Today is Earth Day. It is not yet a religious holiday, though it may become one in the future. As it is, many of the mainline Protestant denominations are urging their congregations to observe the day in a manner that would be suitable for Lent (as a time to atone for our sins against Mother Earth) or Christmas (as a time to celebrate the good gifts of a gracious planet). But the mainline is not alone in its growing greenness, or in the misguided way that it goes about its stewardship of creation.
At the evangelical/Anabaptist magazine Sojourners, there is a call to action entitled “Climate Change: Standing for the Poor.” There is a suggested letter to Congress that begins, “As an American, I am glad our country is finally addressing climate change–an issue that affects people across the world–with the introduction of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate bill in Congress. And as a Christian, I believe we each have a responsibility to care for God's creation.”
That last sentence is undoubtedly correct. But here are two problems with attaching that responsibility to a piece of legislation such as K-G-L: first, any legislation that restricts economic activity (which the bill will indirectly cause by mandating drastic reductions in carbon-based energy use) will hurt the poor; and second, it is based on doubtful science that increasingly looks cooked to arrive at a predetermined result.
Evangelical leftists such as those at Sojourners have bought into the idea that state interference in the economy is necessary to insure that the poor are treated fairly. In fact, the distortions that the state typically introduces into the economy are often catastrophic for the poor. Perhaps the best recent example is the combination of laws and regulations that forced banks to give mortgages to those who couldn’t afford to repay them, thus leading directly to the financial collapse of 2008 and a job-killing recession. Well-intentioned environmental legislation that will certainly have a myriad of unintended consequences will do the same.
All too many evangelicals are going down the same road as the mainline churches. They are advocating specific legislative and political solutions to social problems, solutions about which they have no expertise and which they tend to judge solely on the basis of goals and intentions. Legislative sausage-making, however, tends not to be amenable to pious wishes.
Comments
Good points David. Hurting the poor is the first thing I thought of when reading your posting. I often see the green movement as more yuppie than anything else. That doesn't mean I'm against caring for the earth. And she is sister earth not Mother earth. After all Christians have a mother, the Church. But I am very careful about the things I do that affect the earth.
I have no idea how you might support the argument that all economic restriction hurts the poor. Aren't things like child labor laws, workplace safety laws, minimum wage, environmental protections from lethal pollutants all government interference in economic activity? Do you really think the poor were better off during the days of robber barons in the late industrial revolution?
I also don't know how you'd support your idea Biblically. I can just mention the Jubilee, a proposed massive interference in the economy of ancient Israel, as one example of where the Bible consistently contradicts the assertion that we should not restrict the market at all.
So lacking an ethical, practical or theological argument, I'm kind of at a loss.
And the fact remains - our current rate of consumption and pollution is not sustainable. That means that if we are to be alive in a couple hundred years, we need to reduce/change the ways we create affluence now. That's just a fact we can't get a
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