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.
Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Part 1
May 26, 2008
The Rev. Dr. Joel Hunter is Senior Pastor of Northland Church in Lakewood FL and a spokesperson for the Evangelical Climate Initiative. This excerpt, used with permission, is found on pages 78-83 of Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won’t Fly with Most Conservative Christians published in 2006 by Distributed Church Press (Longwood, FL). See www.rightwingwrongbird.com.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
We need to reverse the established trends of the religious right to attack opponents. Even well respected and usually thoughtful leaders of the religious right vilify other Christians when they disagree with them, without first getting their facts straight. We have adopted the methods of talk radio and cross-fire TV, and diminished the art of debate so that we are fighting only our version of their side.
For example, in a May 2006 radio broadcast, a nationally known Christian leader mischaracterized and misquoted a well-respected evangelical leader about global warming. Richard Cizik, the Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals (a 30-million member organization) was attacked for his stance – only it wasn’t his stance. The Christian leader quoted Richard as saying things than none of us (including Richard) would ever agree with, including, “global warming is the most important social issue of our day”; “those who are skeptical of global warming are immoral”; “he and his associates want to roll back the use of fossil fuels, oil, to the 1998 levels or even earlier, which would paralyze industry and put millions of people out of work … the net effect is anti-capitalistic and underlying hatred for America.”
Wow! Does that sound like what any of us would be for? Putting concern about global warming above the sanctity of life instead of being another expression of it? Putting millions of people out of work? Hating America? What? No!
I use this example not only because I was one of the original signers of the Evangelical Climate Initiative along with Richard (and therefore know what we are recommending and what we are not), but also because this kind of rebuttal is such a clear example of what so many debaters are doing in the media: radicalizing someone’s position so that they can knock it down more easily. The leader did not contact Richard to verify his facts, and then he accused Richard and his associates of trying to divide evangelicals … Global warming is certainly a complex issue. Those who do not believe it is happening, or that humans do not contribute to it and can’t fix it, or that there are no impending dangers connected with it, believe that because there is some evidence to support their argument. Those who do believe that global warming is real, that humans can be helpful in addressing the problem, and that it might well have some effects that are not gradual but currently volatile, also have evidence. Let’s encourage the debate!
But first let me ask, is debate a prerequisite to doing everything we can to be good stewards of creation? Do we really need to settle the scientific debate before we stop accepting pollution as a necessary evil and diligently work to devise better forms of energy usage? The issue to evangelical Christians isn’t global warming; the issue is whether or not we will exercise a moral and biblical obedience to a direct command of God (Genesis 2:15). How we do that, personally and policy wise, is something we can all work on together. We just need to keep working on it together, and that will require seeing our differences as informing instead of inflaming.
Conservative Christians need to be more ambidextrous rather than just “Right” or “Left” oriented. The Bible is more holistic, more fulfilling to all of life’s needs rather than heavy-handed on what is morally right or compassionately left. We need to expand our repertoire. Before we expand, though, let’s sing some praises for the foundation that has been laid.
The issues that have defined evangelical voters up to this time are biblical and moral ones that will always be primary for us. The protection of all life, especially the most vulnerable, the protection of the biblical definition (Genesis 2:18- 24) of marriage as between one man and one woman, the nurture of the family, the advocacy of religious liberty, and the advocacy of sex only within marriage are crucial issues for the Christian in addressing his or her culture.
There is another constituency, though, that is looking for leadership on other important issues in order to be a blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3). These are usually younger Christians, or more liberal ones who have learned that in order to effectively deepen our impact on society we must broaden our team. What are these other areas addressed in the Bible that are also important to God?
Above the Arctic Circle by Jim Ball
April 29, 2008
After a six-day trip to a symposium and tour of Greenland, my wife Kara and I arrived home to discover that our travel destination, the Arctic Circle, had become hot news—with major stories on NBC Nightly News and ABC World News Tonight. The NBC correspondent was reporting from the exact place we had visited, the Ilulissat glacier, a stunningly beautiful World Heritage Site on the western side of Greenland, 155 miles above the Arctic Circle. Newspaper articles were reporting on what we had heard during the Arctic symposium: the Arctic sea ice has receded farther this year than any time since satellite measurements have been kept starting in 1979.
The reduction has made the famed Northwest passage navigable (saving 5,000 to 10,000 miles a trip when it becomes commercially viable), and the nations which have Arctic coastlines —the U.S., Canada, Russia, Norway, and Denmark (for Greenland) —are now racing to claim sovereignty over as much of the Arctic as they can get, because vast quantities of oil, gas, and minerals are thought to exist under what normally would be covered with ice. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that up to 25 percent of the world’s oil reserves could be stored below the Arctic ice. The cover story for the Spring 2007 Harper’s magazine reports that the U.S. could reap $1.3 trillion worth of resources.
I have often commented (as I did in June to a hostile question from Senator Inhofe during my testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee) that I hope companies will make lots of money solving global warming. I want them to do well by doing good. But in this instance we have a situation where global warming itself is unlocking the very resources fueling its rise. It feels perverse.
And because it feels perverse it would be quite easy to take cheap “prophetic” shots at those who want to capitalize on such opportunities. But it is probably enough to underscore at this point that global warming has and will bring death. Pristine areas will be scarred and exploited. All to put cheap gas in our cars. The symposium we attended was sponsored by Patriarch Bartholomew (called by some “the Green Patriarch”), spiritual leader to 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. It was entitled “The Arctic: Mirror of Life.”
The Arctic, we learned, is indeed in trouble. Senior scientist Bob Correll, who chaired the recent Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and who has been studying the area for decades, told us that the Arctic sea ice is currently disappearing at a rate much faster than scientists projected only a few years ago. Bob told us that by 2040, plus or minus 10 years, the Arctic summer sea ice could be gone. Previously I had heard 2040—but possibly by 2030? Twenty-three years from now? Once it disappears in the summers, what then, besides the drilling? Human-induced global warming will have caused the disappearance of what we culturally understand as the North Pole. How could we do that?
Another shocker was learning how much of the pollution from industrial nations was ending up in the Arctic due to global circulation patterns, traveling up the food chainto bioaccumulate in massive quantities in polar bears, walruses, whales, and seals. When the Inuit, the peoples native to the Arctic regions, eat their traditional diet, they too are impacted. One of the findings presented at the symposium is that among the Inuit twice as many girls are being born than boys. The scientists suspect that PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls—industrial pollutants known to be endocrine disruptors) that have bioaccumulated in the animals that are part of the diet of Inuit mothers are causing their unborn male babies to abort. While not on the same geographic scale as the consequences of climate change, these largely unknown tragedies are nevertheless known by God. I don’t know what my own culpability is with regard to PCBs, but I do know that the Inuit are innocent victims. And it haunts me.
One of the purposes of the Arctic tour was to have religious leaders from around the world experience a brief time of silent prayer together on the deck of our ship. Those participating were arrayed in their finest traditional dress that clearly marked them as leaders from various faiths: Shia and Sunni Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and various branches of Christianity. They all looked quite impressive, whereas I, as a Baptist evangelical, was dressed in fairly typical low-Protestant garb for such an august occasion – grey slacks and a blue blazer covered by a purely functional blue windbreaker.
We prayed for two minutes in the Arctic silence. Afterward, I was asked by reporters whether I had had a spiritually meaningful experience and what I thought the real significance of the event was. I told them that the real power of the event would not be measured by its impact on the clergy who participated, but by its effect on those who saw such diverse religious leaders come together to pray for the people of the Arctic and what we are doing to them. Right after the time of silent prayer the Sunni Islamic representative asked me directly (and rather boldly, but in a friendly way) what I had prayed. I shared with him the Apostle Paul’s reassurance that when we don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit prays with us with sighs too deep for words. On the deck of that ship above the Arctic Circle, I found that most of the time I prayed only emotions instead of words. But when I did pray in words, they were these: “Help us, Lord Jesus.”
The Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D., is an ordained Baptist minister, the President and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network, and the national spokesperson for the Evangelical Climate Initiative.
