Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Evangelicals cool toward global warming
Evangelicals cool toward global warming
Oct 31, 2024 5:21 AM

After a year of lobbying by vice-president for governmental affairs Rev. Richard Cizik, the National Association of Evangelicals has backed off of attempts to formulate specific policy mendations to the federal government on global warming. According to the Washington Post, “The National Association of Evangelicals said yesterday that it has been unable to reach a consensus on global climate change and will not take a stand on the issue.”

Of course, this disappoints those environmentalist groups that had looked to find a new ally and gain legitimacy from the evangelical movement. The evangelical push on global warming met “internal resistance,” and “In a letter to Haggard last month, more than 20 evangelical leaders urged the NAE not to adopt ‘any official position’ on global climate change because ‘Bible-believing evangelicals . . . disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue.'”

Among the signatories to the letter were Charles W. Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries; the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University; Donald E. Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association; and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.

Following the letter, NAE president Ted Haggard claimed that “We are not considering a position on global warming. We are not advocating for specific legislation or government mandates.”

But if this is the case, it is an abrupt shift from the NAE’s recent position. In an interview in October of last year, Rev. Richard Cizik said, “We are currently working on a paper that is scheduled e out this month on climate change that will get into some policy details, but for the moment we have no specific positions on any environmental legislation.” The article also says that in November of 2005 the NAE “will begin circulating a charter calling on its member network and top-level Beltway allies to fight global warming.”

But Haggard denies this ever happened, saying, “Allow me to confirm at the outset that the NAE is not circulating any official document on the environment.”

The WashPo article paints the decision to back off of official policy mendations on global warming as a defeat for the “fledgling movement…’the greening of evangelicals.'” The assumption is, of course, that all environmentally-responsible evangelicals must embrace particular positions with respect to global warming. This is simply false.

Part of the reason the NAE had been so unwilling to embrace secular environmental groups was because it did not want to be beholden to a specific political ideological position with respect to the environment. It wants to exercise the freedom of Christian conscience regarding environmental stewardship. Cizik says, “We need to develop our own voice and strategies and tactics, and once we’ve gotten our own feet on the ground, then we can talk about possible cooperation.”

Cizik himself sees it as only a matter of time before evangelicals learn promise with more secularist and radical groups. “There are those in munity who are concerned that environmentalists are advocates of population control, of big-government solutions, or New Age religion, and have apocalyptic tendencies,” he says. “I am trying to reason with munity that we’ve earned our spurs in co-belligerency — collaborating with groups we wouldn’t otherwise work with, in the name of mon good.”

But in the interim, evangelicals will continue to retain their independence in defining environmentalism. And that means dealing with debate and consensus among evangelicals.

Rev. Gerald Zandstra, onetime director of programs at Acton (now on a leave of absence), writes that evangelicals are “not as monolithic, closed-minded, or dangerous as some, especially those who are unfamiliar with Christianity, seem to think.”

He also says about evangelical environmentalism: “The munity for 5,000 years or more has taken its responsibility for the environment seriously. The whole concept of ‘stewardship’ is one es directly from sacred texts. It is built into the opening chapters of Genesis and woven into the whole of Scripture. Human beings, acting as God’s stewards, are to provide care for the earth, remembering that it does not belong to us. Rather, we are managers.”

E. Calvin Beisner, adjunct scholar with the Acton Institute and professor of social ethics at Knox Theological Seminary, also signed the letter to Haggard asking the NAE to suspend its policy course.

Beisner said that the signers “feared that the NAE was going ‘to assume as true certain things that we think are still debatable, such as that global warming is not only real but also almost certainly going to be catastrophically harmful; second, that it is being driven to a significant extent by human activity; and third, that some regime, some international treaty for mandatory reductions in CO2emissions, could make a significant enough drop in global emissions to justify the costs to the human economy.'”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
More government control of charities looms
As public policy debate about the extent of government regulation over charities, Karen Woods argues in favor of a mon sense approach” that “would look to transparency and accountability measures that are already on the books, rather than fashioning yet more regulation and mandated enforcement from public agencies.” Read the full text here. ...
You know the ONE
“We don’t want you to give your money. We’ll just take it instead.” mercial, the one where all the celebrities and guys in collars and habits are talking about raising your “voice” for the world’s poor, has been nominated for an Emmy award for best mercial. It’s the one that ends with the voice of Tom Hanks saying, “We’re not asking for your money. We’re asking for your voice.” In one sense, that is totally true. If those behind the...
The telecom cowboy weeps
Bernie Ebbers got 25 years in the cooler for his role in the demise of WorldCom. If he serves the full sentence, he’ll be 85 years old when they let him out. Here’s how AP described his reaction when the verdict came down: Ebbers sniffled audibly and dabbed at his eyes with a white tissue as he was sentenced. He did not address the court. His wife, Kristie Ebbers, cried quietly. Later, the two embraced as the courtroom emptied. Now,...
Virtual world project
For a very cool tool for anyone interested in archaeology, Biblical studies, or ANE history, check out The Virtual World Project hosted by Creighton University. To see the site I worked on in the summer of 1999, check out Israel: Galilee: Bethsaida (on the north side of the Sea of Galilee). ...
Bastille day
On this date in 1789, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison, sparking the French Revolution. Here’s a quote from Lord paring the American and the French revolutions: “What the French took from the Americans was their theory of revolution, not their theory of government — their cutting, not their sewing.” He also says of France, “The country that had been so proud of its kings, of its nobles, and of its chains, could not learn without teaching that popular...
More praise for world population day
Apparently Europe is buying in to the concept. Here are two key paragraphs from today’s Washington Post, in this article from Robert J. Samuelson, “The End of Europe”: It’s hard to be a great power if your population is shriveling. Europe’s birthrates have dropped well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children for each woman of childbearing age. For Western Europe as a whole, the rate is 1.5. It’s 1.4 in Germany and 1.3 in Italy. In a century —...
Scamming society through the courts
The Wall Street Journal editorializes today (subscription required) on a rare bit of good news from the world of tort law: If the criminal investigation of class-action titan Milberg Weiss is anything to go by, prosecutors may finally be starting to hold the trial bar accountable for its legal abuses. Another good sign is that a separate federal grand jury, this one in New York, is investigating the ringleaders of the latest tort scam, silicosis. Much of the credit for...
Running out of stones
Who needs sustainable cities? It appears that China does. Slashdot reports that a leading architect of the sustainable city movement, William McDonough, has missioned by the Chinese government to create “a national prototype for the design of a sustainable village, an effort focused on creating a template for improving the quality of life for 800 million rural Chinese.” A quick survey of McDonough’s clients includes Ford Motor Company, Fuller Theological Seminary, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and IBM Corporation. In...
Faith makes a difference
“In the first nationwide study that specifically measures how faith relates to the organization and delivery of human service programs, initial results indicate that faith-based or religious charities do indeed conduct their operations in ways that markedly set them apart from secular organizations.” This is the first of several studies highlighting results from the 2004 Samaritan Award survey. This study looks at the role that faith plays in non-profit organizations that participate in human service programs. The study, written by...
Up in smoke
Cigar Jack passes along this story (PDF Page2) about “faith leaders” soliciting the government to place tobacco regulation under the auspices of the FDA. The proposed legislation, which has twice been left languishing in the U.S. House of Representatives, “would give the FDA authority over the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco products.” These faith leaders, like Rev. T. Randall Smith, pastor of Deer Park United Methodist Church and president of Texas Conference of Churches, represent a faction of Christianity...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved