Can environmentalists and evangelicals find common ground? The political stakes are fairly high with 3 out of 4 white evnagelicals voted for Bush. The show explores the landscape of American politics could be reshaped by a "serious split among conservative evangelicals over the environment and global warming."
Bills Moyers on PBS has an amazing show coming up on this topic along with a robust web site.
A new holy war is growing within the conservative evangelical community, with implications for both the global environment and American politics. For years liberal Christians and others have made protection of the environment a moral commitment. Now a number of conservative evangelicals are joining the fight, arguing that man's stewardship of the planet is a biblical imperative and calling for action to stop global warming.
They tend to frame their support using new terms like "creation care" but even Pat Robertson came out in support of global warning last summer on the 700 Club.
Robertson admitted that while he "had not been one who believed in global warming in the past, they're making a convert out of me."
Remember the far right knows how to turn our their base. In the 2004 election 1 in 5 voters was a self-described evangelicals and born-again Christians over 26.5 million. Although their support of the GOP remains strong a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows a significant decline in
President Bush's approval rating among white evangelicals-from 72 percent to 55 percent-between January 2005 and March 2006."
One of the movements most popular books is called Rejecting Modern Materialism: The Rise of the Crunchy-Conservatives in which Dreyer sets out to chronicle how "Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)."
Thus Dreher draws a conclusion that many other conservatives find uncomfortable: "The undeniable fact is that free-market, technology-driven capitalism, for all its benefits, tends to pull families and communities apart by empowering individuals and encouraging -- even mandating -- individualism.... Civil society has been routed over the past thirty years."
Dreher's postulates that is it the simple things that count and the
solution to this problem is simple: we must return our focus to family, our community and church. We must renounce the selfishness of lust, avarice and covetousness, and we must one again seek to be good stewards of creation over which God has given us dominion... "Politics and economics will not save us," Dreher concludes.
Is there some way to reach out to this community without asking them to sacrifice other core values (theirs or ours)? Is there a way to move past labels and towards dialogue?