But perhaps what was most significant was not what happened at this year’s conference but what occurred at its periphery. Months before COP27 began, Jewish activist and journalist Yosef Israel Abramowitz had caught onto its spiritual connections, seeing in it a “prime time for the force of religion to speak climate truth to dirty power,” as he put it in his article for The Jerusalem Post . [1]

Abramowitz further implied that the idea to capitalize on religious prowess for COP27 might have been prompted dually by God—and the “spirit” of one of his dead friends. In fact, in the same article, he repeatedly assumed God to be on the side of the activists, actively working for environmental protection.

Abramowitz’s brainchild spawned a momentum that, spearheaded by such groups as the Elijah Interfaith Institute and the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, resulted in “10 Spiritual Principles for Climate Repentance ,” a flagrant play on God’s Ten Commandments, and the first-ever Climate Repentance Ceremony . [2] [3]

Religion and Environmentalism Unite!

On Sunday morning, November 13 , at the top of Jebel Musa, Mount Sinai’s current name, the Ten Principles for Climate Repentance, newly “formulated by dozens of multifaith leaders,” was read aloud. [4]

It bears noting that an early draft of the ten climate principles, published in an article Abramowitz wrote for Newsweek , included an outright “Sabbath” command to “reduce emissions of the world by a seventh.” This day of rest, Abramowitz ensured, “can be observed by different faith communities on different days.” The present version of the Ten Principles, however, no longer includes an explicit reference to a mandated day of rest. For a deeper understanding of why this matters, try our free presentation “The Mark of the Beast.” [5] [6]

Then, Abramowitz, standing in front of a select group of his peers, smashed two “mock tablets of stone” on the ground in a reenactment of Moses’ righteous anger in Exodus 32:15–19. One mock tablet featured “the words ‘Broken Promises’ in Hebrew”; the second “was painted green, to symbolize the ‘green commandments.’” The Times of Israel elucidated that it was an act to protest “the world’s failure to protect the planet,” pointedly aimed at world leaders attending COP27.

That same day, on Parliament Hill, London, the Sinai Climate Partnership was revealed, a confederacy of environmental advocacy groups united in the single goal “to recruit religious leaders globally to lobby for faster action on climate change.”

Religious leaders from different faiths gathered in pockets the world over, in London, Jerusalem, in Sharm el-Sheikh itself, to hold the inaugural Climate Repentance Ceremony, “an excited call to the leaders around the world to act for climate repentance and to act according to the ten universal principles on climate.” [7]

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, leader of the Orthodox Christian Church and known as the Green Patriarch for his environmental activism, released this official statement for the ceremony: “The abuse of nature and the exploitation of its resources are a sin against God the Creator and the gift of creation.”

This sentiment has been the cornerstone of Bartholomew’s career and should neither come as a surprise to those familiar with Pope Francis. The pontiff has prominently touted the same belief, most vehemently illustrated in his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’ . As clarified by the Elijah Interfaith Institute’s website , Francis actually adopted the notion from the Green Patriarch. Now, not even a decade later, it is a banner gradually being taken up by the world’s religions. [8] [9]

Church and State

The events leading up to COP27 included an intentional interlacing of religion to environmentalism. Although the hand was extended to all faiths, it doesn’t take an expert to see that the spotlight was trained on the Christian religion, the Christian God and His commandments.

The Sinai Climate Partnership wants to leverage the influence of the church to pass secular policy. At the end of time, the Bible says that the church will leverage state power to pass religious laws. Could these future laws have in them the vestiges of climate change principles?

The apostle John described a vision “of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication” (Revelation 17:1, 2). This harlot of a woman is “sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy” (v. 3). She is called, among other descriptors, “THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS” (v. 5) and is “drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (v. 6). In other words this woman persecutes God’s people.

In the Bible, a woman symbolizes a church (Ephesians 5:23) and a beast symbolizes a political power (Daniel 7:23). In Revelation 17, the harlot rides the beast: The church is in control of the state. A harlot is a prostitute and thus not faithful to one man. In turn, this harlot represents a church unfaithful to God, fornicating with political powers. This harlot is a “mother,” the spiritual progenitor of other unfaithful churches. Whose banner are the world’s religious leaders currently taking up? Learn more in “The Church and the State” and “The Beast, the Dragon and the Woman.” [10] [11]

And be prepared for an even more audacious change to God’s law than has ever been seen.

[1] https://www.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-721751

[2] https://climaterepentance.com/the-spiritual-principles/principles-with-practical-recommendations/

[3] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/global-religious-leaders-promote-climate-action-during-un-climate-conference-cop-27-1031911037

[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/activists-smash-tablets-atop-mount-sinai-to-launch-faith-based-climate-push/

[5] https://www.newsweek.com/our-sin-emissions-101-climate-commandments-opinion-1736640

[6] https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/media/e/20405/t/the-mark-of-the-beast

[7] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/global-religious-leaders-promote-climate-action-during-un-climate-conference-cop-27-1031911037

[8] https://www.laudatosi.org/the-letter/encyclical-letter/

[9] https://climaterepentance.com

[10] https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/media/e/5555/t/the-church-and-the-state

[11] https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/book/e/53/t/the-beast--the-dragon-and-the-woman