Richard Cizik: For New Evangelicals, Climate is a Faith Issue

My recent interview with climate scientist and Evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe has provoked a lot of discussion. On the same day that I spoke to Hayhoe, I also had the opportunity to meet Richard Cizek, President of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good.

The nugget I take away from meetings with these two is that the notion of Evangelicals as a monolithic lockstep army of anti-science zealots is breaking down, if it ever had any validity. A group of “New Evanglicals” – large enough to change electoral calculus, is here.

SFGate:

Richard Cizik, a prominent conservative evangelical Christian, provides some of the most convincing testimony that science and conservatism can still coexist. Until 2002, Cizik says, he rejected climate change. Then, he says, he accepted an invitation to learn about it, from scientists. “I was persuaded at that time by the scientific evidence,” Cizik says. “It was one of the most disturbing things I’d ever heard in my life – that climate shifts are negatively altering the planet forever. There’s no denying the catastrophic impacts from global warming on people, never mind the rest of the planet.”

But it was the theological implications that humans were changing the planet so profoundly that really moved Cizik. “You have to care,” he says, “not because of the science, but because God cares.”

The best solution to the climate impasse, in other words, and to get science back into the national conversation, is probably not more data. And it’s certainly not more heated debate. Rather, it lies in finding ways to talk across political and cultural divides, and within communities and organizations. Democracy, in other words. The way it was meant to be.

Alternet:

The results of a five-year study of the Millennial Generation—people born between 1982 and 1993—are in. Thanks to the Barna Group, a 28-year-old, California-based, Christian research firm, we now know that conservative evangelical churches are losing formerly–affiliated “young creatives:” Actors, artists, biologists, designers, mathematicians, medical students, musicians, and writers.

Some leave because they oppose the church’s doctrinal stance. Others are turned off by its hostility to science, and still others reject the limitations placed on permissible sexual activity. The report cites the tension felt by young adults who find it difficult—if not impossible—to remain “sexually pure,” especially since most heterosexuals don’t marry until their mid-to-late twenties. “Young Christians are as sexually active as their non-Christian peers,” Barna concludes. What’s more, the report admits that Millennials see the evangelical church as an exclusive club, open only to those who adhere to every rule. This runs counter to values that rank high on the Millennial playlist—among them, open-mindedness, tolerance, and support for diversity.

The Hill

A green evangelical group won’t bow to conservative anti-abortion-rights leaders or Republicans who are pressuring them to stop casting support for new EPA pollution rules as a “pro-life” position.
The Environmental Evangelical Network (EEN) is under attack from the religious right over its campaign in favor of EPA’s new restrictions on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants – rules that EEN calls vital to protecting the health of the unborn.

Alexei Laushkin, an EEN spokesman, said in an interview Thursday that the group won’t back off the way it frames support for the rules issued late last year.

“We believe protecting the unborn from mercury poisoning is a consistent pro-life position,” he said. “An issue that impacts the unborn – that’s where we resonate as a pro-life organization.”

Laushkin noted the group’s work with the National Association of Evangelicals and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in support of cutting mercury emissions.

EEN, in a statement, noted that its position is to protect the unborn from both abortion and “pollution that will harm their quality of life.”

The group, whose president testified in favor of EPA’s rules on Capitol Hill Wednesday, is under attack from Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser and a suite of other prominent religious conservatives.