Posted on 11/11/2006 12:38:04 AM PST by JohnHuang2
The Republican Party lost the mid-term elections primarily due to the war in Iraq; however, there were other contributing factors. According to the Pew Research Centre, 78 percent of evangelicals in the United States voted Republican in 2004. This week polls indicate that just 50 percent of evangelicals voted for the Republicans, and evangelical turnout was dramatically lower. The Democrats, with pro same-sex marriage, pro-abortion leader Nancy Pelosi, now control the legislative agenda of the U.S. government. How did this happen?
The Rev. Ted Haggard, the defrocked president of the National Association of Evangelicals led a two-year campaign to subject the evangelical church to the laws of global warming. The introduction of the earth movement has confused the church with neo-pagan teachings. In Romans Chapter 1, God warns us not to place creation over the Creator.
The global warming movement began at the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit where its director, Maurice Strong, started with the statement "We must therefore transform our attitudes and values, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of divine nature." Strong subsequently passed several worldwide laws in 1997 known as the Kyoto Accord. In 1994, the U.N. commissioned Strong to write the Earth Covenant that was introduced in 2000 as the Earth Charter. The new edict was written on papyrus paper, placed in a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, ceremoniously ushered into the U.N. and called "the new 10 commandments," a "Global Ethic" that will transcend all religions and countries.
(Column continues below)
Nearly two years ago, Rev. Haggard began his earth campaign as he threatened the Republican U.S. Senate, stating that he would turn the evangelicals against them if they refused to ratify global warming laws. On March 10, 2005, the New York Times described his efforts with the headline "Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming." Haggard said in the article: "The question is, will evangelicals make a difference? And the answer is, the Senate thinks so. We do represent 30 million people, and we can mobilize them if we have to." Haggard's vice president, Richard Cizik, followed by saying, "When evangelicals speak, Republicans tend to listen, and frankly it's Republicans who need to get the message."
The Republican Senate did not take heed to the threat – therefore, Haggard carried out his plan. By February 2006, Evangelicals Against Climate Change was launched with a joint declaration signed by 86 prominent leaders. They went ahead with the program despite protests from a Who's Who of politically powerful evangelicals, including Chuck Colson, James Dobson and the Rev. D. James Kennedy. The CNN headline read "Strange Bedfellows," as evangelicals had joined forces with environmentalists who are well-known for being ungodly and sexually immoral. James 4:4 says, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." They spent an initial $200,000 on the crusade. "We will see tens of millions of evangelicals engaged in the work we are talking about today," said the Rev. Dr. Leith Anderson, now the interim president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Haggard's "environmental evangelism" as he calls it, continued. In October, the NAE promoted their program "Is God Green?" The organization then stepped up its efforts and launched a new vision for the church on Oct. 18 called Re:Vision, a new action plan to promote environmental activism.
On the surface, this all seems like harmless activity to ensure clean air and clean water. God does command us to be good stewards of the earth but not subservient to it. Everyone wants to reduce pollution and save cute cuddly animals. Unfortunately, this is not the focus. Instead, the global warming movement seeks to trump all other issues, including spiritual concerns, with threats of catastrophic destruction if we don't follow its precepts plus reduce CO2 production, the very gas every plant on earth needs to survive.
God warns us numerous times in Scripture to never subvert His precepts with that of man or earth. Romans Chapter 1, versus 22-26 says, "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions."
We all sympathize with Rev. Haggard's pain. He obviously is experienced great torment as he entered into his "vile passions" hiring a homosexual prostitute and buying crystal methamphetamine. His wife and children are devastated by such debauchery, as are the 14,000 members of his church. Haggard confessed that saying, "I am a deceiver and a liar." Millions of airplanes take off and land safely every year, but when one crashes it is headline news around the world. We don't blame all aircraft for the faults of one.
God warns us not to place anything above Him. His first commandment in Exodus 20:3 is "You shall have no other gods before me." We cannot subjugate Father God to mother earth. The original sin of Adam was to trust the creation over the Creator. God gave man dominion over the earth, not subjugation under it. Jesus Himself says to us in Luke 21:34, "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting (drugs), and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." The hedonistic cares of this life, including drugs, drink and the earth, must not be our concern. We are to focus on eternal affairs, not temporal things.
Today we live in the last days before the return of Christ. Second Thessalonians 2:3 warns us to "Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition." I believe this "falling away" has begun.
The seductive earth movement has crept into our churches and is leading us to trust the creation over the Creator. The "False Prophet" or Apostate Faith described in Revelation 13 as the lamb with two horns and verse 17 as Mystery Babylon and the Scarlet Harlot clearly lines up with the earth movement of today. My book "The Great Falling Away," to be released Dec. 15, compares 100 aspects of the "Apostate Faith" with the earth worship of today.
Scripture warns us "be not deceived," "beware of the false prophets," "take heed lest you be led astray." Haggard assisted in exalting the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi to power. He was led astray and is now suffering tremendously. We need to pray for him and pray for protection for us. If it can happen to a great leader such as Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals representing 51 denominations with 30 million members, then it can happen to you or me. With God's help, we can avoid being seduced into "falling away" as we place Jesus Christ Lord of all, including the earth.
Without commmenting on the theology itself, this is the dumbest reason given for why the Republicans lost this election that I've seen yet, and the bar was pretty high..
If evangelicals left the party, we would win.
Kooks.
I consider myself fairly well-versed on politics, but I never HEARD of Haggard until he was "outed" by the media. I think his effect on the ultimate outcome was almost nada.
I still have NO idea who this guy is or what the heck he is supposed to be. (I'm A Baptist and never heard of him)
I agree 100%. I never heard of him either.
According to this article they did leave us, and we lost.
Funniest thing I've read all day. Evangelicals leaving the GOP would find us back to our 1970s numbers in government.
I consider myself fairly well-versed on politics, but I never HEARD of Haggard until he was "outed" by the media
Here you go:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0353588/
As a papist it is my understanding that Baptists are fundamentalists and evangelicals are NOT fundamentalists. That seems to be confusing a lot of folks here.
Kooks.
Great idea - losing 40 million votes sounds like a great start to a winning strategy. Moron.
This phony should be flogged, and than forgiven ...
It looks to me like Ted was an Episcopalian
Not to mention that many Envanglical churches signed with the Council of Churches agenda (Antiwar, antigun, pro social welfare, pro abortion, pro-criminal, ect)
Great idea - losing 40 million votes sounds like a great start to a winning strategy. Moron.
Come end times they're all gonna vanish anyway, and ineligible to vote.
But many of their members don't buy this stuff...
There are fundamentalist Baptists and evangelical Baptists. Don't worry about it. Let's just read the Bible and let God do the talking. ;-`
No Idea, I just never heard of him before the media started slamming him.
Ted Haggard's problems decribed in this article had no effect on this election whatsoever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.