Just read a fascinating interview with Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, who is spearheading an environmental movement of "creation care" in the evangelical community... and due to his position, he actually has a chance of getting somewhere.
What's particularly fascinating is his description of how he goes about changing minds.
Take mercury. If you reframe mercury regulations as a pro-life issue -- curbing mercury emissions protects children from learning disabilities and unborn children from brain damage -- that gets people's attention. Last January, Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network and I carried a placard to a pro-life rally that said, "Stop Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn." I distributed flyers showing that one in six babies is born with dangerous mercury levels, and urged protestors to demand improvements in the Clear Skies Act. People were a little perplexed at first, but they got it.
and
There are those who are concerned that by going down this road of creation care we are saying that plants and animals are superior to people. Again, much of the challenge is reframing the environmental issue for the evangelical community as a people issue. We have to say, for instance, that addressing climate change is a way of saying we care about the millions of people worldwide that might have to endure tremendous suffering and displacement from the drought, hurricanes, and flooding associated with global warming. Certainly the human trauma caused by Katrina has brought this issue home.
I never thought a "pro-Bush Bible-brandishing reverend zealously
opposed to abortion, gay marriage, and embryonic stem-cell research"
would ever give me so much hope... but it goes to show you never can
tell. I hope he can persuade his co-religionists in power before it's
too late.
