Creation Care

[watertower]

A rose by any other name still smells as sweet. I don’t care what they call it, as long as they do it

3.FAITH-BASED INITIATIVEReligious leaders make the environment a "values issue"More than 1,000 Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious leaders from some 35 states have signed and begun circulating a statement opposing President Bush’s environmental policies. And evangelicals aren’t far behind, having drawn up an “Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” that emphasizes Christians’ duty to care for the environment, potentially putting signatories – including heavy-hitters like James Dobson of Focus on the Family – at odds with the candidate many of them supported. “The environment is a values issue,” said Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the 30 million member National Association of Evangelicals. Some evangelicals are lobbying against Bush’s Clear Skies Act, arguing that it doesn’t do enough to rein in mercury pollution, which harms fetuses. Many religious activists prefer to speak of “creation care” rather than “environmentalism,” as the latter term, according to political scientist John C. Green of the University of Akron, brings to the evangelist mind “druids who worship trees.” Welcome to the club, folks.straight to the source: The Washington Post, Blaine Harden, 06 Feb 2005<grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4225>straight to the source: The Washington Post, Blaine Harden, 06 Feb 2005<grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4226>straight to the source: The Boston Globe, Michael Paulson, 05 Feb 2005<grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4227>

 

[Philip_P]

Amen. It’s the concept of stewardship. It’s not about tree huggers or eco-nuts, it’s about responsibility to the Earth God gave us. Reducing emission control standards (e.g clear skies act) harms people as well as the ecosystem. Weakening the standards for pollutants in drinking water (e.g. raising the acceptable limit of arsenic in water) is not being a good steward of God’s creation. Tired of the radical eco-warriors claiming the environmental ground? Take it back. The environment is a morals and values issue, just as much as marriage, sexual mores, and foreign policy. We are stewards of creation.