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| Posted By: Jim Jewell | | Friday August 31st, 2007 |
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Over the last year and a half, an increasing number of evangelical leaders have pronounced their concern about global warming, had the audacity to frame the argument in moral terms, and called for action to protect future generations. This new development has the nation's Democratic strategists rubbing their hands in anticipation and Republicans looking for liberal activists behind the every new expression of evangelical environmentalism.
The new expressions of what we as evangelicals call creation-care, as well as other initiatives by conservative evangelicals on issues such as rescuing Darfur, assisting African AIDS victims, and protecting human rights, are introducing new realities to the political and ecclesiastical landscape.
But the message is different than the political parties and pundits are suggesting. Certainly the new evangelicals are more difficult to figure out, enthuse, and mobilize than the Republican Party has come to expect. But it's a mistake for the Democratic Party to assume that evangelicals who are looking through new lenses, including green ones, are drifting to the left and are ready to abandon the issues that have kept them in the Republican fold.
The clearest way to explain the majority of American evangelicals, including the new — often young — evangelicals is that they are increasingly embracing a total life ethic.
This new ethic still calls for protection of the unborn and of the unwanted through policies against abortion and euthanasia. But it also strives to protect the climate, and to help the poor and disadvantaged in the U.S. and in the vulnerable places of the world, such as Africa. The total life ethic seeks to protect the incubator and divinely designed cradle of human life, the family; but it also calls for human rights, freedom and the rewards of hard work. New evangelicals are reaching into new areas, but they don't stop preaching and demonstrating that fullness of life comes only through lives surrendered to and transformed by Jesus Christ.
The embracing of this new ethic isn't drawing evangelicals to a more liberal political philosophy. It opens up new areas of inquiry for many longtime Christian believers, but the solutions to newly recognized problems won't make conservative Christians enthusiastic about government solutions. A conservative Christian who is concerned about the environment, for instance, is likely to work diligently to find solutions that will call for personal responsibility, ensure personal freedom, and rely as little on government as possible.
Most evangelicals — 70 percent in a recent Ellison Research poll — believe that human-induced global warming will cause harm to future generations. Most believe that action to curb it should be taken now. But as conservatives we believe a robust response to the threat of global warming will involve individuals, families, churches, businesses, and governments at multiple levels. In particular, we believe in states' rights and responsibilities and that strong action on climate by states, businesses, families, and individuals should be encouraged and not weakened by action at the federal level.
Also, evangelicals believe — as do most Americans — that our reliance on foreign oil undermines our national security, and makes us dependent on undemocratic, despotic foreign regimes that restrict the religious liberty of their peoples, threaten the stability of democratic allies such as Israel, and constrain our ability to occupy the moral high ground in foreign policy on human rights and religious freedom.
We do believe there is a role for government and that one of its primary functions is to protect all of its citizens from undue harm, be it from foreign invaders, criminals, or pollution that impacts human life.
Additionally, as a part of our total life ethic we believe Christians are called to protect the poor, and as citizens in a democracy we want our government to do the same. The most important way that federal government policy can protect the poor here and around the world from the impacts of global warming is to begin to solve the problem by dramatically reducing CO2 emissions.
Not all evangelicals agree on how to solve the problems we face as a nation. That complicates things for political candidates, which is fine. It shouldn't be easy for political parties to pigeonhole evangelical Christians or any faith group. A life ethic and worldview informed by historic faith and guided by moral principles should transcend politics. Often it doesn't, but at its best the Church will inject moral courage and the principles of the Kingdom of God into temporal kingdoms.
As more-than-green evangelicals we are pleased to stand apart from both environmentalists who ignore the Creator and Christians who ignore His Creation. And as a national community of evangelicals that is largely conservative and increasingly committed to a total life ethic, we suggest that politicians of all stripes see us for who we really are. |
| | | Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
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