by Jim Wallis
For more
than a decade, a series of environmental initiatives have been
coming from an unexpected source - a new generation of young
evangelical activists. Mostly under the public radar screen,
they were covered in places such as Sojourners and
Prism, the magazine of Evangelicals for Social Action.
There were new and creative projects such as the Evangelical
Environmental Network and Creation Care magazine. In
November, 2002, one of these initiatives got some national
attention - a campaign called "What Would Jesus Drive?" complete
with fact sheets, church resources, and bumper stickers. The
campaign was launched with a Detroit press conference and
meetings with automotive executives.
Recently, more establishment evangelical groups, especially
the National Association of Evangelicals, also began to speak up
on the issue of creation care. Leading the way was Rich Cizik,
NAE Vice President for Governmental Affairs, who, on issues like
environmental concern and global poverty reduction, began to
sound like the biblical prophet Amos. Cizik and NAE President
Ted Haggard, a megachurch pastor in Colorado Springs, were
attending critical seminars on the environment and climate
change in particular and describing their experiences of
"epiphany" and "conversion" on the issue. Cizik was quoted by
The New York Times as saying, "I don't think God is going
to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we
did with what he created." In 2004, the NAE adopted a new policy
statement, "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to
Civic Responsibility," which included a principle titled "We
labor to protect God's creation."
When the same New York Times article, written in March
2005 by Laurie Goodstein, noted that "A core group of
influential evangelical leaders has put its considerable
political power behind a cause that has barely registered on the
evangelical agenda, fighting global warming," the politics of
global warming changed overnight in Washington, D.C. Previously,
advocates around climate change and other environmental issues
were simply not a part of George Bush's political base and their
concerns were not on Washington's political agenda. But the NAE
constituency is mostly part of the Republican base and the new
environmental concern was not unnoticed by the White House - the
very day the article came out the White House called the NAE to
ask what policies they were most concerned about.
The next year saw NAE participation at many major climate
change and environmental meetings - both domestically and
internationally - and a series of press stories about the new
evangelical environmentalists, including a full page interview
with Rich Cizik in The New York Times Magazine.
In January, the Religious Right reared its head. In a letter
addressed to the NAE - signed by 22 of the Right's prominent
leaders, including James Dobson, Charles Colson, Richard Land,
and Louis Sheldon - they said, "We have appreciated the bold
stance that the National Association of Evangelicals has taken
on controversial issues like embracing a culture of life,
protecting traditional marriage and family." They then went on
to say, "We respectfully request, however, that the NAE not
adopt any official position on the issue of global climate
change. Global warming is not a consensus issue." It was a clear
effort to prevent the NAE from taking a stand on environmental
issues and even to veto the whole effort. Stick to our core
issues they implied - meaning abortion and gay marriage. Five
years ago, so powerful a group of conservative Christian leaders
probably could have tamped down this new evangelical effort that
served to broaden the range of moral values and issues of
biblical concern. But not this time.
A month later, on Feb. 9, a full page ad appeared in The
New York Times with the headline: "Our commitment to Jesus
Christ compels us to solve the global warming crisis." The
striking ad announced the Evangelical Climate Initiative, and
was signed by 86 prominent evangelical leaders, including the
presidents of 39 Christian colleges. I was speaking at one of
those schools shortly after the ad came out and talked to their
president who was one of the signers. "I'm tired of those old
white guys telling us what to think and do," he said. He is a
younger white man who decided to take a stand, even if it was
against the old guard of the Religious Right.
The Evangelical Climate Initiative is of enormous importance
and could be a tipping point in the climate change debate,
according to one secular environmental leader I talked to. But
of even wider importance, these events signal a sea change in
evangelical Christian politics: The Religious Right is losing
control. They have now lost control on the environmental issue -
caring for God's creation is now a mainstream evangelical issue,
especially for a new generation of evangelicals. But now so is
sex trafficking, the genocide in Darfur, the pandemic of
HIV/AIDS and, of course, global and domestic poverty. The call
to overcome extreme poverty abroad and at home, in the world's
richest nation, is becoming a new altar call around the world -
a principal way Christians are deciding to put their faith into
practice.
In places such as the U.K., Christians are rallying around
the call to "Make Poverty History." Many are comparing that call
to the cry of British Parliamentarian William Wilberforce and an
earlier generation of evangelical revivalists in the 18th and
19th centuries who changed history in England and America by
their steadfast commitment to end slavery. For many, poverty is
the new slavery. Again, this is especially true for a new
generation of Christians. The connection between poverty and all
the other key issues - the environment, HIV/AIDS, and violent
conflicts around the world are increasingly clear for many
people of faith.
The sacredness of life and family values are deeply important
to these Christians as well - yet too important to be used as
partisan wedge issues that call for single issue voting patterns
that ignore other critical biblical matters. The Religious Right
has been able to win when they have been able to maintain and
control a monologue on the relationship between faith and
politics. But when a dialogue begins about the extent of moral
values issues and what biblically-faithful Christians should
care about, the Religious Right begins to lose. The best news of
all for the American church and society is this: The monologue
of the Religious Right is over, and a new dialogue has just
begun.