Guest Post by Morbo
According to a recent report in The New York Times, evangelical Christians are suddenly interested in global warming. We’re told religious conservatives are awakening to an understanding of their role as stewards of God’s creation and are ready to save the planet.
Nah. Five or six of them might be. The rest don’t care.
I hate to be cynical — well, to be honest, I actually kind of like it — but I’m not convinced the Republican Party’s Jesus Brigade is going green. The evidence for this seems rather slender.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an umbrella group representing 51 denominations, last year approved a policy statement on civic responsibility. The 12-page document contains four paragraphs that deal with the environment. One reads,
“Human beings have responsibility for creation in a variety of ways. We urge Christians to shape their personal lives in creation-friendly ways: practicing effective recycling, conserving resources, and experiencing the joy of contact with nature. We urge government to encourage fuel efficiency, reduce pollution, encourage sustainable use of natural resources, and provide for the proper care of wildlife and their natural habitats.”
That’s kind of hard to disagree with. You would not label it a hard-hitting call for action. As a matter of fact, the phrase “global warming” appears nowhere in the NAE statement.
“The question is, will evangelicals make a difference, and the answer is, the Senate thinks so,” the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the NAE, told The Times. “We do represent 30 million people, and we can mobilize them if we have to.”
Haggard is either bluffing or deluded.
As tentative as they have been, the NAE’s moves toward going green came under fire immediately, as The Times noted the very next day. Leading the assault are evangelical leaders who probably represent most of those 30 million and have more influence on Capitol Hill than the Rev. Haggard. Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, for example, is not on board. And Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have said things about global warming and environmentalism in general that put them firmly in the nut right “don’t worry, be happy” camp.
For many in the Religious Right, the issue of global warming can be addressed in one of three ways:
1. It’s a myth, brought to you by the same far-out, sandal-wearing Commie scientists who promote evolution.
2. Who cares? Jesus is coming back soon, and we are soooo outta here. Those of you “left behind” can deal with the hot planet. It will be a little taste of things to come. Ha, ha!
3. Gay marriage is all that matters. Gay marriage is all that matters. Gay marriage is all that matters.
In other words, don’t expect to see Falwell in a Toyota Prius any time soon — even if he could fit into a Prius, which is doubtful.
Back in 2002, Falwell had some choice things to say about global warming. Those were the days of the “What would Jesus drive?” campaign and Falwell made his answer crystal clear: Jesus would drive a big, honking SUV.
“Global warming is a myth,” Falwell told CNN. He predicted that “our grandchildren will laugh at those who predicted global warming. We’ll be cooler then, if the Lord hasn’t returned.” (For more of Falwell’s insane ramblings, see David Corn’s fine piece on AlterNet.)
Addressing the Christian Coalition last September, Falwell again ridiculed global warming. Posing as a sort of fundamentalist stand-up comedian, Falwell told the receptive crowd that every morning he shoots some hair spray into the air, just to show the ozone layer who is boss. The crowd of several hundred laughed and laughed at Falwell’s funny joke.
Pat Robertson is not exactly an environmentalist either. He once ridiculed efforts to save endangered species, offering the novel idea that knocking down the habitat of the spotted owl was no big deal. The owls, you see, could simply go live in other trees.
Dobson, who is hands down the most powerful and influential Religious Right leader in America today, has also made it clear he’ll have no truck with this global warming stuff. The day after the NAE meeting, Dobson’s FOF issued a press statement quoting Tom Minnery, vice president of government and public policy, who had complained during the NAE event about the focus on liberal do-gooder “save the planet” junk.
As far as Focus is concerned, there are more pressing issues than the survival of the globe — mainly blocking gay marriage, bashing federal judges and ending legal abortion.
“Our friends at the National Association of Evangelicals, with whom we agree on these and so many other issues, have now staked out a position in the very controversial area of global warming This is despite the fact that significant disagreement exists within the scientific community regarding the validity of this theory.”
So there you have the official FOF line: “We don’t care about it, and it’s all fake anyway.” Five million people listen to Dr. Dobson every day. How many listen to the Rev. Haggard?
Sorry to blunt, but most evangelicals are right wing, and most of them just don’t care about this issue or choose to believe it’s yet another secular humanist plot to tear down big business. I suppose it’s fun to pretend like evangelicals are starting to care, but that doesn’t mean it’s happening.
In December, Alexander Zaitchik, a writer for the online magazine Freezerbox, tried in vain to get a staffer with the Christian Coalition to comment on global warming. It was obvious they could not care less. Zaitchik did find an interesting quote from a writer for the Eagle Forum, who warned that the United Nations was determined to “conjure up a man-caused global warming theory [to force] developed countries [to] fill the coffers of corrupt Third-World governments.”
While continuing to hold out hope that some evangelicals might take the issue of global warming seriously, Zaitchik put forth this interesting theory of how an issue like this, which might seem peripheral to many culture warriors, bounces around the social conservative universe and ultimately leads to religious conservatives being marched, lemming-like, into extreme free market, big-business camp:
In today’s GOP, Zaitchik wrote:
“Southern evangelicals set the social agenda at the grassroots level, while secular forces in the north (and west) set the economic and foreign policy agendas. These policies are then fed back to the religious base through industry-subsidized Christian Right leaders in Congress and the media, who reinforce the idea that pollution controls are part of the same godless liberal plot that wants gay porn and home-abortion kits distributed in public high-schools.”
Wish I had written that. It’s accurate too. Anecdotes about tree-hugging evangelicals wither beside it.
As for the NAE, it looks like there’s much less to its commitment to save the world than meets the eye. They wouldn’t want to do anything rash, like work alongside tree-worshipping hippies or advocate government playing a role in solving the problem.
The most recent issue of NAE Insight puts it bluntly:
“We evangelicals have our deep suspicions about environmentalists and these are not without foundation. Many have opted for big-government to force environmental solutions on the public; formed disastrous alliances with the population control movement (i.e. abortion rights groups); kept foolish religious company (pantheists), and predicted apocalypses that don’t happen…. For the time being, any formal collaboration with the environmental movement is both strategically unwise and counterproductive.”
(A challenge to the NAE: Exactly how are we to save the environment and roll back global warming without a “big-government” solution? Let’s face it, big business “solutions” are what got us into this mess to begin with.)
So where does this leave the evangelicals? Well, The Times article noted that the Rev. Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the NAE, has bought a Prius. That’s great; I applaud his sense of social responsibility. But the fact remains that millions of evangelicals have no idea who Cizik is and have never heard of his boss, the Rev. Haggard. Those same millions have heard of Falwell, Robertson and Dobson — and are much more likely to follow their lead. In fact, Falwell has already beaten Cizik to the punch. During the CNN appearance, the wacky TV preacher issued orders: “I urge everyone to go out and buy an SUV today.”
The NAE’s tepid, on-again, off-again, no-big-government endorsement of going green is no match for Falwell’s bombast.
The Rev. Cizik is undoubtedly a sincere and decent man, but he may want to drive his Prius with extreme care. It’s late at night on a lonely and twisty highway, and there’s a heavy-set dude from Lynchburg riding a Chevrolet Suburban hard on his bumper. I know this cat’s m.o., and it’s not pretty: He plans to blind Cizik with his fog lights and roll right on over him — laughing manically as he stomps on the gas pedal and shoots hair spray out the window.