Leaders of the Christian Right, in an obvious bow to the political right and their oil buddies, have written a letter that attempts to silence Richard Cizik, the policy director of the National Association of Evangelicals. Cizik has been very vocal in encouraging evangelicals to get more actively involved in the fight against global warming, and that is upsetting the more hypocritical factions of the Christian Right. What is their excuse for trying to silence Cizik?
“We have observed,†the letter says, “that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time.â€
And yes, you’ve guessed it; those “great moral issues of our time†are abortion and homosexuality. These folks continue to be so obsessed with sex that they are checking their intelligence and humanity at the door. To hell with the Inuits who are losing their lifestyle in the north, and to hell with the millions of people whose lives are at risk because of increased flooding (Bangladesh), droughts and disease (much of Africa), or lack of drinking water (much of Asia).
“We’re saying what is being done here, is a concerted effort to shift the focus of evangelical Christians to these issues that draw warm and fuzzies from liberal crusaders.â€
I’m sorry but global warming is an environmental and Human Rights issue, not an ideological issue. But in time it will become a huge geo-political and economic issue if we do nothing. This behavior by the Christian Right is irresponsible and deeply immoral. I guess Jesus’ message of love only applies to white American Christians; everybody else is just ground meat.
I am not sure if you can even call it stereotyping, considering this entire post is based on a single letter. If you are going to stereotype, accurately at least, you could very well say that “the human population is irresponsible and deeply immoral.” I am also pretty sure Jesus made it clear who he came for, irrelevant of what anyone on earth today thinks.
I think you’re missing the point. First of all thats not stereotyping, that’s generalising. But then, that’s not my point at all. If you read the above carefully, you would see that I’m talking about a small group of Christian-Right leaders, not all Christians.
The point is that some important leaders of the religious right are doing a pretty stupid and immoral thing here with this letter. The letter didn’t come from “the human race”.
And I doubt very much that Jesus came here for these hypocritical greedy church leaders who are basically just after power and money and who are constantly spewing messages of hatred and discrimination.
Well said my friend, you hit both points too a “T”.
Your analysis of the struggle at the leadership level for the hearts and minds of Christian Evangelicals vis-a vis climate change is one of the more obvious and visible arenas of a more general contest. In the secular world, a similar struggle is underway, but it is being waged more subtly. Hillary’s global warming proposals sound like they were written by Exxon. In general politicians favor putting the lunatics in charge of the asylum. They propose that the very same megacorporations who have been unscrupulous in their decades long campaign to obfuscate, distort, discredit, and deny climate change science be put in charge of converting the economy over to zero emissions sustainability. I am more disgusted with our lack of democracy and real leadership than ever. Go for your gun whenever you hear someone say new technologies will save us. Let us hope that someone in the leadership class will have the guts to suggest that big oil and coal need to be taxed out of existence.
Thanks fo taking the time to comment Russ, I always enjoy your very eloquent writing!
Your analysis of the overall situation is unfortunately very accurate! This is a depressing world we live in.
And up here in Canada, it is very much of the same. We have a Conservative government that looks just like the Bush Whitehouse, and we have Liberals waiting in the wings who speak a great game when it comes to the environment, but who failed to take any real action when they were in power.
The only good news is that the Green party is gaining ground, albeit very slowly.