PULPIT: Some Christians suspicious of going green
Sunnyside Christian Church in Colorado Springs is going green. Its recycling program has been ratcheted up a few notches, energy-efficient lights have been installed, and the Rev. Eric Batteiger has given a couple sermons on creation care.
Yet going green has not caught on at many other evangelical churches. The is due in part, no doubt, to simply having other priorities. Though for some evangelicals the reasons become complex.
One appears to be that environmentalism can be perceived as idolatry because it suggests worshiping creation rather than its creator. Other reasons appear to center on politics and a distrust of science.
Climate change is happening, and most reputable scientists say it’s causally linked to humankind’s vehicles and factories spewing gases that are creating a greenhouse effect. Yet a survey by the Pew Research Center released in October found that white evangelicals are the least likely to believe in human-caused climate change. Only 23 percent buy it, compared to 36 percent of the American population as a whole.
Michael Lindsay, author of the 2007 book “Faith in the Halls of Power,” says that when it comes to environmentalism some Christian Republicans harbor a “distrust to what is seen as a liberal political agenda.”
The roots of distrust appear to go back to Democrat environmental sympathizer Al Gore. “Gore’s involvement in environmentalism had natural repercussions, and you see folks who took advantage of that,” said Alexei Laushkin, director of church relations of the Evangelical Environmental Network, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C. that assists evangelical churches in going green.
When Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins, and Fox News personalities Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity — all staunch Christian Republicans — impugn climate change, some accept their pronouncements without exploring the facts.
A second reason for denial of human-caused climate-change is fear. Science is the bugbear of fundamentalists.
Among reputable biologists, Darwinism is a fact. But how do those who believe in a literal Genesis square their beliefs with Darwinian change over millions of years? Typically, Laushkin told me, the solution is to say science is full of hubris and short on facts.
“But this perpetual battle over science is silly,” Laushkin said. “There is vast evidence in science showing that there is human-induced global warming.”
Laushkin says you can be a conservative Christian and still go green.
“God’s heart is close to everything he’s made,” Laushkin said. “And as much as he cares for the unborn, he cares for the earth.”
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For information on efforts by evangelical groups to get the climate change debate taught in schools, go to my blog, The Pulpit, at www.thepulpit.freedomblogging.com. Call me at 636-0367.
