Sarah Palin and New Evangelicals: Conservative, Christian, and Green
September 3, 2008
One of many interesting elements that emerges with the selection by Sen. John McCain of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate is that she is a deeply committed Christian who has expressed her concern for climate change and exhibits the characteristics of a western environmentalist.
Publicly known evangelical Christians who are pro-life and pro-environment effectively debunk the notion that Christians who champion creation care are less evangelical, less conservative, and less concerned about traditional evangelical issues.
What we know is that there is a growing number—we sense it is a rapidly growing number—of devote Christians who are becoming greener without, necessarily, becoming bluer.
The new expressions of 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.
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.
Most evangelicals—70 percent in a recent Ellison Research poll—believe that human-induced global warming will cause harm to future generations; and 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.
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 observers see us for who we really are. When they get to know Sarah Palin, they may develop a greater understanding of what this means.
Jim Jewell is the campaign director of The Evangelical Climate Initiative.
Comments
One Response to “Sarah Palin and New Evangelicals: Conservative, Christian, and Green”
Got something to say?
I wish I could agree with your suggestion that the majority of Evangelical Christians are also concerned about Creation Care. However, I still read too many posts which claim that environmentalists are fundamentally too liberal and non-believers.
I also disagree that Sarah Palin represents the new Evangelical attitude. Instead, as we learn more about her political views, it appears that she represents the new wave of two-faced politicians hiding behind their claims of faith in order to ganer votes. Her selection by McCain was a choice made to win, not to govern, and as we near the debates, I believe that her inadequacies will come to the fore.
I have always subscribed to the all-life view as a Christian, and see little from mainstream Evangelicals which supports this view. Instead, they seem to remain single-issue voters who will vote for an anti-abortion candidate, and ignore the same candidates’ global warmaking and abuse of the poor and the disadvantaged. I pray that Evangelicals will learn that God expects us to respect ALL life, not just the lives of Americans, or jsut the lives of conservatives, or just the lives of Christians. After all, HE was known to befriend prostitutes, thieves and the marginalized in the world of HIS time. We are called t do the same, regardless of politics.