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TechnoratiYet others at the hearing, including a Southern Baptist representative, resisted from confirming the reality of global warming and criticized the use of the Bible to back environmental positions.
“The SBC and other like-minded evangelical groups are not opposed to environmental protection,” said Dr. Russell Moore, dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s school of theology and senior vice president for academic administration. “We are, however, concerned about the ways in which religious arguments are used in this debate, possibly with harmful consequences both for public policy and for the mission of the church.”
The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest protestant denomination with 16 million members and 42,000 churches.
Moore affirmed that Southern Baptists do care about global warming “because the creation reveals the glory of God,” but that science does not absolutely support humans being the main cause for global warming and that cutting carbon emissions will be in the best interest for the majority of the world’s population.
In another incident, high-profile evangelical leaders voiced concern over the priority of global warming among other social issues.
Earlier this year, dozens of prominent evangelical leaders criticized the National Association of Evangelicals’ vice president, the Rev. Richard Cizik, for his global warming activism.
These leaders, which included conservative ministry leaders Dr. James Dobson and Gary Bauer, criticized Cizik’s green activism for stealing the spotlight from what they deemed as more important issues – such as abortion and same-sex “marriage.” In a letter to the NAE board, the leaders called the board to either stop Cizik from speaking about global warming or for his forced resignation.
In the end, the NAE board sided with Cizik and even adopted an official stance on climate change.
“Christians do bear a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth,” acknowledged Mohler. “This is not an easy responsibility to bear in the confusing context of modern ecological debates.”
However, he emphasized, “[t]he church of Jesus Christ bears the responsibility to be the steward of the Gospel above all other concerns.”
Both Furedi and Mohler warned that although creation care is a biblical responsibility, a church that makes saving the earth its core mission will ultimately lose authority because scientists will always be regarded as the expert in this field.
“We should take note when a sociologist like Frank Furedi sees the picture so clearly. Why does he see what so many other miss?” questioned Mohler.
“When a church forfeits its God-given mission, no other mission matters,” he concluded.
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