Joshuah Bearman: Spread the Word?

Feb 25, 2006

Spread the Word?

It was when President Reagan appointed James Watt, a man who believed that environmental protection was pointless since Christ's return was imminent, as Secratary of the Interior that we first got a glimpse of how the Christian Right could find a theological basis for anti-environmentalism. "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back," Watt testified in Congress. Watt was fired, but the End-Timers and dispensationalists and LaHaye-ists only honed their message. It is the scariest of politics: Christians cheerfully advocating political instability and wholesale ecological destruction as tangible steps towards the Rapture. Apparently, their Jesus hates his own Creation. Good news, though: some evangelicals are turning the other way. There's the Evangelical Environmental Network, which uses biblical sources and science to justify the politics of good stewardship. Then there's Richard Cizik, the pro-Bush, conservative Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, who joined the environmental cause in 2002 at conference in Oxford, which he described as, "a conversion … not unlike my conversion to Christ." Now, 86 evangelical leaders joined him, issuing a statement that both accepts the science of global warming and argues for a specifically christian moral responsibility to do something about it. In a recent interview, Richard Cizik, refutes the right-wing interpretation of the biblical passage that confers to mankind, "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 is a deeply flawed interpretation," he said. "Dominion does not mean domination. It implies responsibility -- to cultivate and care for the earth, not to sully it with bad environmental practices. The Bible also teaches us that Jesus Christ is not only redeeming his people, but also restoring God's creation." Finally, sounds like some Good News for Everyone.

Feb 25, 2006 | Permalink

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Joshuah Bearman

Feb 25, 2006

Spread the Word?

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