The following article is from the April 2007 issue of

Leaders of the Christian conservatives are firing back at the recent rising "green" tide in the Evangelical movement.

In early March, leaders sent an angry letter [pdf] to the board of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) for its support of action on climate change. There were over twenty signatories to the letter, including influential leaders like James C. Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

In the letter, Dobson and his colleagues asked the NAE to silence its vice-president for governmental affairs, Richard Cizik, who has been actively engaged in pushing for federal climate action. They accuse him of diverting attention from more important issues like abortion and homosexuality. Cizik ''cannot be trusted to articulate the views of American evangelicals," the letter said. (The board of NAE has since met and has agreed to take no action against Cizik.)

This intra-Evangelical debate begs the question: What are the views of the nation's Evangelicals? The truth is it's hard to say. NAE, which represents around 45,00 churches and 30 million Christian Evangelicals, support Cizik's work on climate action. As a group, NAE has not taken an official position on global warming, but it has endorsed an environmental idea called "creation care," which is based on a biblical mandate to care for the Earth.

Under NAE's watch, Cizik has been a part of high-profile efforts to urge the feds to take steps to address climate change. Most recently, he was a part of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which released in February the strongest statement on climate change ever made by the evangelical community that included calls for mandatory caps on emissions.

On the flip side, Dobson and his cronies seem to be among the remaining few still questioning the validity of climate science (most are now focused on climate solutions). And with all the attention that Cizik is getting, they're rightfully concerned that their position may be losing traction.

If that's the case, why should we care? The reason is the Evangelical connection to the GOP. Evangelical leaders have a huge constituency base, lobbying dollars, and an impact on the Republican party.

In fact, in a recent New Republic article on this subject, the author writes, "every [Evangelical] leader I talked to insisted that Republicans will listen to them."

Assuming this is true, if Cizik and other green Evangelicals can convert the unconverted Republicans on the need for climate action, which is still a high number, then they could give the powerful DC industry lobbyists who are trying to stymie climate initiatives a run for their money.

Perhaps more importantly, they could effectively promote climate action as a Christian mandate, making theirs the dominant Evangelical voice.

If that happens, it will add its considerable weight to the many unlikely suspects who have already come out in the fight for meaningful federal climate legislation.

Newsletter Issue

• Ecopolitics Monthly --- April 2007