Jay Richards notes that the major media now pays plenty of attention to evangelical views on the environment, especially since 86 evangelical leaders signed the "Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI), although many others refused to sign it. There are powerful political reasons for this new attention to evangelical environmental views and I urge readers of this blog to click through to Richards' article and read it in its entirely. Some notes follow (underlinings are my own).
Richards distinguishes between "theological principles" and "prudential judgments", saying that on theological principles, evangelicals are in agreement:
Human beings, as image bearers of God, are placed as stewards over the created order. We bear a responsibility for how we treat and use it. We are part of the creation, as well as its crowning achievement. God intends for us to use and transform the natural world around us for good purposes. Proper use is not misuse. But as fallen creatures, we can mess things up. No serious Evangelical thinker questions these basic principles.
Well and good. But prudential judgments are something quite different. Richards says we need to recognize at least four separate questions with regard to global warming.
(1) Is the planet warming?
(2) If the planet is warming, is human activity (like CO2 emissions) causing it?
(3) If the planet is warming, is it bad overall?
(4) If the planet is warming, we’re causing it, and it’s bad, would the policies commonly advocated (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol, legislative restrictions on CO2 emissions) make any difference and, if so, would their cost exceed their benefit?
He goes on to say:
Tough questions all, and theology doesn’t provide much help in answering them. To answer (1) and (2), one must consider a wide range of scientific evidence, theorizing, and speculation, drawing on disciplines as diverse as meteorology, astrophysics, geology, and probability theory. And the very nature of the questions and the evidence means answers will always be tentative and uncertain.
To answer (3) and (4), one must do careful economic reasoning. As a result, Evangelicals who agree disagree on how to answer these questions (the application).
The problem with the chief defenders of the Evangelical Climate Initiative is that they haven’t thought through these four questions, at least not publicly. What they have done is label
their position as the authentically Evangelical one. Other Evangelicals need to call them on this tactic, exposing the false dilemma for the piece of cheap rhetoric it is.
So how does all this relate to politics? Richards explains:
The current political climate creates pressure for liberal Evangelicals to muddle principle and policy. There’s a reason the media are suddenly interested in reporting the views of certain Evangelicals on the environment. They’ve learned a political lesson. The Democrats have been losing to Republicans among the large bloc of Evangelical voters. Fueled by Democratic commitment to leftwing causes like abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriage, many Evangelicals have come to view Democrats as a secularized party that threatens their deepest convictions. To fix this PR problem, Democratic candidates have been trying to reframe their usual policies as “moral issues.” This makes liberal Evangelicals especially useful.
The Democrats have been quite open about this new policy. Last June, several Democratic candidates for president joined “progressive” Evangelical Jim Wallis for a chat about faith televised on CNN. At one point, amidst lots of talk about values and “moral issues,” Hillary Clinton revealed: “I think you can sense how we are attempting to try to inject faith into policy.” Yes, we can sense it. And given the leftward tilt of the mainstream media, we should expect them to help with the makeover.
No one expects throngs of Evangelicals to start voting for pro-choice Democrats. But much of the media agrees with the Washington Post’s infamous description of Evangelicals as “poor, undereducated, and easily led.” If Democrats can get just a small percentage of Evangelicals to worry more about global warming and gasoline than the gay marriage and the proliferation of abortion, then they just might shift the demographics in their favor. So we should expect to see fawning coverage of liberal Evangelicals on the environment in the next fourteen months. But if, on the other hand, you’re hoping to see the mainstream media take Evangelical theology seriously, don’t hold your carbon dioxide.