Something Very Strange
My last two posts about Pastor Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, praised the NAE for putting a greater emphasis on environmental work and efforts to reduce poverty but sharply criticized Haggard for the way he talks about both.
But then I read this from the New York Times. I have to say, any group that can get such a reaction from Oklahoma’s senior Senator has to be doing something right:
A major obstacle to any measure that would address global warming is Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and an evangelical himself, but a skeptic of climate change caused by human activities.
Mr. Inhofe has led efforts to keep mandatory controls on greenhouse gases out of any emission reduction bill considered by his committee and has called human activities contributing to global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
“You can always find in Scriptures a passage to misquote for almost anything,” Mr. Inhofe said in an interview, dismissing the position of Mr. Cizik’s association as “something very strange.”
Mr. Inhofe said the vast majority of the nation’s evangelical groups would oppose global warming legislation as inconsistent with a conservative agenda that also includes opposition to abortion rights and gay rights. He said the National Evangelical Association had been “led down a liberal path” by environmentalists and others who have convinced the group that issues like poverty and the environment are worth their efforts.
For the record, I’ve been quite encouraged by much of what I’ve read from Richard Cizik, the NAE’s vice president for governmental affairs. For whatever reason, it’s primarily Pastor Haggard that gets me riled up.