a group of 86 evangelical Christian leaders defying President George Bush on global warming have an ace in the hole: "The Lord".
God is being dragged into the climate change battle in a television ad campaign by the group, whose manifesto is, "Climate Change: an Evangelical Call for action".
The same pastors who traded off the scriptures for the environment at the Sunday pulpit have purchased television advertisements, which plead for the masses to save the environment, and to do it…"for our kids and our Lord."
Big-name church pastors such as Rick Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose-Driven Life", the presidents of 39 Christian colleges and heads of popular-with-the-public organizations such as the Salvation army and World Vision mean that Kyoto never had it so good.
Viewers watching Bill O'Reilly lamenting the latest anti-Christian aCLU moves on Fox News can hear the pastors' fire-and-brimstone appeals to save the environment during commercial breaks.
The intent of the evangelical campaign is to educate Christians about climate change while urging the U.S. Congress to enact legislation to address global warming.
Not only is their initiative precedent-setting in taking on the White House on an environmental issue, the evangelicals equate global warming to their long term commitment to "protect unborn life".
Their foray into the public domain sounds like the Sunday sermon: "With the same love of God and neighbor that compels us to preach salvation through Jesus Christ, protect unborn life, preserve the family and the sanctity of marriage, defend religious freedom and human dignity, and take the whole Gospel to a hurting world, we the undersigned evangelical leaders resolve to come together with others of like mind to pray and to stop global warming."
"Millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors," says the group in a media release.
"Love of God, love of neighbor, and the demands of stewardship," they say, "are more than enough reason for evangelical Christians to respond to the climate change problem with moral passion and concrete action."
"The basic task for all of the world's inhabitants is to find ways now to begin to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that are the primary cause of human-induced climate change,"
The group takes its direction from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "The world's most authoritative body of scientists and policy experts on the issue of global warming, has been studying this issue since the late 1980s. (From 1988-2002 the IPCC's assessment of the climate science was chaired by Sir John Houghton, a devout evangelical Christian). It has documented the steady rise in global temperatures over the last fifty years, project that the average global temperature will continue to rise in the coming decades, and attributes "most of the warming" to human activities."
Nowhere on their literature does the group give voice to global scientists who disagree with the IPCC.
The group is finding dissention in its own camp. Some 22 evangelicals, including James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship ministries, wrote the National association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents 30 million Christians, demanding that it back off from supporting measures to curb global warming.
Down through the decades there have been many rallying calls to Save the Environment. The next one could very well be: Save the Environment…from the Evangelicals.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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