Dozens of evangelical leaders recalled fondly the contribution of Richard Cizik to their movement and have asked the National Association of Evangelicals to continue to support the broad agenda that began under Cizik’s leadership.

“We respect the right of the NAE to select spokespersons that represent the organization’s stated priorities,” the leaders stated in a letter to the NAE president this week. “At the same time, we release this letter in order to show our deep gratitude for Richard’s 28 years of leadership at the NAE, in which he has had a guiding hand in shaping a broad Christian moral agenda that has helped define American Evangelicals’ public witness.”

Cizik resigned last week over controversies involving remarks he made on abortion and same-sex civil unions during an interview with National Public Radio. more >>

Richard Cizik, ex-vice president of the nation’s largest evangelical body, is a “real hero” and “pioneer” in the “new evangelical” movement, said a progressive, left-leaning evangelical leader in response to Cizik’s resignation this week.

Jim Wallis, founder and president of the Christian social justice ministry Sojourners, praised Cizik for putting creation care and climate change among the priorities of the evangelical movement, and for broadening the group’s agenda to include global poverty, human trafficking, religious liberty, the genocide in Darfur, and foreign policy issues like torture and nuclear weapons.

“Rich Cizik has been a pioneer in the ‘new evangelical’ movement and a real hero, especially to the next generation of young believers,” said Wallis in a statement Friday. more >>

Long-time evangelical lobbyist Richard Cizik has resigned as the vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, the group announced Thursday.

After nearly three decades at the helm of the NAE’s political arm, Cizik has decided to leave the organization after a storm of controversy enshrouded him following remarks he made about abortion and gay marriage in a recent interview.

NAE President Leith Anderson explained, in a letter to the group’s board of directors, that Cizik in the interview had “responded to questions and made statements that did not appropriately represent the values and convictions of NAE and our constituents.” more >>

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals reassured the organization’s Board of Directors as well as media outlets this past week that the group remains fully committed to its long-held stance on abortion, marriage and other biblical values after several controversial statements were made by the group’s vice president.

In a letter to the NAE’s Board of Directors, the Rev. Leith Anderson said that the wording of the Rev. Richard Cizik, NAE’s vice president for governmental affairs, during a recent interview with NPR (National Public Radio) “did not appropriately reflect the positions of the National Association of Evangelicals and its constituents.”

“Our NAE stand on marriage, abortion and other biblical values is long, clear and unchanged,” Anderson wrote in the letter to the directors, a portion of which he forwarded to several news agencies including The Christian Post, on Saturday. more >>

An overwhelming majority of NAE leaders say they have already made up their minds on who they will vote for in the November election, found a survey out this week.

More than three-quarters (82 percent) of the National Association of Evangelicals’ board members have decided who they want to be the next president, according to the September NAE Evangelical Leaders Survey (ELS).

The remaining respondents, 18 percent, say they are still undecided. more >>

The Rev. Richard Cizik, the face of the green evangelical movement, was named among Time magazine’s top 100 most influential people in the world for 2008.

Cizik, an ordained Evangelical Presbyterian minister and head of the Office of Government Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), was honored alongside environmental partner Dr. Eric Chivian, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

“The bringing together of the scientists and the Evangelical Christians is a rather unusual event, since these two groups have really been at odds for a very long time,” Chivian said. “Recognition by TIME Magazine was an indication of how important it is to bring all groups together to capitalize on areas they agree on.” more >>