A group of more than 40 leading Southern Baptists has denounced the denomination’s stance on global warming as ”too timid”. Its cautious response to the environment is seen around the world as ”uncaring, reckless and ill-informed”, they say.
Their statement has widened divisions about climate change within the powerful American evangelical movement.
A declaration backed by the president of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, Reverend Frank Page, as well as by two former presidents, Reverend Jack Graham and Reverend James Merritt, argues that the ”time for timidity regarding God’s creation is no more” and that it is prudent to take action now to avoid disaster.
The statement is the culmination of a growing wave of feeling within Southern Baptists that the church’s stated position is outdated. At its convention in June last year, church leaders approved a resolution saying any attempt by the government to limit greenhouse gases was ”very dangerous” and risked hurting the poor.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the second largest denomination in the US after Catholicism, with 16-million members. Since the 1970s it has played a central role within the religious right, the alliance of political and theological interests that helped to sustain the administrations of Ronald Reagan and both George Bushes.
But in recent months there has been a groundswell of opinion among its members that the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere needs to be taken seriously. Al Gore, the former Democratic vice-president and Nobel laureate for his work on climate change, is a Baptist from Tennessee.
Climate change has been fiercely divisive for many evangelicals. Leading figures such as Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell have sought to head off the mounting grassroots calls from younger pastors for action on the environment.
Leading members of the religious right have insisted that climate change is not one of ”their” issues, unlike abortion or stem-cell research.
The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, founded by the Colorado-based evangelical James Dobson, propounds the view that higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide ”would benefit plant growth” while action to reduce energy consumption would harm the economy and damage ”societal well-being”.
It quotes a statistic that the Kyoto treaty would lead to 1,3million job losses in one year among black and Hispanic Americans. Concerted attempts have been made to marginalise pro-ÂÂenvironmentalists among church leaders. — Â