March 11, 2007

By Harry T. Cook

It makes one sigh. Big-shots among Christian evangelicals are telling the Washington, D.C. lobbyist for their movement to shut the hell up about global warming.

The usual suspects – James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Gary Bauer (Coalitions for America), Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) and Paul Weyrich (American Values) with blessing from arch-scold Ann Coulter – are signatories to a letter demanding that the National Association of Evangelicals force its D.C. representative to stop speaking out on climate issues. None of their organizations, by the way, is a dues-paying member of the association.

The problem? Global warming is not one of “the great moral issues of our time,” unlike abortion and homosexuality. Evangelicals should concentrate on stopping gay marriage, restricting women’s reproductive rights and promoting sexual abstinence among youths.

Certainly the Religious Right has been focusing on those “moral issues” for most of its existence as a political force. And such folk do tend to be single-issue types, but usually are willing to let others pursue their issues in the marketplace of ideas. Not so with global warming. Why would this be?

One reason is that evangelicals put great stock in Genesis 1: 26-28 in which the gods (elohim) are depicted as giving human beings “dominion” over other creatures and, by extension, their environments. The Hebrew verb means, in some cases, to rule, and, in others, to trample. I guess if you have dominion or rule over things, you can trample them with impunity.

In such an interpretation, Earth and its life forms are meant to serve those perceived to be at the top of the food chain: so-called Homo sapiens. Even the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, thought by many to be the zenith of liturgical wisdom, has this phrase in one of its eucharistic prayers: You made us the rulers of creation – seven words that I have blacked out in the altar book. It is the same prayer in which appears the precious line this fragile earth, our island home.

Retired Lutheran pastor Carl Welser, a scientist and theologian, objects to that idea. “Earth,” he once wrote me, “is not so fragile as all that. It is tough, and it will strike back against those who misuse it.” Clearly no evangelical in the usual sense of the word, Pastor Welser would certainly encourage that Washington, D.C. lobbyist to speak up and often about the depredations of global warming.

The good pastor would probably agree that if the evangelicals want to consult the Bible on the proper attitude toward the environment, they would do well to turn to Psalm 24:1: The earth is Yahweh’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it. Now there’s a different spin. Given that the evangelicals believe their god holds them accountable for biblical wisdom, you’d think they’d want their guy in Washington to preach that text to Congress and the White House.

Trumping Psalm 24 and even Genesis 1 is another quasi-biblical vision in which many an evangelical delights. It’s called “The Rapture,” and it’s part of the weirder-than-weird theological movement known as pre-millenialism. The bottom line here is that the world is doomed and life as we have known it is very nearly over. The Anti-Christ (no doubt in the form of a liberal Democratic President) will join forces with the Secretary General of the United Nations to form a one-world government that will provoke a latter-day Armageddon in which most people on Earth will die as God’s wrath is poured out in the form of catastrophic events such as earthquakes. [Take breath here.]

In connection with all that, a miraculous event known as “the rapture” will occur (see I Thessalonians 4: 16-18) in which Jesus Christ will come again to resurrect dead believers from their graves and to gather living ones from their cars, airplanes, jobs, schools, homes, etc. Those who have not been “born again” through the confession of Jesus Christ as their personal savior will be eternally lost. Have a nice day.

Tim LeHaye and Jerry Jenkins in their blockbuster best-seller Left Behind series depicting just such a scenario have gulled millions of Americans who don’t ordinarily read books into believing in the rapture. Such belief, of course, renders moot concerns about global warming, depletion of fossil fuels and the need for peace in the Middle East. After all, it is in the Middle East where Armageddon must begin and end. That’s why the United States has to favor Israel in its foreign policy, Israel being the Holy Land, yadayadayada.

That, in the proverbial nutshell – emphasis on the “nut” – is why the evangelical pooh-bahs don’t want their mouthpiece in Washington to take his eye off the ball and get mixed up with Al Gore’s set of inconvenient facts.

 © Copyright 2007, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.