It used to be that the environmentalists were on the left and the evangelical churches on the right of the political spectrum. But in what could mark the beginning of a significant shift in the character and temperament of the US -- and, potentially, conservation movements around the world -- evangelical church leaders are preparing to put their formidable influence behind so called "creation care."
Frustrated by President George W. Bush's disregard of environmental issues, including the decision to open the Arctic National Wildlife refuge to oil seekers and the abandonment of the Kyoto protocol on reducing emissions, more than 1,000 clergy and congregational leaders have put their names to a statement placing the White House on notice that "there was no mandate, no majority, or no `values' message in this past election."
Within the evangelical world view, terms such as conservationism and environmentalism are loaded with meaning and inferences that make them awkward to embrace. In this emergent movement, green issues are tailored to fit pre-existing concerns of the Christian right, such as the health and survival of the unborn. In this new world of evangelical conservative religious conservation it is transformed into moral imperative, a potent values issue renamed "creation care."
Last October, leaders of the 30-million strong National Association of Evangelicals adopted a resolution that emphasized every Christian's duty to care for the planet and the role of government in safeguarding a sustainable environment.
"We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part," says the statement.
Kyoto may be dead in the US, but domestic conservation bills are forthcoming. If the evangelical movement, which makes up 40 percent of the Republican party voter base and 25 percent of the total US voting public, adopts the belief that stewardship of the environment is a responsibility mandated by God in the Bible, it will be able to influence policy in ways that mainstream, left-leaning conservation groups have failed to do.
Paul Gorman, director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, a group that brings together different faiths in the service of the environment, says the religious awakening to conservation requires a distinctively religious response.
"It's not about policy and politics but fundamental questions of what it means to be religious in light of a crisis in God's creation at the hands of God's children," he says.
What is striking is how encompassing the shift in thinking is, Gorman says.
"It says something about the religious power of this vision that it's strong enough to override the natural disposition of conservative Christians to stay within a traditional conservative republican worldview. It's deeper than political. It's religious and moral," he says.
But do not call evangelical converts to creation care "green."
"The movement does not intend to mimic the environmental movement," Cizik says. "We intend to create our own line. That way we can avoid the landmines that have inhibited us in the past."
Indeed, the environmental movement is associated with everything that evangelicals abhor: big government solutions to problems of personal responsibility; population control issues and the abortion lobby. It is believed that evangelicals and conservative Christians can be persuaded that the free market will not be sufficient protection from the problems facing the world.
"These are two sub-cultures looking at each other," says the Reverend Jim Ball, director of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
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