Article: Evangelical leaders join global warming battle

[Guest guest]

Just passing along some good news - more allies

 

*Smile*

Chris (list mom)

http://www.alittleolfactory.com

 

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http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_2605922

 

Evangelical leaders join global warming battle

Religious group could have enough sway in Washington to change

anti-emission control stance

 

 

By Laurie Goodstein, New York Times

 

 

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 had two meetings on Capitol Hill and in Washington,

D.C., suburbs this week where more than 100 leaders discussed issuing a

statement on global warming. The meetings were considered so pivotal

that Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and officials of the Bush

administration, who are on opposite sides on how to address global

warming, spoke.

 

 

People on all sides of the debate say that if evangelical leaders take a

stand, they could change the political dynamics on global warming.

 

 

The administration has refused to join the international Kyoto Treaty

and opposes mandatory emission controls.

 

 

The issue has failed to gain much traction in the Republican-controlled

Congress. An overwhelming majority of evangelicals are Republicans, and

about four out of five evangelicals voted for Bush last year, according

to the Pew Research Center.

 

 

The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of

Evangelicals, an umbrella group of 51 church denominations, said he had

become passionate about global warming because of his experiences scuba

diving and observing the effects of rising ocean temperatures and

pollution on coral reefs.

 

 

" The question is, will evangelicals make a difference, and the answer

is, the Senate thinks so, " Haggard said. " We do represent

 

 

30 million people, and we can mobilize them if we have to. "

 

 

In October, the association paved the way for broad-based advocacy on

the environment when it adopted " For the Health of the Nation: An

Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility, " a platform that included a

plank on " creation care " that many evangelical leaders say was

unprecedented.

 

 

" Because clean air, pure water and adequate resources are crucial to

public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect

its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation, " the

statement says.

 

 

It has been signed by close to 100 evangelical leaders.

 

 

But it is far from certain that a more focused statement on climate

change would elicit a similar response.

 

 

In recent years, however, whenever the association latched onto a new

issue, Washington has paid attention, on questions such as religious

persecution, violence in Sudan, AIDS in Africa and sex trafficking of

young girls.

 

 

Environmentalists said they would welcome the evangelicals as allies.

 

 

" They have good friendships in places where the rest of the

environmental community doesn't, " Larry Schweiger, president and chief

executive of the National Wildlife Federation, said.

 

 

" For instance, in legislative districts where there's a very

conservative lawmaker who might not be predisposed to pay attention to

what environmental groups might say but may pay attention to what the

local faith community is saying. "

 

 

 

It is not as if the evangelical and environmental groups are

collaborating, because the wedge between them remains deep, Cizik said.

He added that evangelicals had long been uncomfortable with what they

perceived to be the environmentalists' support for government

regulation, population control and, if they are not entirely secular,

new age approach to religion.

 

 

During the last three years, evangelical leaders such as Cizik have

begun to reconsider their silence on environmental questions. Some

evangelicals were speaking out, but not many. Among them was the Rev.

Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network, who in 2002 began a

" What Would Jesus Drive? " campaign and drove a hybrid vehicle across the

country.

 

 

Cizik said that Ball " dragged " him to a conference on climate change in

2002 in Oxford, England. Among the speakers were evangelical scientists,

including John Houghton, a retired Oxford professor of atmospheric

physics who was on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a

committee that issued international reports.

 

 

Houghton said in an interview that he had told the group that science

and faith together provided proof that climate change should be a

Christian concern.

 

 

Cizik said he had a " conversion " on climate change so profound in Oxford

that he likened it to an " altar call, " when nonbelievers accept Jesus as

their savior. Cizik recently bought a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle.

 

 

Cizik and Ball then asked Houghton to speak at a small meeting of

evangelical leaders in June in Maryland called by the Evangelical

Environmental Network, the National Association of Evangelicals and

Christianity Today, the magazine. The leaders read Scripture and said

they were moved by three watermen who caught crabs in Chesapeake Bay and

said their faith made them into environmentalists.

 

 

Those leaders produced a " covenant " in which 29 committed to " engage the

evangelical community " on climate change and to produce a " consensus

statement " within a year.

 

 

Soon, Christianity Today ran an editorial endorsing a bill sponsored by

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., along with Lieberman, that would include

binding curbs on greenhouse gases. Ball said the strongest moral

argument he made to fellow evangelicals was that climate change would

have disproportionate effects on the poorest regions in the world.

Hurricanes, droughts and floods are widely expected to intensify as a

result of climate change.

 

 

He said evangelical leaders of relief and development organizations had

been very receptive.

 

 

" Christ said, 'What you do to the least of these you do to me,' " Ball

said. " And so caring for the poor by reducing the threat of global

warming is caring for Jesus Christ. "

 

 

Among those speaking at the two meetings this week are Houghton and Mack

McFarland, environmental manager for DuPont, who is to describe how

his company has greatly reduced gas emissions.

 

 

Such an approach appeals to evangelicals, Haggard said. " We want to be

pro-business environmentalists. "

 

 

Cizik said he was among many evangelicals who would supported some

regulation on greenhouse gasses.

 

 

" We're not adverse to government-mandated prohibitions on behavioral sin

such as abortion, " he said. " We try to restrict it. So why, if we're

social tinkering to protect the sanctity of human life, ought we not be

for a little tinkering to protect the environment? "

 

 

" Support from the evangelical and broader religious community, "

Lieberman said, " can really move some people in Congress who feel some

sense of moral responsibility but haven't quite settled on an exact

policy response yet. This could be pivotal. "