As we noted last week, various right-wing leaders such as James Dobson and Tony Perkins had taken it upon themselves to directly attack the National Association of Evangelicals for its concerns over global warming, going so far as to call for the resignation of the NAE’s Vice President for Governmental Affairs, Richard Cizik.
The NAE’s board of directors met last week and not only did it refuse to cave under the pressure brought by the Dobson gang, it went so far as to reaffirm its support for its own “For the Health of the Nation” document (PDF) which stated:
As we embrace our responsibility to care for God’s earth, we reaffirm the important truth that we worship only the Creator and not the creation. God gave the care of his earth and its species to our first parents. That responsibility has passed into our hands. We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part. We are not the owners of creation, but its stewards, summoned by God to “watch over and care for it” (Gen. 2:15). This implies the principle of sustainability: our uses of the Earth must be designed to conserve and renew the Earth rather than to deplete or destroy it.
As if that wasn’t itself enough to infuriate Dobson and his ilk, the board also endorsed “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Protecting Human Rights in An Age of Terror,” (PDF) which states:
(a) We renounce the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by any branch of our government (or any other government)—even in the current circumstance of a war between the United States and various radical terrorist groups.
(b) We call for the extension of basic human rights and procedural protections to all persons held in United States custody now or in the future, wherever and by whomever they are held.
(c) We call for every agency of the United States government to join with the United States military and to state publicly its commitment to the terms of the Geneva Conventions related to the treatment of prisoners, especially Common Article 3.
(d) We call for the legislative or judicial reversal of those executive and legislative provisions that violate the moral and legal standards articulated in this declaration.
Undoubtedly, this will only serve to further agitate Dobson and his right-wing allies who are desperately seeking to maintain their political influence in the evangelical community by keeping it focused on their own narrow anti-gay, anti-choice agenda.
