A struggle for control of the evangelical agenda intensified last week, with some leaders declaring that the focus has strayed too far from their signature battles against abortion and gay rights.
Those issues defined the evangelical movement for more than two decades – and cemented ties with the Republican Party. But in a caustic letter, leaders of the religious right warned that these “great moral issues of our time” were being displaced by a “divisive and dangerous” alignment with the left on global warming.
A new generation of pastors has expanded the definition of moral issues to include not only global warming, but an array of causes. Quoting Scripture and invoking Jesus, they’re calling for caps on carbon emissions, citizenship for illegal immigrants and universal health care.
The most well-known champion of such causes, the Rev. Jim Wallis, last week challenged conservative crusader James Dobson, the chairman of Focus on the Family, to a debate on evangelical priorities.
“Are the only really ‘great moral issues’ those concerning abortion, gay marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence?” Wallis asked in his challenge. “How about the reality of 3 billion of God’s children living on less than $2 per day? … What about pandemics like HIV/AIDS … (and) disastrous wars like Iraq?”
A Focus on the Family vice president, Tom Minnery, said he would be happy to take up that debate. Dobson himself, Minnery said, is busy writing a book on child rearing.
“Without question,” Minnery said, “issues like the right to life for an unborn child concern evangelicals far more broadly.”
The public dispute began with the release of a letter signed by several men who helped transform the religious right into a political force, including Dobson, Don Wildmon of the American Family Association and Paul Weyrich.
The signatories – most of them activists, not theologians – expressed dismay that an evangelical emphasis on global warming was “contributing to growing confusion about the very term ‘evangelical.’”
In religious terms, an evangelical is a Christian who has been born again, seeks a personal relationship with Christ, and considers the Bible the word of God, to be faithfully obeyed. But Dobson and his fellow letter-writers suggested that evangelical should also signify “conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality.”
The letter took particular aim at the Rev. Richard Cizik, a prominent evangelical lobbyist who has promoted environmental protection as a moral imperative. Citing the creation story in the Book of Genesis, he has called the fight against global warming a directive “straight from the word of God … no doubt about it.”
The letter accused Cizik of “dividing and demoralizing” Christians by pushing this agenda and called on his employer, the National Association of Evangelicals, to silence him or to demand his resignation.
The board declined to censure or silence Cizik. Moreover, it appeared to embrace a broad view of the evangelical agenda, endorsing a sweeping human rights declaration. The board also reaffirmed its support for a 2004 “Call to Civic Responsibility” that urged evangelical engagement on seven key issues, including religious freedom, the sanctity of life, justice for the poor and environmental protection.
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