When Cleaner Air is a Biblical Obligation

“When Cleaner Air is a Biblical Obligation” is the title of a New York Times article which talks about a position paper on “global warming” being circulated among the leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) that would encourage legislation on controlling carbon emissions.

The article quotes a Mr. Richard Cizik of the NAE: “Mr. Cizik said the alliance's draft position on global warming was still under review by its leaders and would not be issued unless they voted unanimously to support it.”

That doesn’t sound like a statement is imminent. It sounds to me like some members of the NAE, including Mr. Cizik in particular, are pushing for such a statement but the jury is still out on whether they will succeed. I suspect that getting “unanimous” agreement from the leaders isn’t going to be easy.

I just LOVE the reason given in the article by John Green of the Pew Forum as to why many (most?) Evangelicals don’t support environmental protections. “On the other hand, he (Green) added, ‘they don't like environmentalists. They associate environmentalists with the Sierra Club and with people who have nontraditional religiosity.’”

So because some of the people that want to protect the environment have “non-traditional religiosity,” that’s an adequate reason for NOT protecting the environment?

Excuse me while I go bang my head up against the wall for an hour or two.

So some folks that belong to the NAE, which strongly opposes choice, gay marriage and stem cell research, perhaps aren’t 100% irrational, they’re only 80% irrational. Although I might suggest that deciding whether or not ecological protections are a good thing based upon an obscure passage in Genesis is as irrational as opposing them because you think (hope?) the second coming is imminent! Of course Senator James Inhofe’s, the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, response to the potential NAE statement is even more irrational. Inhofe believes that the idea that human activities contribute to global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

Personally I think James Inhofe is the greatest joke ever played upon the rest of the United States by the people of Oklahoma. Inhofe is what keeps Oklahoma in a neck and neck race with Kansas to see which state can deteriote into a medieval society the fastest.

While it’s always good to see disagreement within the ranks of the enemy, you'll excuse me if I don't get all bubbly and congratulatory. Cizik is basing support for environmental protections not on recognizing what anyone with half a brain should recognize, that the future of the human race is tied to the future of the earth's ecology, but on a minority interpretation of Genesis 2:15!

The disdain for the ecology is usually based upon Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

It’s that word “dominion” that causes all the trouble.

Maybe Cizik and company can convince Bush to instigate a "faith-based" initiative to address global warming? Maybe they can organize prayer meetings to reduce pollution?

Isn’t it amazing how we praise religious organizations for doing what we would condemn other people for NOT doing.