Ministers want more done about warming

By Neela Banerjee

Signaling a significant departure from the Southern Baptist Convention's official stance on global warming, 44 Southern Baptist leaders have decided to back a declaration calling for more action on climate change, saying its previous position on the issue was "too timid."

The largest denomination in the United States after the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, with more than 16 million members, is politically and theologically conservative. Yet its current president, the Reverend Frank Page, signed the initiative, "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change."

Two past presidents of the convention, the Reverend Jack Graham and the Reverend James Merritt, also signed, as did presidents of seminaries and Baptist colleges, editors of Baptist newspapers and pastors of churches, many of them in the younger generation of Baptist leaders.

"We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues has often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice," the church leaders wrote in their new declaration.

A 2007 resolution passed by the convention took a more skeptical view of global warming, saying for example, that "the scientific community is divided regarding the extent to which humans are responsible for recent global warming."

In contrast, the new declaration states, "Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better."

The document also urges ministers to preach more about the environment and all Baptists to keep an open mind about environmental policy.

Jonathan Merritt, the national spokesman for the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative and a seminarian at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, said the declaration was a call to all Christians to return to a biblical mandate to guard the world God created.

"The bottom line is that environmental crises are theological problems, and Christians who have been instructed to be 'salt and light' in a dark and sour world cannot abandon this issue to secularists," said Merritt, whose father is James Merritt. "We have to be on the front lines, not in the back pews."

The Southern Baptist signatories join a growing community of evangelical Christians over the last few years who have voiced regret over not having tackled climate change earlier, and who are now pushing for greater awareness and action among their fellow believers, business leaders and politicians.

Experts on the Southern Baptist Convention noted that the initiative marked the growing influence of younger leaders on the discussions among evangelicals. While those younger Baptists remain committed to fighting abortion, for instance, as the declaration notes, the environment is now a top priority, too.

"In no way do we intend to back away from sanctity of life," said the Reverend Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. "I see this as an extension of that same kind of concern. There is no compromise of sanctity of life or holiness of marriage. At the same time I think it is irresponsible to reduce the sanctity of life to one or two issues."

Still, many powerful Southern Baptist leaders and agencies did not sign the declaration, including the convention's influential political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Two years ago, the commission's president, Richard Land, signed a statement saying there was no consensus on global warming.

Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy at the commission, said he saw little chance that the declaration would prove a divisive issue in the denomination.

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Rabu 19 Maret 2008)

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