Single Page
E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiThat response from Page apparently not mollifying widespread criticism from fellow Southern Baptists, he spoke again a week later. "Seldom have I seen such a reaction," he complained. "I have been called names that I have not been called in my entire life." He apologized for creating an impression that the declaration officially represented the church. But he insisted that he still "stands by the content of this document," while he was surprised at the "amount of energy" with which critics reacted. "We have been accused of being a part of a left wing, liberal agenda on global warming," he lamented. "There has been much misunderstanding, much anger, and much speaking of unkind and demeaning words." He hoped some of this anger could be redirected towards evangelism and other more positive outlets.
Meanwhile, almost concurrently, Richard Land's official church agency endorsed a March 17 letter to all U.S. Senators opposing mandated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, called America's Climate Security Act (ACSA), sponsored by Joe Lieberman and John Warner. Both Land and his Washington-based subordinate, Barrett Duke, support the Cornwall Stewardship Agenda, which questions claims that climate change is fully man-made and warns against the impact of carbon caps on the world's poor. Joining with other conservative groups such as the Family Research Council, the Southern Baptist-backed letter complained that the bill's "underlying assumption" about human-induced climate change is "highly questionable." The Lieberman-Warner proposal would have an "imperceptible" effect on global warming "while doing grave harm to our economy, the poor and U.S. competitiveness," said the letter from Land and the other skeptics.
Interestingly, Senator Warner had been one of the featured speakers on the March 10 media teleconference call for Merritt's unofficial declaration. "I do hope your organization will come in behind us on the concept that we are the trustees of this planet and we should make that start so the rest of the world can see us leading and join us," Warner told the environmentally friendly Southern Baptists.
Overly conscious of stereotypes about their "fundamentalist" controlled church, Page and many of the other Southern Baptist signers of the Global Warming declaration seem more determined to disprove that they are "uncaring" than substantively address climate change. Following groups like the National Association of Evangelicals, they seem to believe that favorable media attention will enhance their prestige and their evangelistic outreach. But most Southern Baptists probably think differently, intuiting that churches thrive more when they are culturally contrarian than when they succumb to convention.
________________________________________________
Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C.
