Alexander Zaitchik writes in the New York Press:
Its always a learning experience with the Christian Right. Visit the websites of the movement’s leading organizations and you’ll find out about problems you didn’t know you had, threats you didn’t know the country faced. … But try to find any mention of the melting ice caps or the planet’s quickening extinction rate, and ye shall seek in vain. In the world of the Christian Right, concern for the environment is still an atheistic socialist plot to bankrupt godly American industry; it has no place in the fight for the health and soul of the nation. […]
Today’s GOP likes to toss around the name Teddy Roosevelt, but it has no use for the party philosophy expressed by T.R. when he declared, “[S]hort of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendents than it is for us.” […]
This October, the board of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), representing 51 denominations encompassing 30 million American evangelical Christians, unanimously approved a document entitled “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.” The declaration calls for public engagement in a range of issues, prominent among them “Creation Care” – Christian-speak for environmental activism.
The document states: “We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part. We are not owners of creation, but its stewards, summoned by God to ‘watch over and care for it’ (Gen. 2:15).”
Richard Cizik, the NAE’s vice president for government affairs, says the purpose of the document is to “educate evangelicals that our public policy concerns go beyond a few high profile social issues like abortion.”
Previous Comments
I was amazed in the last election season how often I heard the “to destroy the earth as quickly as possible is an affirmation in ones belief in the second coming of christ,” arguement. Use it or lose it. To think, since Jesus is coming soon, its a shame not to use what we have, since no one else will use it.
#169866 | Author: Herman Snell | Date: Dec 18 2004
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.
