God pray to Him and give thanks that the time has come —

…The time of the dead, for them to be judged,
and of Your servants, the prophets and saints, for You to reward them,
and all who fear Your name, both small and great,
and for You to destroy those who destroy the earth.

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…Joel’s words about the Spirit being poured out on all flesh are strikingly similar to Isaiah’s words about the Earth being full of the knowledge of YHWH as the waters cover the sea. And Isaiah’s words about the Earth being full of the knowledge of YHWH are directly tied to his vision of a world in which disharmonies between humanity and the creatures are no more.

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Hosea 2 gave us the bridal possession — God leading the faithful as His collective Bride down the aisle of the church of the wilderness — that ultimately leads into the world remade. Isaiah 11 gives us a description of what that world remade will look like when we get there.

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…The prophets tended to see God … as one who is always right there in the middle of the creation, shaping the alternatives we must choose between. They looked up at the sky and saw God right there in the middle of the wind, making the clouds boil and the waves arise on the sea; they felt Him shaking the earth beneath their feet (earthquakes were common in that part of the world!); they turned to themselves, and saw God in their hearts, in the middle of their own breathing, making it happen, driving life moment-by-moment into their otherwise lifeless clay, and drawing them toward righteousness and mercy.

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Updated on Thursday, October 5, 2006 at 09:15AM by Marshall Massey

…The Bible systematically treats wild beings as under God’s control and care, not under any sort of control that God has delegated to humankind. No explicit human right to control or exploit wild creatures, or even to be stewards (managers) of wild creatures, is mentioned anywhere in it.

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