The Earth is the Lord's

Dallas Morning News on new evangelicals

There was a story in the Dallas Morning News about "new evangelicals" about the wider range of issues they are addressing. It makes me think that maybe the monicker "evangelical" will not continue to be wholly corrupted by unChristian connotations. Check out the article and the link to the Beliefnet dialogue it describes.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/012408dnpolevangelicals.2b6d111.html

Fear Not!

A Different Shade of Green
(originally published in PRISM magazine, Jan/Feb 08)

Fear is a powerful motivator. If you can inspire fear, you can get people to do almost anything. (If you can also inspire loathing, you can get them to do anything.)

Evangelicals and environmentalists have a good deal in common. Fear, accompanied by an apocalyptic vision, is a standard tool in their toolboxes. Anyone watching those computer-animated maps of coastal cities flooding in An Inconvenient Truth knows that Al Gore may have a richer end-times imagination than Tim LaHaye. Enviros long ago mastered the knack of making you fear for your life, your health, and your family--and then giving you just enough information about environmental injustice for the poor to take the edge off your self-interested attitudes.

New evangelicals and creation care

I spoke this morning at a press conference in South Carolina, on the front steps of the Statehouse, about the emerging voice for creation care among evangelicals. Here is a draft of those remarks:

I'm concerned that young people and people of faith don’t get disconnected from the political process just because they often fail to see their values reflected in that process. Younger evangelicals in particular are often frustrated with what they see as partisan bickering and deadlock, and they are equally frustrated with what the media portrays as a narrow evangelical political agenda. Evangelicals dislike being pigeonholed as single-issue voters in any political party’s back pocket. They would prefer that candidates reflect their values rather than the other way around.