Bedfellows Alert
By Callimachus | Related entries in Environment, ReligionI don’t know if this is going to be on the NYT site or not, but I pulled it off the wire. Again, it’s not really new, if you’ve been following this business for the last decade or so, but it seems to be news to the NYT.
WASHINGTON � In their long and frustrated efforts pushing Congress to pass legislation on global warming, environmentalists are gaining a new ally.
With increasing vigor, evangelical groups that are part of the base of conservative support for leading Republicans are campaigning for laws that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists have linked with global warming.
In the latest effort, the National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, is circulating among its leaders the draft of a policy statement that would encourage lawmakers to pass legislation creating mandatory controls for carbon emissions.
Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for congressional action, and many evangelicals further believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming is a values issue that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the Earth.
“Genesis 2:15,” said Richard Cizik, the association’s vice president for governmental affairs, citing a passage that serves as the justification for the effort: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
“We believe that we have a rightful responsibility for what the Bible itself challenges,” Cizik said. “Working the land and caring for it go hand in hand. That’s why I think, and say unapologetically, that we ought to be able to bring to the debate a new voice.”
Sorry, fellow skeptics, for not warning you beforehand about the “Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for congressional action” line. How far did the coffee blurt out your nose, anyhow?
Evangelicals have been the whipping boys of the left for so long now, is it just possible they might be let off the hook for being zombie social conservatives who want to make “The Handmaid’s Tale” a reality? After all, militarists and feminists made common cause against the Taliban. But if they can’t mock the God-squaders, who will they mock now?
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November 6th, 2005 at 10:31 pm
I think more and more you’re going to see this type of thing happening. If you really believe in the teachings of Christ, it’s hard (if not impossible) to justify Hummers, the death penalty and millions going without health care in this country. I think they could pull the right more towards the center socially, while still talking very strongly about abortion. It would certainly help that message’s credibility with a lot of moderate voters.
By the way, I laughed out loud at The Handmaid’s Tale reference. Nice.
November 8th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
I sure hope that this is a movement on the rise, especially since there are millions of evangelicals who actually welcome evironmental destruction as a sign of the apocalypse:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html
Let’s hope the “end-worlders” are on the decline.