c. 2007 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A Republican senator Thursday (June 7) criticized efforts to enlist evangelicals to fight global warming as a “brilliant idea to divide and conquer” and distract them from “core values issues.”

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who has been highly critical of climate change “alarmists,” made his remarks during a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee dedicated to religious views on global warming.

The committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., called witnesses from the evangelical, Catholic, Jewish and mainline Protestant communities _ including Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, a former oceanographer _ all of whom said their traditions firmly mandate that the U.S. do something to fight global warming.

“While many of the faith communities represented here today may disagree on a variety of issues, in the area of global warming we are increasingly of one mind,” said Jefferts Schori.

Global warming has become a hot topic among evangelicals and other religious conservatives, with old-line conservatives such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson battling attempts by younger Christians to make it part of the agenda for the nation’s estimated 60 million evangelicals.

Inhofe, a Presbyterian, used the hearing to slam the Rev. Richard Cizik, the environmentally minded vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and to question the funding sources of an evangelical group devoted to fighting climate change. He also challenged recent surveys that report a growing number of evangelicals are concerned about the issue.

“Even putting the issue of science aside,” Inhofe said, “religious leaders who have bought into the global warming hype need to consider the big picture of unintended consequences of legislative solutions.”

Inhofe said liberals have struck upon a “brilliant idea” to use global warming to “divide and conquer the evangelical community and get people (moving) away from the core values issues.”

As an aide displayed a large photo of Cizik from Vanity Fair magazine’s “Green Issue,” in which Cizik appears to be walking on water, Inhofe called him an “alarmist” who “does not represent the views of most evangelicals.”

The witnesses Inhofe called _ the Rev. Jim Tonkowich of the Institute on Religion and Democracy; Russell Moore, dean of the school of theology of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and author David Barton _ all challenged the idea that evangelicals support government action on climate change.

But the Rev. Jim Ball, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network, said recent polls suggest that 70 percent of evangelicals think global warming poses a threat to future generations. Ball also pointed to the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which was signed by more than 100 senior and evangelical leaders “who believe that a vigorous response to global warming is a spiritual and moral imperative.”

“We’re engaged on this issue because we care about the poor,” who would be hardest hit by the effects of climate change, Ball said.

Inhofe, however, questioned Ball about donations to the Evangelical Environment Network from the Hewlett Foundation, which has also donated money to groups that support abortion rights, according to the senator.

“We figure that every dollar that goes to us goes to a pro-life group and not a pro-choice group,” Ball said.

John Carr, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ secretary for social development and world peace, disputed the idea that environmental protection must be an either/or priority for people of faith.

“With all due respect, the Catholic community and the evangelical community are capable of doing more than one thing at a time. This is not a division … this is an extension,” Carr said.

KRE/PH END BURKE