What Would Jesus Drive?

NOTE: In the discussion below, I use "Christian values" to mean those that I personally was brought up with, namely mostly Korean Presbyterian (if that's any different from plain old vanilla Presbyterian) ones with a little southern Baptist flavor thrown in for good measure. While this is a serious discussion of serious current events, please keep in mind that I do not consider myself as being especially well versed on either the topic of religion or the environment. (On the topic of giant pandas however, I do consider myself a little better versed than the average bear.) Thus, the views expressed here are simply mine, from the vacuum that is my mind.

Evangelicals Will Not Take Stand on Global Warming
On February 1, 2006, The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) announced that it was "unable to reach a consensus on global climate change and will not take a stand on the issue."

Contrast these recent remarks with an October 2004 statement attributed to NAE's leadership, saying that mankind has "a sacred responsibility to steward the Earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part."

[Editorial note: I searched the NAE site for verification of either of the above statements. The site itself had no "search" funtion, and quite frankly, it was giving me the heebie-jeebies just a little. I have also purposely not linked to the reference site. Call me petty.]

It's Black & White (& Green) to Me

"Bible-believing evangelicals . . . disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue."

Why isn't environmentalism a fundamental Christian value? I can't understand why fundamentally, protecting unborn babies is considered a "conservative" issue, but protecting the environment is a "liberal" one and how exactly the religious majority finagled this viewpoint into rationality is totally beyond me.

Having spent the first 16 years or so of my life being gently indoctrinated by a sweetly pious Baptist Sunday School teacher named Mrs. Greenberry and the likes of her, only to spend the next 16 years sloughing off most of what I had learned in exchange for beliefs I actually had reason to believe in, one of the few principles I retained from Mrs. Greenberry's 3rd grade Sunday School class is "God IS nature, and vice versa" (I'm not sure where in the Bible Mrs. G took that verse from, but she said it, so it must be in there just maybe not in so many words.) Mrs. G taught (and I wholly accepted) that evidence of God is found in nature-every sunrise, every rainbow, every animal (every panda!), and every human, was created by Him as an expression of God's creativity. The appreciation of God's glory, both in Him and through Him, is what He ultimately wants from each of us. Okay, even now it sounds just a little corny, but I stand behind Mrs. G and most of what she taught me (Most--the part about evangelizing to other faiths didn't stick.). But back then, it made perfect sense to me at an age when I was impressionable and confused and awed by the sheer magnitude of the tangible world, never minding the nebulosity of "heaven" where milk and honey made acceptable pedestrian walkways. To me and my fledgling 3rd-grade brain, this was one thing about church, God and Jesus (who, let's be honest, I only knew as that bearded Caucasian-looking dude in my kiddie Bible, surrounded by smiling sheep and kids ) that clicked. Environmentalism in the form of "God is nature" dovetailed nicely with those other Christian values I was attempting to learn at that time: like the one where Christians are supposed to protect the meek and the poor and those without a voice, and those with no one else to protect them.

So call me naïve, but YES, I was quite blown away by this WP article and what it reported pn the NAE's statements. Not to mention that I was even more offended by the fact that rather than take "A" stance at all on the issue of global warming, the NAE has announced that after much deliberation and debate, the NAE has NO COMMENT on global warming and "officially" is not taking an official position. Thus, by choosing not to take a stand, the NAE takes the most offensive stance, insofar as politicizing another's cause for your own benefit is not inherently offensive: The NAE consciously decided that global warming was not an issue worth politicizing for their cause at this time. According to this article, the various Christian denominations could not reach consensus because they held differing opinions relating to: the extent of damage done by global warming; the extent to which humans are responsible for global warming; and the extent of the chances that some other solution (legislation, or international treaty and cooperation) will take care of global warming and the issue will resolve itself.

Because God might, after all, be FOR global warming?

I find it hard to believe that all Christians aren't inherent environmentalists anyway, or at the very least conservationists in their beliefs, or at the very VERY least simply purport to care about environmental issues, whether they are politically timely for other causes or not! Protecting unborn babies is about protecting life, isn't it? Does that only apply if there is something political to be gained? Is the right to life paramount only when it refers to unborn humans, and not apply so much to God's other (therefore lesser?) creations like trees, ecosystems, or giant pandas? Again, how is being pro-life a conservative value and being pro-environment a liberal one?

(Gulp!) Could it be that the NAE considered adopting this environmental cause for political purposes only? Sadly, I now realize that which I assumed to be a Christian value is not necessarily part and parcel to Christian religious doctrine. So now the question becomes: Was crotchety old Mrs. Greenberry a conservative or a liberal?? My little 3rd-grade mind would have imploded under the stress of such a weighty question-if it had only known what "liberal" and "conservative" meant.

The NAE has convinced me anyway that they are none of the above-they don't pretend to care any more about the environment, no more so than any other group wanting political action and riding the coattails of an issue where and when it benefits their cause.

This disturbs me greatly. For as much as I disagree with most of what the Christian Coalition stands for, one thing I could admire about them is devotion to their causes and devotion to their beliefs. But how can I reconcile what I believe to be a fundamental Christian value (and again, I'm not calling myself any kind of good Christian here, I'm just asking the question) with the politics played in the bigger arena? I can't respect the NAE's statements regarding global warming because I can't understand it. Uh oh, there's that pesky naiveté again!

Maybe we should all pray about it.