Posted on 03/10/2008 7:33:13 AM PDT by Leroy S. Mort
NEW YORK (AP) -- In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination has been "too timid" on environmental issues and has a biblical duty to stop global warming.
The declaration, signed by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention among others and released Monday, shows a growing urgency about climate change even within groups that once dismissed claims of an overheating planet as a liberal ruse. The conservative denomination has 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the U.S.
The signers of "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" acknowledged that not all Christians accept the science behind global warming. They said they do not expect fellow believers to back any proposed solutions that would violate Scripture, such as advocating population control through abortion.
However, the leaders said that current evidence of global warming is "substantial," and that the threat is too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend.
"We believe our current denominational resolutions and engagement with these issues have often been too timid," according to the statement. "Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better."
No one speaks on behalf of all Southern Baptists, who leave decision-making to local churches. Yet, the signatories represent some of the top figures in the convention.
Among them are the denomination's president, the Rev. Frank Page of South Carolina; two former presidents, the Rev. James Merritt of Georgia and the Rev. Jack Graham of Texas; and the Rev. Ronnie Floyd of Arkansas, who helped conservatives solidify control of the denomination in the 1970s and 1980s.
Also backing the effort are presidents of three prominent Baptist-affiliated schools: David Dockery of Union University in Tennessee; Timothy George of Samford University's Beeson Divinity School in Alabama; and Danny Akin of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina. More than 35 people signed the statement.
Supporters plan to collect more signatures for the declaration through baptistcreationcare.org and encourage congregations to advocate for environmental protection.
Even before Monday's statement, religious activism on climate change had broadened beyond just liberal-leaning churches. The 1993 "Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation" became a guiding document for the Evangelical Environmental Network. The Rev. Rich Cizik, Washington director of the National Association of Evangelicals, became a prominent environmental advocate, trying to persuade conservative Christians that global warming is real. Polls of younger evangelicals found they considered environmental protection a priority.
But many of the most conservative Christians, including some Southern Baptist leaders, remained skeptical, and vigorously challenged evangelical environmentalists.
The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, backed by James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship ministries, among others, said that while conservation is important, some environmental concerns "are without foundation or greatly exaggerated." Last year, Dobson and other Christian conservatives unsuccessfully pressured the National Association of Evangelicals to silence Cizik on the issue.
The last Southern Baptist statement on global warming came at the denomination's 2007 annual meeting, which approved a statement questioning the belief that humans are largely to blame for climate change and warning that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor.
Even so, Jonathan Merritt, a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, began rallying denominational leaders to take a different approach. Merritt, 25, son of former convention president James Merritt, said a theology class had inspired him.
His professor had compared destroying God's creation to "tearing a page out of the Bible."
"That struck me. It broke me," the younger Merritt said in an interview, "and that was the impetus that began a life change, a shift of perspective for me."
----
On the Net:
Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative: http://www.baptistcreationcare.org
I wonder what the politics are of the people involved in this project, and if that is informing their decision-making process.
Great....are we going to see “for-profits” vs “not-for-profits” carbon credit trading wars? How long will it be before the Arabs accuse the Jews of controlling the weather to make a profit on carbon credit trading?
The media assault is working.
If you don’t believe in Global Warmin, you are a caveman uber arch conservative.
I wonder how much this has to do with the "New Baptist Covenant" organized by Carter, Clinton, Gore and their liberal Baptist friends. Does the SBC see the NBC as a big enough threat that they would try and neutralize them by taking on certain aspects of NBC beliefs such as global warming? If the SBC starts a drive to eradicate poverty in the near future, then I will have my answer.
|
Christopher Horner Video: "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming" |
idiots....and I am SBC
Seminary student's climate change project is not Southern Baptist Conference's
They should make him take the “Southern Baptist” out of the title.
Thousands of non-SBC Baptist churches, which still adhere to historic Baptist distinctives and still focus on the preaching of God’s Word would welcome your visit.
Even Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated churches have the right to withhold their contributions. Hundreds of churches, still kept on the SBC rosters, stopped giving decades ago and have been contributing to missionaries and projects directly or through independent agencies and clearing houses. I suspect more of this will happen now. Good!
These people are so far behind the trend-setters they don’t even know which way they went.
I have no particular problem with a Christian believing the farce called man-made global warming. I have a big problem with them trying to push their agenda as some drive for holiness or something.
Count me as NOT one of these sorts of Southern Baptists.
I can hear the sermons now: Repent of your failure to recycle. Why don’t we just create a bunch of dietary and cleanliness laws like we read about in the Old Testament. Won’t that make us really clean and pure and holy?
This does bring up a hidden sin that I think needs to be addressed. Christians have a weakness that grows out of what seems on the surface a good foundation. The foundation is friendship. The sin is unwillingness to stand against error when the error is coming from a good friend. We would rather get caught up in the error ourselves or at least dismiss it as no big deal rather than confront a friend. We’re gutless. The basic principle it reveals is that God is not number one. The apostle Paul succeeded where we fail. We should learn from his example.
Then there is the problem where we condemn and confront things that aren’t even sins. It is a nice distractions from things that really are sins. I mean, who wouldn’t rather worry about organizing trash disposal than about addressing the deep heart issues of pride. self promotion, works righteousness, and seeking worldly approval.
“Hundreds of churches”
Dual alignment at least in my state is no longer allowable. Especially with advent of the “moderate” congregations of which many of those “hundreds of churches” turn out to be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.