'd watched their boisterous protest in November 1999 on the streets of Seattle—about 50,000 of them. Then they descended on my own backyard of Washington, D.C., in April 2000, 20,000 strong. Quebec City was next, with between 25,000 and 60,000 showing up. Then it was Goteborg, Sweden, last June—about 25,000. And most recently, Genoa, Italy (in July), where 60,000 showed up. Each of these venues had one thing in common: some kind of conference or gathering on global issues had come to town.

With the media typically serving up more hype than substance, I often wondered what all the fuss was about. I didn't really get it until I read a piece in the Washington Post last July, by Noreena Hertz of Cambridge University's Judge Institute and a recognized authority on global economic and political issues. Acknowledging that "the protesters are a diverse bunch," she described their fundamental concern, however, as having to do with "the increasing power of multinational corporations, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the devastation to the world's environment caused by the overriding focus on growth."¹

Hertz related the following as an example of the enormous clout of today's multinationals: "When the European Union tried to ban synthetic hormones from beef on the basis of evidence that they could cause cancer, . . . it found itself unable to do so thanks to a World Trade Organization ruling that put the interests of Monsanto and America's National Cattlemen's Association, Dairy Export Council and National Milk Producers Federation first."²

The tactics of some of the protesters deserve no applause. But the approach of the vast majority has been peaceful. And what I admire about these people is their conviction. And their commitment. Here are teenagers, young adults, middle-aged, and older people risking life and limb to voice their beliefs; while I who have "the truth" sit at home, quiet, unmolested, and comfortable. When, despite all my preachments, I completely forget about ecology and the environment (lost in my work for the church), these people are out walking the front lines.

And they often expend their own resources to get there, putting up in one-star hotels or hunkering down in tent cities, where long lines form in the mornings to use makeshift bathroom facilities. All this (as they see it) in behalf of the poor and in the interest of the planet that's our common home.

No, this is not a call to join the protest movement. It is, however, a call to conscience. For example, should not Adventist Christians be foremost in our concern about the environment? Some of the demonstrators, for sure, are Christians. But many are anarchists, atheists, and other assorted malcontents, with no sustainable theological or philosophical basis for their environmental concerns. Under the doctrine of the survival of the fittest (to which, I suspect, many of them subscribe), there really is no logical ground for opposition to the crassest human exploitation of the ecosystem. It is Adventists (and other Bible-believing Christians) who have the theological and philosophical underpinning to back up those concerns: For this is our Father's world.

Adventists, in particular, have a golden opportunity in the present climate to present the Sabbath as the queen that presides over our ecological consciousness. For of all the commandments, it's the Sabbath that most vividly reminds us that this planet is our Father's property. And the book of Revelation, a document preeminent in Adventist theology from our very inception, makes it clear that in the end God will destroy "those who destroy the earth" (Rev. 11:18, NIV). Can anything be more "present truth" than that?

One of my greatest frustrations as an Adventist is to see us sitting quiescently on so much up-to-date theology. We often fail to realize how utterly relevant are our basic teachings to the contemporary scene.

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¹ Noreena Hertz, "I'm on Their Side, to a Point," Washington Post, July 29, 2001.
² Ibid.

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Roy Adams is an associate editor of the Adventist Review.