Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

CURWOOD: Why add concern about global warming to the evangelical platform?

CIZIK: That's a reasonable question. In fact, we have evangelicals around the country who're asking the very same question. We're doing it because of one reason: the Bible mandates us. Not as owners of this Earth, because we aren't owners. The Bible is very clear in Genesis 2:15 that we're simply stewards of what God has given us, and that we're to watch over and care for it. If we're supposed to do that, then we simply can't trash it. We can't simply say, "well, it's all going to be incinerated and, therefore, it matters not what we do with it."

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Well, Jesus says that, you know, you are to be stewards of the Earth. You are to be the salt and light in society, you are to be the leaven, you see, as in the bread that restores it, keeps it healthy. In other words, we are not to be agents of destruction but agents of His continual creation. And since we are taught by Scripture that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, how is it possible for us to love our neighbor if we are committing transgressions against what he has created and impacting people around the world in phenomenal ways?

But won't this harm them politically? Well, it could, but the Reverend says he's gotten far more support than he expected:

So it's a call to care for creation that's rooted in the Scriptural tradition from beginning to end, and we're finding, frankly, enormous receptivity. Now, we've upset the apple cart politically to some folk, but at the grassroots, frankly, amazing support. In fact, the surveys indicate already that we've gotten surprising support for this initiative.

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CURWOOD: Now, I'm not much of a theologian so please excuse me, I'm probably going to get this wrong. But at the other end of the Bible you come to the Book of Revelation, that talks about pretty much everything being made new and that really it doesn't matter much what happens.

CIZIK: Well, wait a second. The Bible does say a new heaven and a new Earth, a renewed Earth. It doesn't say the Earth is going to be destroyed and simply recreated from scratch, if you will, ex nihilo, as God did it the first time out of nothing. No, He's going to renew it. In fact, we see in the Book of Romans by the Apostle Paul that He is redeeming creation even now and that all of creation groans for the revealing of his son – that is, Jesus. And that, at some point, he will return – that's what we, as evangelicals, believe – to a renewed creation. So we simply can't trash what we have, although that is a prevailing wisdom among some, sad to say.

I, for one, applaud this move. Let's hope that the Reverend is serious when he says this:

If our constituency, the evangelicals, say this matters, it's not simply radical enviros who happen to believe the Earth is at stake, but we care about this issue, and the reason we care about it is because people matter. And if the poor around the world are gonna be impacted, shouldn't we do something? We must. And once we've put our imprimatur on this issue then I think we have the freedom to begin to sow some seeds here for a better energy bill in the long run. A better climate policy by the United States. And, frankly, there won't be a Republican running for the nomination, I don't believe, in 2008, who isn't going to hear from us

By the way, if you want to read their For The Health Of The Nation Report(PDF), that's where this environmental commitment comes from. From that report: