Evangelical Environmentalists and Political Shades of Gray
By: Lowell
Published On: 3/11/2005 2:00:00 AM
Yesterday's New York Times had a great story which illustrates one of the themes I keep returning to: that people are not easily pigeonholed into stereotypical "left" and "right" categories. This includes politicians like Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean and, of course, Bill and Hillary Clinton. The point is that all of these politicans represent a mixture of beliefs and are in no sense "pure" on the ideological spectrum. All have areas where they might be considered "conservative," others where they might be considered "moderate," and still others where they undoubtedly fall into the "progressive" category. They're all over the spectrum not so much because they are political chameleons as because they happen to be human beings. For that simple reason, they are complicated, which I would argue makes them more interesting, likeable, and appealing than if they were simply rigid ideologues.
Speaking of complicated and intriguing, the New York Times article I mentioned is entitled, "Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming." That's right, it now looks like the National Association of Evangelicals -- not exactly a bunch of stereotypical Birkenstock wearing, hippie tree huggers -- is coming out strongly on the side of protecting the environment. As Rev. Rich Cizik, the group's vice president of governmental affairs, puts it, "I don't think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created."
Appropriately enough, the Christian Evangelicals have their own word for environmentalism which expresses exactly where they're coming from on this: "creation care." And, not suprisingly, the Evangelicals express their "environmentalist" or "creation care" activism in the language of their faith. For instance, there is the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign of Reverend Jim Ball, Executive Director of the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN). Yet another Evangelical, Reverend Rich Cizik, goes so far as to ask, "if we're for social tinkering to protect the sanctity of human life, ought we not be for a little tinkering to protect the environment?"
What I find particularly fascinating about this type of political "cross cutting" is its potential to blur the seemingly solid "red" and "blue" lines which divide us. As Barack Obama said so eloquently in his speech to the Demcoratic National Convention last summer:
The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I?ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don?t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we?ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
This is the type of politics that Tim Kaine offers -- a politics of inclusion, a politics of hope, a politics which does not center on "red" and "blue" divisions, but on our "red, white and blue" union. This is certainly not a rigid right-wing politics as exemplified by Jerry Kilgore. And, as I've point out previously on this page, even the National Association of Evangelicals would appear to agree that politics is far more complicated -- for instance, that Evangelical Christianity can be strongly pro-environment/"creation care" -- than the Jerry Kilgores of the world seem to be saying.
The bottom line, which the Mark Warners and Tim Kaines of the world understand (and the Jerry Kilgores apparently do not), is that people aren't a bunch of "red and blue" stereotypes, and they certainly aren't rigidly "black and white." This does not mean, by the way, that Mark Warner or Tim Kaine are "flip floppers" or "political opportunists. Quite the contrary, it makes them human. Does that mean they sometimes appear to contradict themselves? Sure. But, I would argue, that's a good thing in this context. To quote Walt Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."
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