Christianity and Global Warming posted by Ben

Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming

A question I have been asking of various members of the clergy for some time is why the majority of Christian leaders in the United States have refused to address some of the major social and environmental issues of the times.

During my short period at the Progressive Democrats of America conference this January in D.C., I heard a fascinating story from a woman who had a chance to speak at length with the head honcho at Purpose Driven Life™, the corporation-masquerading-as-a-book that has so successfully taught millions of Christians that Calvin might have really been on to something with his big focus on predestination. She asked him if he was aware of the moral issues with the Iraq war. Surprisingly, he showed a convincing knowledge of why the war was wrong from a conservative Christian perspective. He understood that Christians were being duped by the Bush administration. But he could not explain why Christians in leadership positions, like himself, were not using those positions to articulate any sort of clear moral opposition to the politics of death and destruction.

I suspect that many more members of the clergy are in a similar position, in that they are fully aware of the false morality driving the Iraq war and other elements of Bush's policy, yet they do not or can not speak up about them. (I am meeting this afternoon with a Lutheran pastor to discuss this very topic.)

With that in mind, I was pleasantly surprised by the article linked above when I encountered it last night.

A core group of influential evangelical leaders has put its considerable political power behind a cause that has barely registered on the evangelical agenda, fighting global warming.

These church leaders, scientists, writers and heads of international aid agencies argue that global warming is an urgent threat, a cause of poverty and a Christian issue because the Bible mandates stewardship of God's creation.

The Rev. Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals and a significant voice in the debate, said, "I don't think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created."

The association has scheduled two meetings on Capitol Hill and in the Washington suburbs on Thursday and Friday, where more than 100 leaders will discuss issuing a statement on global warming. The meetings are considered so pivotal that Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and officials of the Bush administration, who are on opposite sides on how to address global warming, will speak.

People on all sides of the debate say that if evangelical leaders take a stand, they could change the political dynamics on global warming.

Isn't that the truth. As Salon pointed out yesterday, Christianity in 21st century America is strongly associated with extreme right wing politics, but it wasn't that many decades ago that church leaders were spearheading the call for civil rights and progressive values in this country. How long can mainstream Christianity remain under the thumb of the conservative agenda before groups like Purpose Driven Life™ can no longer keep silent about what even they can see clearly, that the moral right to power and control claimed by the Republican leadership is rotten to the core.