Groups of evangelical Christians zre now organizing around the idea that the Bible commands that humans be good stewards of the Earth. The slogan is “Creation care,” and one of the proof-texts is Gen. 2:15:
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Apparently this isn’t just a fringe: the National Association of Evangelicals is circulating a draft statement calling for controls on carbon emissions. Naturally, the Republicans on the Hill, and in particular Sen. Jim Inhofe, are furious. If the environment becomes a wedge between the Christian Right and business interests, that could put a hard-to-repair crack in the GOP’s governing coaliton.
One of the points Wesley Clark made last week in L.A. was that Democrats need to learn to challenge Republicans for the votes of those who consider themselves Bible Christians by pointing out the ways in which their policies are, and their opponents’ policies are not, consistent with Biblical injunctions.
Amen, brother.
Let’s hear it for the extension of multicultural tolerance and understanding to one of the largest minority cultures in this country. The stench of corruption and lying now rising from the White House, the Republican Congressional leadership, and the associated lobbying/fundraising machine ought to be especially offensive to the evangelicals, as long as they’re not presented with Democratic candidates who seem disdainful of their beliefs and concerns. We don’t have to carry the evangelical vote: increasing the Democratic share of it, and demobilizing some of Republican-oriented evangelicals, would be triumph enough.