Evangelicals, Environmentalists Unite

Groups Join Forces Over Shared Concerns On Protecting The Earth

(AP)  The last time the environment was a major political issue was the 1970s, when rivers were catching fire, acid rain was killing lakes and Earth Day was created. President Nixon, a Republican, signed landmark legislation to combat air and water pollution, protect endangered species and create the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since then, League of Conservation Voters scorecards show Democrats getting greener and Republicans browner. President Bush earned the organization's first "F" for a president.

Hoping to sway President Bush, 86 evangelical pastors, college presidents and theologians signed a letter in February calling on Christians and the government to combat global warming.

One of the signers was Bert Waggoner, national director of The Vineyard USA, a network of more than 600 churches with 200,000 members.

"If you believe, as I do, that the ultimate end is not the destruction of the Earth but the healing of the Earth, you will be inclined toward wanting to work with God to see it restored," he said.

Much of the old guard remains unmoved.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, adopted a resolution in June denouncing environmental activism and warning that it was "threatening to become a wedge issue to divide the evangelical community."

Focus on the Family leader James Dobson admonished evangelicals to remain focused on stopping abortion and gay marriage.

The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, which includes Christian leaders with close ties to the Bush administration, argues that if humans are responsible for global warming, the costs of preventing it outweigh the harm it causes, said spokesman Calvin Beisner.

"This is not a split," DeWitt said. "It is a transformation. What you find in the evangelical world in contrast to mainline denominations is that they are very suspect of authority."

A Pew Research Center for the People survey this year found that 66 percent of white evangelicals said there was solid evidence the Earth was getting warmer, with 32 percent blaming human activity, 22 percent natural patterns and the rest undecided.

John Green, professor of political science at the University of Akron and a senior fellow of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, sees evangelicals, particularly the young and educated, increasingly interested in issues that could take some of them out of the Republican Party.

"Climate change is not only a part of this but perhaps the most public part," Green said.

Robinson said he voted for Mr. Bush in 2004 because of his opposition to abortion, but it was a tough decision, making him feel he was voting against the environment.

"If the conservatives want the Christian vote, they are going to have to address this," he said.

The pastor feels like Noah cutting his first tree to build the Ark.

"God blesses small beginnings," he said. "That's why we're trying to get people to recycle - do the little things. I believe God will meet us."

[drrko]

As Dean Demarest from St. Michael%u2019s and All Angels in Boise recently commented, a quality of Christian community is that it be invitational. Nothing is more detrimental to authentic Christian community than when a group becomes exclusive. In Boise, the Episcopalian and Vineyard congregations are equally evangelistic and equally concerned with the environment. They form a mutual admiration society and exist along side the entire community in defense of God%u2019s creation without regard to specific religious belief. Religion in the Far West is unique to that east of the Great Divide as my years in the Midwest and the West Coast has revealed. God%u2019s creation is more obviously fragile here and establishes a unified community faithful to maintaining its beauty and its bounty. We are not mystified by the ties that bind us to the land from Tabernacle Square to Grace Cathedral, from Pastor Robinson to Cardinal Mahoney. Tri Robinson%u2019s Texan dad should be mighty proud of what his son is contributing to Idaho%u2019s isolated corner of God%u2019s kingdom!

[vidiot3]

Well, Praise the Lord! Finally we are seeing a glimmer of light. Forget the true wedge issues, abortion, *** marriage, women in the ministry. Saving our beautiful earth and our precious civilization is what should galvanize Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, everyone with a soul. This is something we can all come together and agree on, WE DON'T NEED TO DESTROY OUR PLANET TO BE HAPPY! In saving our world, we will truly be saving each other and isn't that what Salvation is all about? The saint within us saving other saints, not because we agree or disagree, but because it is the right, the good thing to do.