Southern Baptist leaders reverse stand, urge action on climate change and environmental issues

In a major reversal with political implications, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention said today that climate change and other environmental issues "are among the current era's challenges that require a unified moral voice."

The declaration continued, "We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues have often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice. 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. To abandon these issues to the secular world is to shirk from our responsibility to be salt and light. The time for timidity regarding God’s creation is no more." That statement coincided with an alarming report from Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post: "The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades." (Read more)

In 2006, the convention said "some in our culture" have "made environmentalism into a neo-pagan religion," and denounced "activists seeking to advance a political agenda based on disputed claims," notes Ron Barnett of South Carolina's Greenville News, home of Convention President Frank Page -- who told Barnett today, "One of the reasons we have been somewhat timid in the past is so as not to be cast into an ultra-left-wing agenda, and we still have that concern. But we feel that it is important to speak out on this even in spite of the possibility that we may be lumped into that group." We doubt there's much chance of that, and the convention so indicated in the preamble of its declaration, saying "the sanctity of human life" and definition of marriage "constitute the most pressing moral issues of our day," and adding later in the document, "Unlike abortion and respect for the biblical definition of marriage, this is an issue where Christians may find themselves in justified disagreement about both the problem and its solutions."

Perhaps most significantly, the declaration called for action: "Many of our churches do not actively preach, promote or practice biblical creation care. We urge churches to begin doing so. We realize that the primary impetus for prudent action must come from the will of the people, families and those in the private sector. Held to this standard of common good, action by government is often needed to assure the health and well-being of all people. We pledge, therefore, to give serious consideration to responsible policies that acceptably address the conditions set forth in this declaration."

The map below, from the Glenmary Center, shows in red counties where Southern Baptists are the dominant religious denomination. Others include: Light blue, Roman Catholic; yellow, Christian (Disciples of Christ and related); brown, Latter-Day Saints (Mormon); orange, Lutheran; green, Methodist; lavender, Mennonite; aqua, Reformed; gray, other. In counties with black dots, the dominant denomination claims half or more of the population.