Throughout the weekend, CNN and Headline News will be playing this footage of the Rev. Sally Bingham’s environmental activism. Her Interfaith Power and Light campaign is mobilizing a national religious response to global warming while promoting renewable energy, resource efficiency and conservation.
+Screened An Inconvenient Truth in 4000 congregations.
+Works with national church and environmental groups to pressure Congress and the President to pass strong legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
+25 local state offices that provide speakers, energy audits, informational resources to all members of the faith community.
+Created the ShopIPL online strore where individuals and congregations can purchase low cost, high quality energy saving products.
The polluting industry is losing is exploitative grip on the American religious landscape. Now it’s almost impossible to fail to find an article each week on the greening of God. In fact, the dog bites man story is becoming “evangelicals care for creation.”
For example, from the Associated Press:
The tall, tan pastor stood at the pulpit of his Baptist church on a recent Sunday morning, cleared his throat, and nervously proclaimed the following:
“We can embrace God and Scripture and science together. And it’s enough to say when they agree – and sometimes they do – we should embrace it. And they agree that our Earth cannot last forever. And that we are charged with the responsibility of taking care of it.”
With that, there was another rustle in the crowd. And Peachtree Baptist Church had opened its two-month Sunday sermon series on the environment.
But this growing club of the Godly greens reveals more than a local church shift.
This is evident in “true conservative” Bob Novak’s recent column attacking GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee clearly departs from the mainstream of the conservative movement in his confusion of “growth” with “greed.” Such ad hominem attacks are part of his intuitive response to criticism from the Club for Growth. . . . On “Fox News Sunday” on Nov. 18, he called the “tactics” of the Club for Growth “some of the most despicable in politics today. It’s why I love to call them the Club for Greed. . .”
Never one to shed light basic human morality, Novak continues to split “economic conservative” from scripture:
But Huckabee simply does not fit within normal boundaries of economic conservatism, such as when he criticized President Bush’s veto of a Democratic expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Calling global warming a “moral issue” mandating “a biblical duty” to prevent climate change, he has endorsed a cap-and-trade system that is anathema to the free market.
It’s becoming clear that a split is coming, with the godly moving away from the greedy “conservatives” and joining the growing club for a green future.
Barguna, Bangladesh – The death toll from Thursday’s cyclone in Bangladesh is now more than 3,100, and officials say that number could reach 10,000 once rescuers get to outlying islands. Rescuers are struggling to reach thousands of survivors, and relief items have been slow to reach many.
A representative of the National Association of Evangelicals, Richard Cizik discusses the importance of the environment to his constituency and his work.
In August, NOW traveled with an unlikely alliance of Evangelical Christians and leading scientists to witness the breathtaking effects of global warming on Alaska’s rapidly changing environment. Though many in the evangelical community feel recognition of global warming is in opposition to their mission, the week-long trip inspired new thinking on the relationship between science and religion, and on our moral responsibility to protect the planet. A breathtaking and surprising journey to find common ground between earth and sky.
This web-exclusive special footage is related to the NOW on PBS program “God and Global Warming” airing Friday, October 26. Watch the episode here.