Can we admit that it's real yet?

Strangely enough, Cizik's position on most of the "Evangelical" issues that he mentions have more than a little tinge of Judaism to them; i.e. the world is inherently imperfect and it is our responsibillity to improve upon it. I've always loved this idea, but of course, I'm a liberal, tree-hugging, sodomite, making my opinion relatively useless in this issue, amount to nothing more than "warm and fuzzy" sentiments.

Of course, the real beauty of Focus on the Family's fucked up logic doesn't appear until they get the chance to speak for themselves (as they do in the NYT article). A Foucault-ian (as I definitely pretend to be from time to time), would have an absolute fit over the stated goal of Evangelicalism. "[The great moral issues of our time] a need to campaign against abortion and same-sex marriage and to promote 'the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.'" Every single one of these ideas is derrived from the need to control sexuality in one way or another. In other words, the "great moral issue" for evangelical christians is the continued genealogy of the church - or, in other words, the maintenance of its own existence, since by and large religion is (in Richard Dawkins' view) an "accident of birth." A large body of statistical evidence demonstrates how your membership in a church is the result of your parents' membership, which would explain the implicit need for a church to dominate the sexual nature of its members. Tragically, it is this need to reproduce that has progressively overwhelmed any other sort of Christian ideals (what happened to peace, happiness, and love no matter who you are) in modern Evangelicalism, that leading to an appalling (or as some would happen to say, hilariously absurd) obsession with the concept of "salvation." (See here)


Evangelical Angers Peers With Call for Action on Global Warming
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 3, 2007; Page A04


Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson and other conservative Christian leaders are calling for the National Association of Evangelicals to silence or fire an official who has urged evangelicals to take global warming seriously.

In a letter this week to the board of the NAE, which claims 30 million members, Dobson and his two dozen co-signers said the Rev. Richard Cizik, the NAE's vice president for government relations, has waged a "relentless campaign" that is "dividing and demoralizing" evangelicals.

Cizik has been a leader in efforts to broaden evangelicals' political agenda beyond abortion and same-sex marriage. He says Christians have a biblical imperative to protect the environment, which he calls "creation care."

"I speak with a voice that is authentically evangelical on all the issues, from religious freedom around the world, to compassion for the poor, ending oppression in Darfur -- and yes, creation care is one of those issues," Cizik said yesterday.

The NAE's board is scheduled to meet next week in Minnesota. Its former president, the Rev. Ted Haggard, resigned in November after a scandal involving sex and drugs.

His successor, the Rev. Leith Anderson, defended Cizik as "a great asset." He also said that the Dobson letter was released to the news media before it was received by the board. "I guess that says it all," he said.

Evangelical's Focus on Climate Draws Fire of Christian Right
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: March 3, 2007
Leaders of several conservative Christian groups have sent a letter urging the National Association of Evangelicals to force its policy director in Washington to stop speaking out on global warming.

The conservative leaders say they are not convinced that global warming is human-induced or that human intervention can prevent it. And they accuse the director, the Rev. Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for government affairs, of diverting the evangelical movement from what they deem more important issues, like abortion and homosexuality.

The letter underlines a struggle between established conservative Christian leaders, whose priority has long been sexual morality, and challengers who are pushing to expand the evangelical movement's agenda to include issues like climate change and human rights.

"We have observed," the letter says, "that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time."

Those issues, the signers say, are a need to campaign against abortion and same-sex marriage and to promote "the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."

The letter, dated Thursday, is signed by leaders like James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; Gary L. Bauer, once a Republican presidential candidate and now president of Coalitions for America; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; and Paul Weyrich, a longtime political strategist who is chairman of American Values.

They acknowledge in the letter that none of their groups belong to the National Association of Evangelicals, a broad coalition that represents 30 million Christians in hundreds of denominations, organizations and academic institutions. But, they say, if Mr. Cizik "cannot be trusted to articulate the views of American evangelicals," then he should be encouraged to resign.

Mr. Cizik (pronounced SIZE-ik) did not respond to requests for an interview yesterday, and the association's chairman, L. Roy Taylor, was unavailable. But the Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the association, said, "We're talking about somebody here who's been in Washington for 25 years, has an amazing track record and is highly respected."

"I'm behind him," said Mr. Anderson, who was named president in November after the sudden resignation of the Rev. Ted Haggard, the Colorado pastor caught up in a scandal involving a gay prostitute.

Mr. Cizik, who is well known on Capitol Hill, has long served as one of the evangelical movement's agenda-setters. He helped put foreign policy on the evangelical agenda in the late 1990s, focusing on the persecution of Christians in other countries.

He said in an interview last year that he experienced a profound "conversion" on the global warming issue in 2002 after listening to scientists at a retreat. Now an emblem for a new breed of evangelical environmentalists, he has been written about in Vanity Fair and Newsweek and has appeared in "The Great Warming," a documentary on climate change.

Evangelicals have recently become a significant voice in the chorus on global warming. Last year more than 100 prominent pastors, theologians and college presidents signed an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" calling for action on the issue. Among the signers were several board members of the National Association of Evangelicals; Mr. Anderson, who has since been named its president; and W. Todd Bassett, who was then national commander of the Salvation Army and was appointed executive director of the association in January.

Mr. Haggard, then the president, and Mr. Cizik did not sign, after criticism from some of the same leaders who have now sent the letter about Mr. Cizik.

In interviews, some signers of this latest letter said they were wary of the global warming issue because they associated it with leftists, limits on free enterprise and population control, which they oppose.

"We're saying what is being done here," Mr. Perkins said, "is a concerted effort to shift the focus of evangelical Christians to these issues that draw warm and fuzzies from liberal crusaders."