Is The National Association of Evangelicals Wandering in the Darkness?
By Charles Redfern
It seems the regal gentleman has fallen off his horse. He now stumbles through brambles and thickets in the dimming light, far behind the other riders.
Such is the quandary of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and many of its 40 member denominations and 45,000 churches. Their acquiescence is palpable while evidence mounts like a NASCAR pile-up: Last September, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a 2,000-page report warning of accelerated warming rates, with 95 percent odds favoring human culpabil-ity;1 global 2013 carbon emissions likely reached 36 billion tons, a new record;2 ninety experts say the IPCC previously underestimated probable sea level increases (in other words, the allegedly alarmist organization was timid);3 a geoscientist team predicts mid-century Atlantic City flood levels surmounting “the natural disaster that was Superstorm Sandy;”4 British scientists viewed satellite and other data and found that the oft-cited global warming “slowdown” is probably illusory. (In simple terms, no thermometers were planted at key warming spots, which made for inaccurate overall read-ings.)5 The careening didn’t abate in January: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated that 2013 tied with 2003 as the fourth warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880.6 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), using different models, said last year tied with 2009 and 2006 for seventh place.7
In other words, it was hot last year – polar vortexes notwithstanding.
Then there was the catastrophic roar of one of history’s most powerful typhoons.8 Remember Katharine Hayhoe’s cautions in her long post-Sandy tweet: Climate change does not multiply storms but exacerbates them, and there is no way to determine if it spurred one given event.9 But also consider the words of climatologist Michael Mann: “When a baseball player suddenly doubles the number of home runs he has been hitting through his career or season, and he is discovered to have been taking steroids that season, we don’t have to—nor could we ever hope to—prove that any one of those record season home runs was caused by the steroids. It is the wrong question. The right question is, were the steroids responsible for a good number of those home runs collectively? And the answer is yes.”10
Yet the noble NAE, which has epitomized dignity and aplomb since its 1942 launch, hedges its bets and refuses to join all other branches of Christianity in naming the name. It overlooked last year’s September petition of almost 2100 signatures urging its board “to affirm publicly the reality of human-induced climate change and endorse the responsibility of individuals, churches, and the federal government to act to reduce carbon emissions and protect our natural heritage for our children and grandchildren.”11 The directors met in October and said nothing, prompting Richard Cizik, who spearheaded the drive, to write in an e-mail exchange: “The NAE has ignored our petition, but we plan to continue a variety of means to hold the organization accountable.”12 My stabs at obtaining an explanation via phone and e-mail were met with no response.
It’s all so eerie, so surreal. The intellectually muscular NAE, supposedly founded to re-assert orthodoxy as well as cultural engagement, wavers like the on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand theological liberals it chides. It’s lost its way. The mannerly rider’s britches are ripped; his vest is frayed. The evening’s chill bears down and the dignified prophet shrivels into a haggling negotiator, resembling the delegates at the November UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, who dickered while Philippine bodies swelled in the rubble. The world was underwhelmed. “Warsaw climate conference produces little agreement,” said a Washington Post headline; “UN talks limp towards 2015 climate deal,” said Reuters. “Warsaw climate change talks end on a blurry note,” said Politico, with Andrew Restuccia describing frustrated participants dumbfounded by “a lack of urgency, particularly given scientific reports that paint an increasingly dire picture of a warming planet.”13
The times call for Churchillian decisiveness and polite but principled stands shaped after Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi, not Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement or the isolationism of the pre-World War II America First Committee.
Leadership and pressure
The NAE’s silence disappoints partly because it once vied for the lead. Its 2004 framework for social engagement, entitled “For The Health of the Nation,” delineated seven vital
arenas: religious freedom, family life and children, the sanctity of life, caring for the poverty-stricken and helpless, human rights, peacemaking, and creation care. One eventual outcome was Dorothy Borse’s 56-page pamphlet, “Loving The Least of These: Addressing A Changing Environment,” which stresses that “environmental change” strikes the poor most severe-ly.14 Cizik, once its vice- president of government affairs, spurred seismic shifts that would free the movement from reactionary captivity.
Push-back arose, of course. James Dobson bullied and tried to get Cizik fired. Then-president Ted Haggard was unimpressed. “The last time I checked,” he told Dobson, “you weren’t in charge of the NAE.”15 A muted approach came early in 2006 from the so-called “Interfaith Stewardship Alliance,” since renamed the “Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.” The signatories – among whom were the distinguished Charles Colson along with a who’s-who in the Religious Right, including Dobson, John Hagee, James Kennedy, and Richard Land – said they’ve “appreciated the bold stance that the (NAE) has taken on controversial issues like embracing a culture of life, protecting traditional marriage and family, promoting abstinence as AIDS prevention, and many others.” But they requested it lay off climate change as it was “not a consensus issue.” An official stance should be filtered through official channels, and “individual NAE members or staff should not give the impression that they are speaking on behalf of the entire membership, so as not to usurp the credibility and good reputation of the NAE.” Then came the twist: “We respectfully ask that the NAE carefully consider all policy issues in which it might engage in the light of promoting unity among the Christian community and glory to God.”
The irony is that NAE officials were “bold” when advocating their positions, but potentially divisive (“… in the light of promoting unity
…”) on climate change. Invoking “unity” often knocks the debate off the merits. Suddenly, a thousand eggshells rattle across the floor, freezing us in our tracks lest we break our delicate bonds. Don’t even dare ask about your own position’s potential divisiveness. Have you pondered our possible disunity with Christianity’s other legitimate branches?
It worked. The NAE blinked. Haggard answered in late January by defending the organization’s pro-environment stance but demurring on climate change, assuring all that his executive committee “directs the NAE staff to stand by and not exceed in any fashion our approved and adopted statements concerning the environment contained within the Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.” Catch a glimpse of American evangelicalism’s blind spot toward the end: “I believe there are pro-environment pro-free market pro-business answers to the environmental questions facing our community.”
Do the Scriptures rally to free enterprise? Cultural standards were now mixed into a back-to-the-Bible organization a charge evangelicals often levy against theological liberals. And pro-creation statements ring hollow without identifying its destructive agents. Imagine federal authorities banning the mention of cigarettes while promoting cancer-free living.
Change and the return of the wise man
The year 2006 proved pivotal. In February 86 evangelical leaders – including pastors 39 Christian college presidents and not a few current NAE board members – signed the “Evangelical Climate Initiative ” which asserted the reality of human-induced global warming saying it imperiled national security and the poverty-stricken. “Love of God love of neighbor and the demands of stewardship are more than enough reason for evangelical Christians to respond to the climate change problem with moral passion and concrete action. Christians must care about climate change because we are called to love our neighbors.”16 In May one of the last credible denial hold-outs Gregg Easterbrook cried uncle in the New York Times: “Based on the data I’m now switching sides on global warming from skeptic to convert.”17 In November Haggard resigned in the wake of a sexual scandal.
Former NAE President Leith Anderson was recalled to the helm and brought his steady hand. The evangelical world breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s an enormous trust that people have with (Anderson) and that allows him to lead ” said Jo Anne Lyon general superintendent of the Wesleyan church. The Minnesota mega-church pastor brought administrative efficiency and showed he was no right-wing poster boy. He opposed the death penalty supported immigration reform and signed the Evangelical Climate Initiative. A Religion News Service profile said he “continues to press the issue of justice for the poor in the developing world working hard behind the scenes to craft an official NAE statement on climate change.” His political moderation and partisan neutrality did not help one of his church regulars and presidential hopeful Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty.18 Anderson’s pastoral style seemed the right prescription for a stunned organization laboring under
a recent leadership scandal – and it fit with the NAE’s gentlemanly and lady-like ethos.
When being nice is not enough
But a consensus-at-all-costs approach has its weaknesses. Witness a 2008 Christianity Today interview immediately after Cizik’s resignation. (He stepped down after an enigmatic answer to a National Public Radio query about civil unions for homosexuals for which he later apologized.) Anderson said NAE officials should speak for the association not for themselves. When asked about Cizik’s climate change advocacy he replied: “’For the Health of the Nation’ does state that creation care is one of our priorities. It does not state in that document that we have a specific position because we don’t on global warming or emissions. So he (Cizik) has spoken as an individual on that. However to most of our constituents marriage and related moral issues are of greater importance and significance than specific stances on the climate.”19
The question hovers: But is it right? Does the Bible prioritize family moralities over others? Did you not sign a statement underscoring the moral imperative entailed in climate change? Post-interview quarterbacking is easy (and let’s shout “take two” on Cizik’s NPR conversation) but we’re left with that vague “opportunity lost” feeling. Reel back the tape. Say this: “The NAE has no formal position on climate change but Richard was educating us and I’m on record as agreeing with him. I hope the education process can go on.”
A risky reply to be sure. No doubt some would have screamed for Anderson’s professional head so they could line it up on Cizik’s platter but aren’t mega-church pastors writing books on “courageous leadership?” Did NAE heroes like Luther Calvin and Wesley – or founding President Harold Ockenga – poll their constituents? Haven’t evangelicals always claimed that truth trumps popularity? Otherwise Ockenga would have fawned before Henry Emmerson
Fosdick and Carl Henry would never have written The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Perhaps the NAE ails with a malady posing as a vaccine — conflict avoidance in the guise of conflict resolution. Many in its institutions and churches offer courses in communication and negotiation in an attempt to quell their internecine battles. Such efforts are laudable but they can lead to unintended consequences. Argument (the process of defending a viewpoint by marshalling facts in a quest for the truth) is deemed intrinsically bad.
Hear the rattling eggshells. Suddenly we’re nomads in the labyrinth of passive aggressiveness choked by stilted “I statements” and confined by the tyranny of the sensitive – and for the sake of “unity ” absurdities attain equal status with actualities. Representatives from the Flat Earth Society and the American Astronomical Society sit at the same table – and Luther withdraws his 95 Theses because he did not “validate” the bishop’s feelings. Meanwhile bullies see concessions as weaknesses: The Flat Earth-ers pound the table yield nothing display offense when the astronomers show photographs of a round planet and demand a wider audience.
The sad fact is that enemy-centered antagonistic parties do not play for win-win resolution. They grab olive branches and use them as whips in their battle for all-out victory. Sample climate-change denier Mark Tooley president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. While dazed Philippine survivors picked through debris he inaccurately
blogged on November 13th: “Much of the worst hysteria about apocalyptic Global Warming has cooled especially after more than 15 years of no global temperature increases evincing at least that climate computer models are less than infallible.”20 He then skipped past warnings from President Reagan’s Secretary of State George Schultz 21 The World Bank 22 the US commander of the Pacific Fleet 23 a dozen retired admirals and generals 24 two hundred evangelical scientists 25 the Christian Reformed Church (an NAE member) 26 and the many leaders who signed Evangelical Climate Initiative and declared: “Some of the most committed believers in the theory that human activity is uniquely fueling a disastrous increase in temperature are on the Religious Left.” He singled-out former Chicago Theological Seminary President Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite “who’s ordained in the ultra liberal United Church of Christ” and who “faulted Global Warming skeptics for the murderous typhoon in the Philippines.” She allegedly displays “unwavering faith in apocalyptic global warming” and “strict adherence to climate fundamentalism.” His last line evokes Greek mythology’s earth goddess: “But zealots like Thistlethwaite will not likely forsake the solace of Gaia’s temple from which they’ll continue to issue thunderbolts against the heretics who dare to doubt.”
Congrats on the promotion to Mount Olympus Dr. Thistlewaite. Make yourself at home. We could dismiss Tooley’s incivility as bluster from the fringe but for this: The IRD has bended the NAE ear before. Jerald Walsh the organization’s vice president of operations from 1997 to 2009 sat on the NAE board and tried to muffle Cizik just after Haggard’s resignation. It seems IRD personnel see no irony in raising their pitch while trying to silence their perceived enemies.
All of this highlights a danger for Anderson and the NAE. They may be sealing themselves in a clan-
nish cultural cul-de-sac perhaps isolating themselves from their own tribe. The world’s evangelicals embrace the imperative of addressing human-induced climate change: The Lausanne Movement teamed up with the World Evangelical Alliance in 2012 and rendered Thislethwaite docile: “We are faced with a crisis that is pressing urgent and that must be solved in our generation …” We’re devastating nature with “violence ” and “We can no longer afford complacency and endless debate. Love for God our neighbors and the wider creation as well as our passion for justice compel us to ‘urgent and prophetic ecological responsibility.’”27 American organizations including the Evangelical Environmental Network the Young Evangelicals for Climate Action and the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good – along with denominations such as the Christian Reformed Church the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Wesleyans – each have statements on their web sites. And then there are the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox
never mind mainline Protestants.
See the tragedy in a possible future. The NAE founded partly to break evangelicals out of their fundamentalist s
ells so they’d engage the surrounding culture fades into irrelevance while struggling to preserve a unity on the fringe.
Such would be a sad fate.
Perhaps Anderson and his board can remember a statement signed by dozens of well-known evangelical leaders after Cizik’s resignation. Many were grieved but they incited none of Tooley’s bluster: “The NAE exercises a powerful leadership role in the family of American
Evangelicals even in churches that are not part of an NAE member denomination.” They requested that the organization maintain “a broad Christian moral agenda – rooted in the Gospel and relevant to the full range of moral challenges facing us in the 21st century.”
Those graceful words – written in anguish but with sympathy – remain salient. Many will turn a deaf ear to the NAE unless it soon grapples with this century’s starkest challenge. Society’s ills – greed materialism cheap grace pleasure at the price of responsibility – interlock here at human-induced climate change.
Fortunately it is not too late. The steed awaits ready for the gentleman to mount once more. He can race up to the rest of the riders and once again lead the chase with his usual grace and courage.
Charles Redfern is an American Baptist pastor journalist writer and speaker. He is known as a “New Evangelical” and can be reached at …
