c. 2008 Religion News Service

Evangelicals launch campaign against global warming `alarmism’

WASHINGTON (RNS) Evangelical leaders who reject arguments that climate change is human-induced but are nevertheless concerned about the environment are trying to gather 1 million signatures of people who agree with them.

The “We Get It!” campaign, launched Thursday (May 15) at the National Press Club, includes a brief declaration that states “God created everything” and there is a God-given mandate to “tend his creation” and care for the poor.

“Our stewardship of creation must be based on biblical principles and factual evidence,” the four-paragraph statement reads. “We face important environmental challenges, but must be cautious of claims that our planet is in peril from speculative dangers like man-made global warming.”

The campaign is the latest in the back-and-forth battle between different strains of evangelicals. Some believe action is needed to protect the environment because human activity has caused its degradation, while others believe the notion of human cause is a fad and alarmist.

“We’re here to say evangelicals as a whole, evangelicals even as a significant part, have not suddenly embraced man-made catastrophic global warming alarmism,” said E. Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance, one of the partner organizations leading the campaign.

Other participants in the launch of the new campaign included Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Institute on Religion and Democracy President James Tonkowich; and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

“You can be green without being gullible,” said Perkins. “We do believe we have a stewardship issue to care for the environment but we also have a stewardship issue to care for the economies that support families.”

Endorsers include leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, including at least two who declared in a separate recent initiative that past denominational declarations on the environment had been “too timid.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

UpDATE: Student charged in turban fire pleads not guilty

HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. (RNS) A high school senior who allegedly burned a Sikh student’s turban pleaded not guilty on Wednesday (May 14) to charges of aggravated assault, bias intimidation, arson and criminal mischief.

Garrett Green, 18, went before Municipal Court Judge Gregory Williams, who ordered Green to appear in Superior Court in Trenton on May 21 to face the charges.

Green and his attorney had no comment. Green waved reporters away as he and an unidentified woman left a municipal building. He put his hand over his face as they drove away.

Green was arrested following the May 5 incident that occurred during a fire drill at Hightstown High School, where he allegedly set fire to the “patka,” a small turban, worn by a 16-year-old Sikh student.

“This has left a big impression on us, we are damaged mentally,” said Harjot Pannu, the victim’s uncle, who was at the hearing, and stood outside the municipal building as Green was walking out.

“If you endanger someone’s life, you’re guilty,” Pannu said, adding that his nephew, a junior at the school, is still angry about the incident, but has not missed a day of school.

“He’s got exams. He’s got no other option but to go to school,” Pannu said. Other than a few scorched pieces of hair, the victim was unhurt, Pannu said. Both he and his sister, the boy’s mother Sukjhot Kaur, have asked that the victim not be named in print.

Green was originally charged by police with arson and criminal mischief last week, but on Wednesday police additionally charged him with aggravated assault and bias intimidation.

On Tuesday, the East Windsor regional school district released a statement that Green is banned from the prom and from walking on stage at the June 19 graduation. He will receive home instruction because the district is still required to teach him, school officials said.

_ Carmen Cusido

Humanists launch godless Sunday School

WASHINGTON (RNS) The American Humanist Association has launched a curriculum that mirrors the “Sunday School” model used by churches and synagogues with one major omission _ God.

The Kochhar Humanist Education Center will distribute pre-designed course materials, electronic books and other resources about humanism to its 119 chapters across the United States. The classes are broken into four age groups: pre-schoolers, teens, college students and older adults.

The courses focus on social justice, “God-free ethics,” church-state separation and humanity’s relationship to nature.

“Religious organizations have long had educational programs and institutions for passing their values to each new generation,” said Bob Bhaerman, education coordinator of the center. Now is the time, he said, for a broad group _ humanists, atheists, agnostics or even religious groups like Buddhists or pagans _ to join and create their own viable institution.

Humanism is an ethical movement that believes that people can connect to one another through their common humanity and universal, non-theistic moral values.

The center is named after Pritpal Singh Kochhar, the owner of a New York real estate agency. Kochhar said he had experienced religious discrimination as a Sikh after the Sept. 11 attacks and “saw a need to defend minority faiths.”

Approximately 16 percent of Americans are unaffiliated with any religion, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey earlier this year. Four percent of those surveyed identify themselves as either atheist or agnostic.

_ Jonathan D. Rubin

Quote of the Day: Catholic League President Bill Donohue

(RNS) “I’m not a virgin. I understand where this is coming from. We’re in the middle of a presidential campaign.”

_ Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, responding to Beliefnet about an apology issued by the Rev. John Hagee, a supporter of Sen. John McCain, who was criticized for comments that Donohue and others said were anti-Catholic.

KRE/JM END RNS