\nGod’s creation as a moral principle,” and to continue enlisting others. In
\n2004, Cizik convinced the NAE to release a paper called “For the Health of
\nthe Nation,” which urged its members to live in conformity with
\nsustainable principles, talked of “creation care,” and stated,
\n“Because clean air, pure water and adequate resources are crucial to
\npublic health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its
\ncitizens from the effects of environmental degradation.” Two years later,
\nhe helped organize the Evangelical Climate Initiative<\/a>,
\na major statement from 86 key evangelical leaders, including major megachurch
\npastors like Warren, the presidents of 39 Christian colleges, and the national
\ncommander of the Salvation Army. The statement described climate change as an
\nurgent moral issue for Christians and called for the government to act on it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cizik also joined James Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network in
\ncarrying a placard to a pro-life rally that said, “Stop Mercury Poisoning
\nof the Unborn,” and handing out fliers
\nexplaining that most of the birth-defect-producing
\nmercury comes from coal-burning power plants. “If you care about the
\nsanctity of human life,” he said, “then care about whether people
\nlive desperate lives and care about the mercury from power plants.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As Cizik expected, not everyone was happy with his taking environmental
\nstands. “I had people on my board who said, ‘Don’t touch the issue. If you
\ndo, we’ll make your life very difficult.’” Twenty-two evangelical leaders
\nsigned a letter urging the NAE not to take a position on global climate change.
\nJames Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and major conservative activists
\nlike Heritage Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and the Family Research Council’s
\nGary Bauer called for Cizik’s firing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some of this Cizik attributed to “simple ignorance of the science”
\nand some to “bad theology—people who believe the earth is going to be
\ndestroyed anyway, so why bother.” But he also wondered how much came from
\npeople “afraid they’ll lose their power, influence, capacity to raise
\nmoney, what they perceive to be their priorities. They’re afraid they’ll offend
\npolitical allies.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But Cizik and the others persisted. “As a biblical Christian,” he
\nsaid, “I agree with St. Francis that every square inch on Earth belongs to
\nChrist. If we don’t pay attention to global climate change, it’s pretty obvious
\nthat tens and or even hundreds of millions of people are going to die. If you
\nhave a major sea-level rise, then Bangladesh
\nbecomes uninhabitable. Where do you put its 100 million people? Do you put them
\nin India? In China? They’d have no place to go. Britain’s Christian Aid talks
\nof climate change impacting one billion people by mid-century, with drought,
\nfloods, disease, and malnutrition. I’ve
\nasked African-American leaders whether, as a
\nwhite man, I can call climate change ‘the civil rights issue of the 21st
\ncentury.’ Unanimously they say, ‘You not
\nonly can, but you must.’”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cizik believed he could still preach the gospel while also talking about
\nthese kinds of issues. “You need both. To go to bed at night and say that over
\na billion people live on a dollar a day and can’t go to bed themselves with a
\nfull stomach, can you live as a Christian happily in your suburban home,
\ndriving your SUV? Of course you can’t. Not as a real Christian. And if you
\nhappen to be a liberal, conservative, or
\ncentrist, I don’t care. The gospel has priority over politics.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Although Cizik and his allies never quite convinced the NAE to take an <\/p>\n “The issue shook my theology to its core,” Cizik told me. “It <\/p>\n This Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Have Jesus’ disciples been overeating?<\/a><\/p>\n PETA on one side, FOX on the other … now that’s a conundrum<\/a><\/p>\n Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change<\/a><\/p>\n
\nofficial stand on climate change, and he
\neventually got forced out<\/a> after telling radio interviewer Terry
\nGross that he was beginning to rethink his opposition to gay civil unions, the
\norganization reaffirmed the moral importance of “creation care,” a
\ncore perspective that encouraged further dialogue. And Cizik has gone on to
\nstart an organization, The New Evangelicals,
\ndevoted to issues like poverty and environmental engagement. He called his
\nfellow evangelicals “a slow-moving earthquake. They don’t quite understand
\nthemselves how they’re changing, but they are.”<\/p>\n
\nchanged me as much as my being born again 30
\nyears before. This threatens the whole planet, so it raises a basic issue of who
\nwe are as people. Climate change isn’t just a scientific question. It’s a
\nmoral, a religious, a cosmological question. It involves everything we are and
\nwhat we have a right to do.”<\/p>\n
\npiece is adapted from the wholly updated new edition of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in
\nChallenging Times<\/a> by Paul Rogat Loeb. Copyright
\n© 2010 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Griffin.<\/p>\n