First up from the God machine this week is an encouraging religious development on climate change, from an unexpected source.
Signaling a significant departure from the Southern Baptist Convention’s official stance on global warming, 44 Southern Baptist leaders have decided to back a declaration calling for more action on climate change, saying its previous position on the issue was “too timid.”
The largest denomination in the United States after the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, with more than 16 million members, is politically and theologically conservative.
Yet its current president, the Rev. Frank Page, signed the initiative, “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change.” Two past presidents of the convention, the Rev. Jack Graham and the Rev. James Merritt, also signed.
“We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues has often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice,” the church leaders wrote in their new declaration.
The new SBC declaration, to be released on Monday, states, “Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed.” The NYT added, “The document also urges ministers to preach more about the environment and for all Baptists to keep an open mind about considering environmental policy.”
Richard Land and the SBC’s political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, refused to sign the declaration. That, sadly, was rather predictable.
But this is still significant progress. Talk in evangelical circles about global warming has, slowly but surely, been getting louder in recent years, but the chances of the politically conservative Southern Baptist Convention taking a firm stand on the issue like this seemed remote.
The meaning, in religious circles, of the phrase “moral issue” is beginning to change. This doesn’t mean evangelicals are prepared to give up their opposition to gay and abortion rights, but it does mean that, for a new generation of the faithful, moral rights and wrongs will include more than just those two issues.
Other items from the God Machine this week:
* This year, for the first time, the Democratic National Convention will be kicked off by an interfaith prayer service (though it’s still unclear exactly who will officiate), and, in another first, there will be a caucus during the convention explicitly for “people of faith.”
Some Democratic leaders resolved to reach out to religious voters after the 2004 election, when polls showed Republicans had a lock on “values voters” — mostly evangelical Christians. Leading these efforts is the Rev. Leah D. Daughtry, chief executive of the convention. Ms. Daughtry (daughter of Herbert Daughtry, a minister in Brooklyn) flies from Denver to Washington every other weekend to lead her small Pentecostal congregation.
Ms. Daughtry announced in a conference call with members of the religious news media on Wednesday that convention committees had been seeded with religious leaders like the Rev. Tony Campolo, an evangelical author; Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago; and Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first woman to be a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
* Remember the Seven Deadly Sins? This week, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, published a list of the seven new deadly sins for the modern age.
Although it doesn’t reflect a change in official doctrine, the expansion of sins brought on by technology and science aligns with Pope Benedict XVI’s emphasis on communal rather than individual piety, observers say.
In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti said priests must take into account “new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as corollary to the unstoppable process of globalization.”
Among the new ones: drug dealing, obscene wealth, pollution, and “manipulative” genetic science.
* And finally, when I worked at Americans United for Separation of Church and State years ago, I would sometimes get asked, “Where are the worst church-state offenses?” A few places in Alabama would usually come to mind, but there’s one town in Louisiana that tops ’em all.
There are certain things you can count on. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Old Faithful will erupt. And, every few years, the American Civil Liberties Union will sue the Tangipahoa Parish School Board in Louisiana.
The members of this board seem to be having difficulty grasping the concept of separation of church and state. It’s a long-running problem. For some reason, school board members don’t seem to understand that their job is to oversee the education of young people, not meddle in their religious lives.
Every few years, local officials ignore the First Amendment, get sued, and lose. It costs local taxpayers a fortune. Why they refuse to give up on creating a local theocracy remains a mystery.