c. 2006 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Evangelical leaders, including a new corps of young activists, called Thursday (Nov. 16) for President Bush and the new Democratic leaders of Congress to pay greater attention to concerns over climate change.

“Our allegiance to Jesus Christ demands that the threat of climate change no longer be ignored,” states a letter to Bush, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that was read at a news conference at a Baptist church here.

“We implore you to collaboratively pass and sign strong laws to combat change _ soon. We challenge the Congress to draft such laws and President Bush to promise specific actions on climate change in the State of the Union address.”

The letter, from the new Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative, is part of a growing movement to get evangelicals involved in environmental protection, though not all evangelicals agree on the scope of the problem.

Jim Ball, the national coordinator of the affiliated Evangelical Climate Initiative, issued a similar call Thursday to the nation’s political leaders and urged individuals to take practical steps to address global warming, such as reducing their driving and purchasing electricity generated by wind or solar power.

The youth program, which mostly involves college students, released a “Cooling Our Future” declaration that has been signed by more than 1,000 young adults.

A new Zogby International post-election survey of more than 19,000 adults found that half of Americans who voted in the mid-term elections said global warming affected how they cast their ballots.

Asked about the survey, which was commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation, Ball said: “I think that this message is starting to resonate and that members from both parties need to start hearing the message that citizens in this country care about global warming.”

He said the new Democratic control of Capitol Hill could help achieve passage of legislation addressing climate change but “there has to be a solid consensus” from both parties.

But in a speech at the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting in Washington on Wednesday, E. Calvin Beisner, a critic of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, said the initiative’s efforts may have contributed to Democratic control that could hamper progress on other issues important to evangelicals, such as abortion, gay marriage and human trafficking.

“I am afraid that in their rush to elevate concerns about global warming, some evangelicals fell prey to a strategy to split their vote,” said Beisner, national spokesman for the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, which is more skeptical about the causes of climate change.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, disagreed with that assessment.

“I don’t think the evangelicals who stood up to say that this is a biblical issue are taking a partisan stance one way or the other,” he said. “This is not a partisan movement.”

KRE/JL END BANKS

Editors: To obtain file photos of Ball and Cizik, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.