Open letter regarding the Southern Baptist Global Warming "declaration"

xjcsa | March 12, 2008 | xjcsa

[xjcsa]

Several dozen leading members of the Southern Baptist Convention, including its current President and several past Presidents, recently released a "Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change." I attended Liberty University, a school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and specifically affiliated with Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Both the church and the University were founded and led by Jerry Falwell until his death last May. The school and church are now led by Rev. Falwell's two sons: Jerry Falwell, Jr. is the Chancellor and President of Liberty University, and Jonathan Falwell is the senior pastor of the church.

Nobody directly affiliated with these ministries appears on the list of signatories to the Declaration. I thought it appropriate to send the ministries the following letter regarding the situation:

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Rev. Falwell-

I am a 1997 graduate of Liberty University living in my hometown of Cedar Falls, IA. I spent four great years at Liberty and was awarded a B.S. in Religion with a concentration in Youth Ministries. I enjoyed my time there, and I have a great deal of respect for you and your brother, and for the institutions which you lead. You guys seem to be doing a great job, and I commend you. I hope to be able to visit the campus one of these days to see all the changes.

I write with concern not for Liberty or TRBC specifically, but for the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention, with which Liberty and TRBC are affiliated. I thought it was a good move to join the SBC at the time it happened, but a recent event causes me great concern.

This week prominent members of the SBC - including several men I remember having heard speak at Liberty during my time there - signed a document titled "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change." The document is mostly innocuous, but the following paragraph is a serious problem:

"Though the claims of science are neither infallible nor unanimous, they are substantial and cannot be dismissed out of hand on either scientific or theological grounds. Therefore, in the face of intense concern and guided by the biblical principle of creation stewardship, we resolve to engage this issue without any further lingering over the basic reality of the problem or our responsibility to address it. Humans must be proactive and take responsibility for our contributions to climate change—however great or small."

Here's my translation: "The debate on climate change is over. It's time to do whatever Al Gore and the Environmental Left say we should do."

The global warming movement is, in blunt terms, an evil, anti-human cult. Its aims are to impoverish developed nations and keep poor nations from improving their condition. And the "precautionary principle" which this "declaration" embraces is a deeply flawed and dangerous lens through which to view the world. It ignores the real - sometimes extreme - costs of the action advocated to "fix" the "problem," and serves as a mechanism to shut down discussion.

C.S. Lewis, in his excellent science fiction novel "That Hideous Strength," tells of a rather mad scientist who dreams of making the Earth look like the surface of the moon - so "clean", completely barren of organic life. The basis of organic life, as any Star Trek viewer knows, is carbon. The "mad scientist" essentially wanted to eliminate carbon. And now we see the scientific elites declaring war on nothing less than carbon - the basis of all life on earth.

If the SBC is truly embracing this "Declaration", then it is time for serious ministries to exit the Convention. If this is simply the views of a few, I urge you to enter the fight against the preposterous demonization of carbon dioxide and the embrace of an evil cult.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks and God bless-

[xjcsa] LU Class of 1997

[xjcsa]

Well, one response would be that he was too fat to be spinning in his grave. He should have smoked for 40 years, but that would have been a sin.

Apparently double-posting a complete asshat comment like yours is just fine.

[Marcella]

The idea of global warming gave Al Gore a reason to keep living. When Baptist churches get into this, having an SUV will be a sin. When smoking came under fire, suddenly smoking was a sin. Dancing was fun so that became a sin. Having a glass of wine was nice, so that became a sin.

This world, in its early days, was hot, so it cooled, then it got realy, realy, cold, then it warmed up; it’s going to keep doing it’s thing of warming and cooling no matter what the creatures on it do. My son, who is a documentary film maker who lives in London, spent three months on the ice pack near the north pole a couple of years ago and it’s still really, really, cold and really, really, frozen. He did not see Al Gore there.

[Lancey Howard]

The Falwell brothers did *not* sign this statement; my letter was commending them for *not* signing the statement and urging them to actively fight against the Warmist fools. As far as I can tell they're solid men, unlikely to be led into this kind of idiocy.

Thanks for the clarification. How long will it take the Falwells to vociforously denounce the "environmental" loons?

[RoadTest]

“The global warming movement is, in blunt terms, an evil, anti-human cult. Its aims are to impoverish developed nations and keep poor nations from improving their condition. “

You are one person who thoroughly understands what Global Warming really is about.

[RoadTest]

I consider SUVs the dumbest vehicle ever to roll down the street, but I will fight to defend everyone’s right to own one.

[Tampa Caver]

Boy, I think you got it right. You must be a long time member in good standing. If this happens, which denomination should we conservative SBCers jump to?

[Coldwater Creek]

I'm really concerned that now that Dr. Rogers, Dr. Falwell and other's that brought the SBC back to their roots are gone, we are going to see a much more moderate leadership.

Hopefully, Dr. Land will help to keep the boat upright for a long time.

[Coldwater Creek]

My devout SBC children are now visiting First Evangecial.

[epow]

The global warming movement is, in blunt terms, an evil, anti-human cult.

I agree with this guy. A lot of good people are being suckered by the lies and half truths about globalony warming. Fortunately more real scientists and climatologists are coming out now with the truth, but the MSM doesn't want us to hear them so they aren't being allowed on the Fox or CNN talking head shows or guesting on big time TV talk shows.

The head of NASA recently said that although the atmosphere is warming slightly it's not because of what man is doing to the atmosphere. He confirmed that the surface of the sun goes through periodic cycles of heating and cooling, and naturally those cycles affect Earth's atmosphere. Right now we are going through a relatively minor climate change, but the warming cycle may be reversed in a few years and a cooling cycle may begin. Within a few years the ecofreak alarmists who want us to go back to the stone age in order to stop global warming may be weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth about global cooling.

Water vapor makes up 97% of all greenhouse gasses in earth's atmosphere, and man made CO2 makes up less than 1/10 of 1% of the other 3%. That's an almost insignificant amount by comparison with the amount of naturally occurring CO2. According to some climatologists whose articles I have read, nothing humans could do short of simultaneously exploding hundreds of nuclear bombs would bring about a significant change in our atmosphere's temperature. And that change would be to a much colder climate, not global warming, because for many months or years the sun's energy would be partially blocked from reaching the earth's surface by dense clouds of dust and smoke.

I'm not a scientist and I don't play one on TV, but common sense tells me to be extremely skeptical of near-hysterical claims that the almost infinitesimally small percentage of atmospheric CO2 made by man is causing a major climate change on earth.

[RightWhale]

This declaration is totally congruent with Rev Wright’s declarations and both contribute to the destruction of Christianity and so are being vigorously reported by the MSM.

[epow]

He's been backpedaling...sort of...but he says he still stands by the text of the Declaration.

Some one who he trusts should get him straightened out on this globaloney nonsense, he has too much influence on Southern Baptist preachers and the 16 million SBC members to go on unknowingly spreading the global warming lies.

He has probably never heard the other side of the story. You know, the side that isn't hysterical and isn't lying though it's teeth about man's microscopically tiny role, if any, in atmospheric change.

[xjcsa]

Thanks for the clarification. How long will it take the Falwells to vociforously denounce the "environmental" loons?

Actually it wouldn't surprise me if they've already done so, but I haven't heard anything. I don't live near their ministries anymore, so I don't always hear things immediately.

[epow]

Jerry Falwell is spinning in his grave. How did such a great man raise such pathetic nincompoops?

Unless I missed something in the article it's not Falwell son's who are endorsing the global warming crap, it's the heads of the Southern Baptist Convention of which the Thomas Road Church is a member. Their old Dad is probably shaking his head so fast his crown keeps falling off.

There are a great many very fine, Godly ministers and bible teachers serving in SBC churches and seminaries, but it's a top heavy organization and the people at the top are often out of sync with the political and social beliefs and opinions of the local church pastors and congregations.

I left the SBC and joined an evangelical, bible-believing, independent Baptist church over forty years ago, and I have never regretted it for a NY minute.

[epow]

I consider SUVs the dumbest vehicle ever to roll down the street, but I will fight to defend everyone’s right to own one.

You sound like me.

I have never understood the craze for SUVs, but if people who like them are willing to pay through the gijjywah in initial cost and high fuel costs to have them it's not my place to tell them they should know better than to follow the crowd into every fad that comes along.

What vehicle fad will be next after the SUV becomes old hat, a Peterbilt sleeper cab truck in every suburban garage? Or maybe a civilian version of an Abrams tank? That 120mm cannon and the .50 caliber BMG might come in handy when the freeway gets jammed up at rush hour. I wonder what the EPA mileage rating will be.

[swmobuffalo]

“bring the SBC membership to half of what it is today. Make the Republicans lose a huge segment of their support”

Either the members that left join another church or start one of their own. That’s what Baptists excel at.

Don’t think this is going to affect Republican support, those that “defect” weren’t really Republican to begin with.

[pepsionice]

Actually....the ones that defect from the SBC...are the “real” Republicans, and the Global Warmers that stay are the non-Republicans. You won’t recognize the SBC congregations in five years...they will be so ate up with saving the environment and reciting Bible verses as they do it.

[Sybeck1]

Off Ridgeway Circle?

[Sybeck1]

Baptist ping

[chesley]

Baptists speak only for themselves. The convention as whole has not endorsed this. Even if it did, it would not bind any individual churches, the state conventions or any Baptist.

Baptists will split over the preacher’s wife’s hairdo, so if the convention ever passed such a resolution, it would be halved within two weeks. And there wouldn’t be any of the nonsense our Episcopalian brothers are going through about who gets the church property, either.

[Coldwater Creek]

Yep that the one!

One moved over to Germantown Baptist and the others are still at Bellevue.

Family get togethers are really strained these days.