Evangelicals

Posted by David Roberts at 3:00 PM on 07 Feb 2005

Read more about: religion and spirituality

Glenn Scherer's much-cited piece "The Godly Must Be Crazy," which argued that far-right Christian evangelicals are hostile to environmental protection, is apparently not the end of the story. The Washington Post's Blaine Harden finds evidence that evangelicals are going green. Joel Makower discusses the issue, as does the Progressive Blog Alliance. Sustainablog also points us to more info at Harvard's Forum on Religion and the Environment and Rev. Larry Rice's essay "As the Giant Sleeps ... Creation Suffers."

This strikes me as a subject in dire need of some empirical -- as opposed to anecdotal -- research. Just how many evangelicals are the raving End Timers Glenn describes and how many the "creation care" types Harden describes? There's an anthropological flavor to a lot of this reportage, which just goes to show how poorly understood the evangelical community is, particularly in light of their extraordinary political influence.

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Evangelicals: Bad bedmates

We have posted on this over at Effect Measure. Our take is that this is NOT an opportunity but a trap.

by Revere at 5:37 AM on 09 Feb 2005

Evangelicals

I appreciate Dave's honest questions, and desire for empirical evidence, because otherwise , well, it is amusing that so many folks out there have us "evangelicals" so well pegged as right wing pro oil industry pro logging everywhere Republicans. I don't know, it seems like the kind of stupid stereotyping that would get you in trouble, well, if you were an evangelical anyway. First of all, evangelicals are not some unified cohesive block of people politically speaking. Second, there are within broad evangelicalism many different theologies that would tend their respective adherents to greater or to lesser concern for the current world and its environment. Not all evangelicals have the same take on culture or the amount of energy one is to put into "fixing" the world as we know it. Third, many currently middle aged folks who have become converted to Christianity and have become "evangelical Christians" bring into that many of their interests and concerns as human beings, such as concerns for the natural world, and find their bible's very agreeable on that subject. Fourth, I know dozens and dozens of evangelicals personally who have quite a keen environmental conscience, and who make difficult personal choices because of it. Just because they can't bring themselves to vote for John Kerry and the rest of the Democratic social agenda doesn't undo that fact. Fifth, this sense of "creation care" is growing amongst evangelicals as they see the whole story of the bible better and not just the limited personal salvation issue for themselves. And the Bible speaks loudly on the subject. As an evangelical pastor I mention environmental matters often in sermons. It is a matter of love of God and love of neighbor how we treat God's world and how we cherish His creatures and creation. There just seems over and over to be these assumptions about US, like we're from outer space. So, good questions Dave. And also, personally, maybe if the average Gristmill reader got to know some of US and talked to some of US you'd find we're people too who care about the world we share with you. And maybe you'd find we could even partner with you on many issues that are of concern to both of us, if you don't make us swallow the rest of the values of the democratic left. Just maybe there are partnerships waiting to happen, and the natural world will benefit

Joel Gillespie Greensboro NC jsgillespie@mindspring.com

by joelgillespie at 1:13 PM on 24 Feb 2005

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