In 1967, historian Lynn White wrote an influential essay in which he blamed Christianity for the contemporary environmental crisis. White argued that Christianity, especially Western Christianity, "not only established a dualism of man and nature, but also insisted that it is God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends."

In July 2004, economist Jeffrey Sachs and some of his colleagues visited the Sauri sublocation of eight villages in western Kenya. The region is beset with AIDS, malaria and hunger.

The United Nations has come under increasing fire in recent years.

It has been blamed for failing to prevent the U.S. invasion of Iraq and for its Iraq food-for-oil program being mired in scandal. Its peacekeeping efforts have proved impotent in the face of mass slaughters in several nations over the last 15 years.

The history of salvation for the Hebrew people led them to believe that not only did God rescue them from slavery, but also that God's action was restricted to their people.