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An Evangelical Backlash Against Environmentalism
The New York Times ^ | 12/30/2010 | John Collins Rudolf

Posted on 01/06/2011 7:43:40 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman

Over the last decade, many evangelical Christians have embraced the doctrine called creation care, which uses a scriptural basis to promote good stewardship of the earth and its resources. For these believers, problems like climate change threaten to greatly intensify third-world poverty, making actions to reduce global warming emissions an urgent Christian issue.

“We are convinced that evangelicals must engage this issue without any further lingering over the basic reality of the problem or humanity’s responsibility to address it,” hundreds of evangelical leaders declared in a 2006 statement on climate change.

But while a growing number of local and national nonprofit groups have formed to spread the “creation care” message, an increasingly fierce backlash against the mingling of Christianity and environmentalism has emerged from other quarters of the evangelical movement.

Leading the Christian counterargument on the environment is the Cornwall Alliance, an evangelical nonprofit that strenuously opposes action on climate change and describes the environmental movement as a “false religion” that Christians must avoid at all costs.

This December, the group released a 12-part educational video series, “Resisting the Green Dragon,” warning Christians that radical environmentalism “is striving to put America, and the world, under its destructive control ...

(Excerpt) Read more at green.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Religion; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: christian; cornwallalliance; envionmentalbacklash; greenreligion
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1 posted on 01/06/2011 7:43:41 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

How about a reaction against government con-thugs and their thugopoly of supporters (like the “environmental” movement) stealing our money, our energy and our future all in the bogus name of “global warming”?

How about THAT?


2 posted on 01/06/2011 7:56:39 AM PST by samtheman
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To: Olympiad Fisherman
Leading the Christian counterargument on the environment is the Cornwall Alliance, an evangelical nonprofit that strenuously opposes action on climate change and describes the environmental movement as a “false religion” that Christians must avoid at all costs.

Ping to read later

3 posted on 01/06/2011 7:57:17 AM PST by Alex Murphy ("Posting news feeds, making eyes bleed, he's hated on seven continents")
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

he environmental movement as a “false religion” that Christians must avoid at all costs.

More to the point, it’s FALSE ENVIRONMENTALISM. It is totalitarianism wrapping itself in environmentalism. It is poison wrapped in a candy coating.


4 posted on 01/06/2011 8:00:16 AM PST by DManA
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

Just a subset of the larger and *worldwide* backlash against environmentalism, the Times is trying to increase the stigma against two groups at once.


5 posted on 01/06/2011 8:01:57 AM PST by Weird Tolkienish Figure
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

Actually the backlash is against humanism and oppression at the hands of the regulatory dictators.

I myself am an environmentalist but not in the sense the left wants me to be. I believe God wants me to be a good steward but the choice is mine (as are the consequences).


6 posted on 01/06/2011 8:06:25 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: cripplecreek

What CrippleCreek said!


7 posted on 01/06/2011 8:08:00 AM PST by FiddlePig (truth is hard... lies are easy - http://redneckoblogger.blogspot.com)
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To: cripplecreek

Wholeheartedly agree. But its sad that some Christians, particularly younger ones, can not make the rational and reasoned distinction you and I can. This charlatan use of liberal policy indoctrination via Christianity is a growing trend and will, in my opinion, completely transform the Faith into something unrecognizable in the not too distant future. Heck, we even see Huckabee using his faith to justify nanny state actions.


8 posted on 01/06/2011 8:11:30 AM PST by rintense (The GOP elite & friends can pound sand.)
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To: samtheman

There are too many people in America who have bought into the green religion. This allows the the leaders of our so-called Green Economy to bleed the country dry. Much of the current economic crisis we are now faced with has its vortext in the green movement and the cult of sustainability. Until people’s faith is shaken in modern Baalism and nature worship, expect more of the same.


9 posted on 01/06/2011 8:17:25 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman (Olympiad Fisherman)
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To: rintense
Wholeheartedly agree. But its sad that some Christians, particularly younger ones, can not make the rational and reasoned distinction you and I can.

Its collective salvation rearing its ugly head. They believe that by forcing their will on others by way of government, not only will their soul be saved but the soul of those they oppress will also be saved.

I'm not Catholic but I agree with the Pope when he calls collective salvation "demonic". Collective salvation absolves individuals of responsibility for their own souls. The result is an anything goes attitude with a false belief that their soul is taken care of. In the end it equals damnation.
10 posted on 01/06/2011 8:18:37 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: cripplecreek

The modern environmental movement is based on Romanticism, not humanism. Romanticism is based on ecological holism, which invariably leads to a totalitarian view of the world, and also denies Genesis 1 - that man was made in God’s image, is thus above nature, and specifically commanded by God to subdue and fill the natural world through population under the divine blessing of marriage. This is the ecological upshot of Genesis 1 - which enviros think is an absolute abomination.


11 posted on 01/06/2011 8:21:18 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman (Olympiad Fisherman)
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

Christians ought to treat our world with respect and good stewardship, but we should not allow politically-driven hysteria to dominate our view of the environment.

Our relationship with God is not dependent on our belief in human-caused climate change.

There is plenty of vague, short-sighted, and misunderstood data that can be seen as proving “anthropogenic” global warming (now, they are changing the terms to make it “Climate change”) theory. All too often, data used to blame humans for global warming is far less reliable than data used for other areas of study. It is a valid point of contention that the data used in these studies is frequently flawed, easily misinterpreted, and subject to preconception.

We would be wise if they would apply the words of St. Paul in 1 Thess. 5:21: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (NASB).


12 posted on 01/06/2011 8:24:13 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

If Christianity is anything it is about personal choice. Our interim minster several years ago could not bring himself to speak of the Christian Left. It is precisely that Christian Left that wants us to submit not to God but to a tyrannical central authority here on Earth.


13 posted on 01/06/2011 8:24:19 AM PST by jimfree (In 2012 Sarah Palin will continue to have more relevant quality executive experience than B. Obama.)
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

Environmentalism as a pretext for keeping the environment clean is one thing.

Environmentalism as a pretext for a government crushing of private property rights and complete government control of the economy is another.


14 posted on 01/06/2011 8:30:32 AM PST by marron
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To: marron

For all practical purposes, they are are one in the same.


15 posted on 01/06/2011 9:02:41 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman (Olympiad Fisherman)
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To: SeekAndFind

The command given to Adam & Eve in Genesis 1 was to subdue and fill the earth. At the time the command was issued, that meant to convert the wilderness into a garden, with Eden serving as the model or guide to follow. After the fall into sin, however, as the very ground was cursed, this was no longer possible. Yet the command to subdue and fill the earth remains and was never rescinded. However, since nature is now cursed, man is disciplined in the process as he tries to subdue and fill the earth. Corruption and pollution are all a part of this process just as surely as weeds, thorns, and bad soils have created a lot of blood, sweat, and tears over the centuries and millenia.

As a subpoint, and as a farmer, I can rest assure you that animals love gardens more than they love the wilderness. the wilderness is not a pleasant place to live even for the animals. Furthermore, wild animals heading for the ‘protection’ of the wilderness was certainly intensified after the Flood in Genesis 9 when God intervened and caused the animals to be fearful of man.


16 posted on 01/06/2011 9:15:48 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman (Olympiad Fisherman)
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To: Olympiad Fisherman

I know most people who wear the social label of Christian don’t really have the simple sense God imparts to his own, but those who are Christians should know better than to get sucked into climate change scam. It is pure evil.


17 posted on 01/06/2011 9:24:33 AM PST by pallis
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To: pallis

I am not exactly sure what you mean by the simple “sense God imparts to His own” but I have noticed through the years (I am a Christian) that many Christians are theologically conservative, but socially liberal. There is thus a most serious disconnect between what they say they believe, and what they actually practice politically or socially. In other words, even though Genesis 3 and Romans 1-5 clearly tells us that all of us are sinners down to every last man with no exceptions to the rule (except for Jesus Christ), many Christians have bought into the superficial, leftist cadre that communities are good and individuals are evil. This superficiality is a by product of a very weak understanding of the Scriptures, and has created any number of problems for us in the church, and in our country as well.

I know many Christians who voted for Obama in the 2008 election. I was stunned by this. I suspect that He would have never made it without them. But then again, many (if not most) Christians today are far more interested in music than they are in the Lord, or in the Bible, and that Obama was their 60’s rock star is thus hardly surprising. So, strangely enough, many Christians criticize Hollywoodism for their corruption of our society, yet every Sunday, big entertainment and massively expensive sound systems take over the church services so that it becomes a veritable Woodstock Christianity. It seems that much of our modern worship has almost degenerated to the point of Exodus 32 - operation golden calf when they rose up to play. This actually scares me far more than what I see going on politically and socially in our country precisely because no one senses that there is something seriously wrong here, and they defend it far more than they do the Christian faith.


18 posted on 01/06/2011 10:14:31 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman (Olympiad Fisherman)
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To: cripplecreek

Please see post 18 on this thread.


19 posted on 01/06/2011 10:15:28 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman (Olympiad Fisherman)
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To: cripplecreek

Please see post 18 on this thread.


20 posted on 01/06/2011 10:15:36 AM PST by Olympiad Fisherman (Olympiad Fisherman)
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