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Evangelical Powerhouses Ignoring God's Green Earth

2 Nov 07

A voting statistic recently aired on CNN's Situation Room that reminded me of the massive power held by the leaders of the US Evangelical Christian movement.

Of the 126 million votes cast in the last presidential election, 24% of voters identified themselves as white/born again Christians, and 78% of that demographic voted Republican.

That's a lot of people, and many (not all) are being fed a constant stream of climate change denial rhetoric.

And nobody does this better than the grand pooba of Evangelicals, James Dobson, head of the powerhouse Christian lobby group, Focus on the Family. To say Dobson holds sway, is an understatement - over $250 million in annual revenue, a daily syndicated radio show reaching 220 million a day in 164 countries and a monthly magazine with over 2 million subscribers.

And Dobson's stand on the stewardship of our planet, on the protection of god's green earth from what science tells us is an impending crisis on a global scale?

Deny, deny, deny.

Here's a September 2007 article from Dobson's website titled, New report: scientists not convinced about global warming citing "research" and accompanying quotes from the George C. Marshall Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, two DC think tanks that has received large sums of money from the fossil fuel industry.

And here's a September 24, 2007 Focus on the Family newscast, slamming climate science as "alarmist."

The tagline for Focus on the Family is "nurturing and defending families worldwide." But it seems that all this nurturing and defending of the family falls short when it comes to caring for the very planet, without which the family, or any life form for that matter, can exist.

Its hard to maintain the structure of a family when your crop fails due to drought. Its hard to nurture family values when you can no longer access fresh drinking water.

Other Evangelical leaders get this. Last year, 86 leaders banded together to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."

That's great. But until the powerhouses of the Evangelical movement, like Dobson, get on board, millions of people will continue to be fed the climate denial message, and the outcome of this denial could very well be a complete breakdown of the family values that the Evangelical leaders have charged themselves with defending.


Crazy

The evangelical community scares the sh*t out of me. Psychos like Dobson are ruining this country.

Well.

You are the world's smartest man! No further comment...

Question

Kevin, are you a Christian? Do you attend church?

It's called IRONY, Rob

Look it up.

huh?

Apparently, someone's attic is missing a crazy aunt somewhere.

I think it should read, "the

I think it should read, "the very planet, without which NO family, or any life form for that matter, can exist."

Global warming is nothing,

Global warming is nothing, if u actually take ur face out of your asses and look into it, its full of HOOBLA, people like u made Y2K more than what it was... yeah I agree with the fact that some Christians are extremist but because ONE person says their belief then you take it as ALL Christians are like that...again ... take ur face out of ur asses...stop attacking religion, u uneducated atheist bitches

I seen this huge skyscraper

I seen this huge skyscraper in Memphis, TN that had a big cross on it. This was probably the tallest building in Memphis and thus really expensive. It scared me and probably scared God as well.

AlienFarmer
http://www.SolarCoupons.com

Oh noes! the scary

Oh noes! the scary Christians are going to kill us all! Run for your lives!!! AGHGHGHHG!!!!

No further comment...

Politics.

Its circular, a consequence of political party tieing. Just as the republican party must carry out the agenda of its religious-right supporters to hold their votes, so must the leaders of those supporters carefully ensure that any issues on which the republicans perform poorly are downplayed, or risk people either moving to democrat or deciding that neither party is acceptable and not voting.

The Republican party, and the religious right. Tied together in such a way now that what each one decides will define the position of the other.

I notice Al Gore uses quite

I notice Al Gore uses quite a bit of oil when he travels around in his caravan and private jets. How much of a "Carbon Footprint" did Live Earth leave? A big one as I understand it. As the bible says 'Get the plank out of your eye before you worry about the speck in mine.'

Well I see we've got all of

Well I see we've got all of the classic trolling patterns in here. One commenter has chosen to attack Al Gore instead of addressing anything. Another has decided to lecture us on the fact that global warming is a scam, with some lovely (if rather inelegant) personal shots included. And a third has decided to hint that the article somehow smears Christianity (a new and interesting line of attack).

All we need is someone linking to a Tim Ball article or CEI study "proving" that climate change doesn't exist and this post could be a textbook case of Climate Change Denier Trolling 101.

Some people have far too much time on their hands...

A very fair summary of the

A very fair summary of the posts. John Dowell is about the only person who takes what Tim Ball says seriously, so you might just see a quote from him yet.

What’s more amusing is the global warming scam people, I wonder if they fall into the gravity is a scam, or evolution is a scam, or heck even black holes are a scam group.

I was given the opportunity to speak to a private Christian school about environmental issues as an invited speaker. I presented on environmental sustainability, climate change, and ecological footprints. I received a thank you note in the mail from the classes a few weeks following, with an attached quotation from a biblical phrase that went along the lines of that Christians had the responsibility to care for god’s creation. Even as a non practicing lutheran I couldn’t have agreed more.

Why worry about the

Why worry about the environment when the rapture's a-comin' any minute now, as my mother-in-law and the flock she belongs to believe? Time would be better spent working to fulfill those biblical prophesies about the Middle East...

Hmmm...

Am I the only one that muttered "Well, Duh!" under my breath?. Since Christianity is really all about preparing for what happens after you are dead, rather than being aware of what is going on around you, it makes sense that some Christians at least should deny any thing wrong happening in the world. And since the Bible, in its own inimitable way, basically tells mankind that the planet is theirs to do what they wish with: they "have dominion" (or some similar paraphrase) over all the plants and animals; that they are to go forth and multiply because God thinks it's good; and because in the eyes of the Evangelical Christian, the Bible is the Ultimate Authority, it stands to reason that many, many Evangelical Christians will turn deaf ears to any Environmentalist warnings, no matter how well authenticated and presented.

I think that we should all be thankful that not all Evangelical Christians believe everything their leaders tell them to believe. And I think you might also be thankful that I'm at the end of my rather contorted run-on sentences.

What is Islam's take on Global warming- does anybody know?

Well....

I'm working on an environmental program in Canada that targets faith groups specifically and the ONLY religious group interested in this environmental stuff are the Christians. Infact, the Anglicans here in Vancouver have put on numerous pro-bike events, several United Church reverends are strongly promoting environmental messaging (some have even written books), and the RC church is starting programs in a big way.
Granted we don't have any fundamentalists here (I think), but in general a lot of their messages are a 'bit' skewed, i.e. the war in iraq is the new crusades.
As per the islamic side of climate change, I don't know, but there is islamic scripture to support environmentalism, going something along the lines that humans are the only animals capable of being stewards of the environment so it's our responsibility.

speaker

This comes a bit late but someone has just declined to present at the Baptist Association meeting in Feb. We are in need of a speaker. This is a paid position with mileage.

I am looking for someone who can present to a Group of Baptist Churches (Lambton Middlesex Huron association) the common/media presentation of man made global warming. We would like to then present what Christians then need to do. It seems many believe this but few are available to teach us.
This will be half of the presentation on Global warming.

We already have the other speaker. He will present Global warming from a different perspective. Global warming has always happened and it is highly unlikely man has anything to do with it.

The entire evening will take about 1 hour and the design of that evening will be determined by the speakers. There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.

It will be Thursday Feb 28. The evening will begin with supper at 6:30 but the presentation will not start until 7:30. The location is Arkona Baptist which is located in Arkona, a town north of Strathroy. It is sponsored by the Lambton, Middlesex, Huron Association of Baptist Churches.

Thank You for your time
Frank Swoboda

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