On God

The world is getting warmer. This past summer, I visited our “early warming system” for North America, an island village named Shishmaref located off the coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea. The native tribe of Inupiks is already experiencing a devastating climate blow: the rise in sea level has forced them from their home of four hundred years.

For them, and for some coastal megacities in the developing world, the debate on climate change is already too late. They are learning to move and adapt. But the debate is only about to show its force in American politics and religion.

Many fundamentalist religious leaders have denounced this concern over the climate as the “devil’s diversion.” Those of us who promote “creation care” as a new evangelical agenda are tarred just as easily. I have been accused of being “anti-capitalist and having an underlying hatred for America.” Nevertheless, creation care has the momentum. Projects like the “Scientist-Evangelical” retreats and expeditions co-sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Harvard Center on Health and the Global Environment are creating common ground for stewardship of the Earth.

In this election year, the climate debate is likely to open political and religious division even wider. In Britain, both political parties vie to become the “greenest.” That remains to be seen here, but religious conservatives who go to the ballot box are no longer listening to the voices of anti-scientific philosophy.

Surveys by the Ellison Research Group, Inc., show that seventy-five percent of evangelicals believe that climate change is real and will impact their lives. Eighty-four percent believe that the Congress should pass a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions. Senate Republicans recently rejected a “Climate Security Act,” only one indication that they might be moving to the wrong side of their natural allies: evangelical voters.

Evangelicals are becoming the “go to” religious community on the environment. While the fundamentalist wing still denies care of nature, the broader movement is rapidly shedding old attitudes and speaking out for creation stewardship. Evangelicals have backed reforms from the end of slavery to human rights, and the environment is a logical extension of that ethic: rising sea levels and pollution often effect the poor first; biodiversity is lost for everyone; and disease and drought can displace entire societies.

Many of the largest ministries in America have taken notice. More than a hundred of them, from World Vision and The Salvation Army to megachurch pastors like Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, have signed the “Evangelical Climate Initiative.” The document states that care for our environment is a biblical duty and government has a role to play in addressing climate change—starting now.

Evangelicals make up a hundred million Americans. They are from forty to fifty percent of the conservative base of the GOP, and have thus far given President Bush a “pass” on global warming. The result is “business as usual,” securing the reputation that the GOP, and many evangelicals, tow the line of big business and powerful industries.

But a new generation of evangelicals may desert the Grand Old Party for its lack of facing up to the environmental future. A sociologist once said, “As evangelicalism goes, so goes the West.” And so may go one election or another—since evangelicals are one quarter of the voting public, and even a small percent shift can cause political earthquakes.

The “unholy alliance” between conscience-driven evangelicals and the wealth of corporate elites is perhaps the most unseemly reason why conservatives reject creation care. Another is an unfortunate logic about religion and science. That relationship in the United States has been distorted by disputes over evolution and creation.

Progress in science literacy and the environment have been victims of the origins debate. It goes something like this: scientists believe in evolution, evangelicals reject evolution; therefore, evangelicals reject the scientific consensus on global warming. The only way to bridge this gap is to bring scientists and evangelicals together—and that’s what we’re trying to do.

We are on the verge of an evangelical awakening to the global environmental crisis. But an even more significant accomplishments will occur when the worlds of religion and science come together in a spirit of reconciliation. We still disagree, many of us, about how the world came into existence. But there’s no disagreement about whether that world deserves protection.   

Cizik is vice president for government affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals in Washington, D.C., representing its sixty-one member denominations on matters related to the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. An ordained Presbyterian, Cizik studied political science at Whitworth College and earned master’s degrees in both public affairs, at George Washington University, and in theology, at Denver Seminary.
  

Become a Subscriber