A New Evangelical Environmentalism?

I came across an interesting blog post this morning (prompted by a story on NPR) by Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It's a bit of a mea culpa on the evangelical movement's history of hostility toward the environmental movement.

It has always confounded me that religious leaders, especially southern evangelicals, have enthusiastically adopted the amoral (and in many cases immoral) political and cultural positions of free-market corporate interests and the politicians who shill for them.

A little background: As a child, my parents - both staunch Southern Baptists - shuttled our family to church at least 3 times a week. It was a ritual. We were prompt for Sunday School at 9:45 followed by church at 11, plus Sunday night services and Wednesday night Prayer Meeting. Sometimes, we met on Thursday night as well. Consequently, I became quite a student of the Bible.

I was a curious child. When I was in my early teens, I procured a Greek New Testament; as a closer link to the original text, I figured the translation would be more accurate than the standard King James Version we were required to own and read. My earnestness led me to seek out and focus on the teachings of Jesus since, in Sunday School we had learned that Jesus often corrected misguide disciples - the guys who allegedly authored most of the New Testament - when they offered their misunderstanding of his teachings.

Ironically, that practice is exactly what led me to move away from the Baptist Church as I found a disconnect between many of the teachings of Jesus and the political positions of the church. (That and the fact that, when I served as choir director in a splinter church at the age of 17, the deacons asked me to leave because the music was getting "a little to fast and a little to loud." Another ironic turn of events as today's rock-and-roll praise bands, in comparison, make my efforts to liven up Calvinist hymns seem extraordinarily tame. But that's another story.)

For example, according to the New Testament, Jesus imparted such wisdom as 1) don't attack your enemies, love them, 2) give money to the poor, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, 3) don't judge people, 4) associate with people society frowns upon, and 5) don't covet wealth or turn the church into a business. Sounds a little to the left of Dennis Kucinich, doesn't it? Could you imagine any presidential candidate that ran on this platform getting any significant votes from the evangelical community? Hardly. In fact, evangelical Christians would most likely be the first to crucify - politically speaking - any candidate for public office who campaigned on these very issues.

And in terms of environmental awareness and stewardship, evangelical Christians have been almost uniformly hostile, increasingly so over the past couple of decades. More than one person has suggested that evangelical philosophy is this: "Jesus is coming soon to rapture the saved, so why take care of the environment since we won't be here to witness the devastation?" I don't really believe many evangelicals take this callous position. I think it's more the case that evangelicals adopted the worldview of free market secular forces who agreed with them on a small handful of hot-button political issues such as abortion. Over time, many evangelicals co-opted the inhumane social and environmental positions of so-called market conservatives they otherwise would have nothing in common with.

Cultural conservatives and religion were not always such cozy bedfellows. As recently as the mid-twentieth century, most religious leaders leaned more to the liberal side of the aisle, using biblical texts to underpin their political positions. In my opinion, this country (and the world) has suffered greatly because of organized religion's radical right shift away from many of the basic humanitarian principles laid out by the very guy - Jesus Christ - they named the religion after, and the religions establishment hasn't done itself any favors.

There's an evangelical bumper sticker that's been around for some time now: "Love the sinner, Hate the sin." I think when it comes to many evangelical Christians, the slogan might as well be, "Love the messenger, Hate the message."

So it comes as a refreshing turn that Dr. Moore is openly addressing this disconnect. A few excerpts:

"Every human culture is formed in a tie with the natural environment. In my hometown, that’s the father passing down his shrimping boat to his son or the community gathering for the Blessing of the Fleet at the harbor every year. In a Midwestern town, it might be the apple festival. In a New England town, it might be the traditions of whalers or oystermen. The West is defined by the frontier and the mountains. And so on.

When the natural environment is used up, unsustainable for future generations, cultures die. When Gulfs are dead, when mountaintops are removed, when forests are razed with nothing left in their place, when deer populations disappear, cultures die too.

And what’s left in the place of these cultures and traditions is an individualism that is defined simply by the appetites for sex, violence, and piling up stuff."

Sounds almost like a public service announcement from the Sierra Club, doesn't it? Check out Dr. Russell Moore's complete post on his blog - Moore to the Point - here.

Up in the Air

This week's newspaper column: (Read it in the Hattiesburg American.)

As oil from BP’s deep sea well continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, the debate on the future of energy has shifted. “Drill, baby, drill” just lost its mojo.

With just one accident, the downside risk of fossil-fuel dependence is coming into full view, and if ever there’s an example of how ‘all things are connected,’ this is it. As if a free-flow of crude oil and gas spewing into a natural aquatic habitat isn’t bad enough, the unintended consequences are just beginning to play out. Gulf fishermen are seeing their livelihoods vanish as sheens of oil invade the fertile estuaries of the Mississippi River Delta; the tourist industry in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida is taking it on the chin as would-be visitors steer clear of Gulf beaches; and a quarter of America’s homegrown seafood source has been placed in jeopardy.

The smoke is beginning to clear inside the crystal ball and one thing is coming into focus: Our energy future is not with fossil fuels.

Rather, the future of energy production on this planet is up in the air – literally – with solar and wind. On the surface, it’s obvious. Why drill more dirty holes in the earth to extract finite resources when an infinite supply of clean energy is right above our heads? The transition will take some time, but not as long as some would lead you to believe; when the costs of real and potential accidents like the Deepwater Horizon spill are added into the equation, wind and solar may already be a better deal.

But for now, what do we do about the damage - economic and environmental – caused by the Gulf oil spill? How are we, as a society, going to mitigate the damage and insure that future accidents are prevented when possible, and quickly remediated when necessary?

I'd love to see a modern-day CCC program funded by a fossil-fuel tax. (History geek footnote: The Civilian Conservation Corps, better known as the CCC, was a successful jobs program in the US born out of the Great Depression to put millions of unemployed people back to work while simultaneously building and maintaining American park infrastructure and helping out with natural and man-made disasters.)

Before anyone blows a head gasket over the mere mention of the word “tax,” let’s just be clear. It is as American as apple pie to expect people and businesses to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Otherwise, taxpayers pick up the tab. Think of it as a tipping fee – fees landfills charge to accept waste - if you’ve been conditioned to hyperventilate when you hear the word “tax.”

By matching up environmental tipping fees with the inherent risks of fossil-fuel extraction, we can put millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans to work cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico and rebuilding our natural ecosystems.

Today, the headlines may be bleak, but our energy future is bright – and windy.