Climate and energy

On Tuesday, Kansas Interfaith Power and Light and CEP had the pleasure of bringing evangelical Christian pastor Reverend Richard Cizik to the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS.

Cizik spoke on climate change and creation care, and the necessity to act as mindful stewards of God’s creation. The former vice-president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), he is currently with the United Nations Foundation.

As part of the NAE, Cizik helped adopt the pivotal 2004 statement, “For the Health of the Nation.” He also worked with the Evangelical Environmental Network on the “Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation.”

Cizik is founding an organization called the New Evangelicals, which takes a pluralistic approach to religion and politics. (For broad background on new evangelicals as a social movement and Cizik’s role in helping shape it, check out this New Yorker article.)

Notes from the talk are below … and I will admit up front that my handy dandy digital recorder failed me (rather, I failed it – that pesky little detail of batteries). So I will have to beg Rev. Cizik’s indulgence on the following. However, the rough outline should be correct.

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Reverend Cizik opened with a prayer and a DVD sample of the movie, “The Great Warming.” He also briefly described his own turning point in caring about climate change.

“There’s really no question about the science,” he said. “There hasn’t been any serious debate for years that global warming is happening, and that humans are helping cause it. However, I have people in my family who will argue the opposite side as well.”

Cizik described creation care as rooted in the stewardship messages of the Bible. For him, sustainable living is about not taking and wasting. Rather, it is about borrowing and returning.

“Of all humans, Christians should be able to speak with authority about what sustainability is,” he said. “But somehow, we’re not getting there. If you say you love God but you don’t care about his creation, that’s like saying you like Shakespeare and burning his plays.”

Cizik mentioned his longstanding acquaintance with Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, a well-known religious conservative, and his ongoing efforts to encourage Brownback to strongly support renewable energy.

Cizik also argued that creation care is an important message for all Kansans, as well as their religious and political leaders. At a time when several pieces of federal legislation are being considered, the most important constituency in solving problems of climate change will be religious communities who are centered around creation care – an ethic of stewardship toward God’s creation, a theme that permeates the Bible.

Another reason for Christians to care about climate change is its impact on the developing world. “All the countries where we have been carrying out missions for years, they are now at risk,” Cizik said. “How can you say you love your neighbor if you don’t care that their homes are threatened by increased droughts or rising sea levels?”

Cizik offered several reasons as to why creation care is on the brink of becoming a national movement, especially at this critical turning point in American history. First, the way we use energy is shifting – moving away from fossil fuels, and toward renewables and energy efficiency. This is as monumental a change as the use of fire, the development of agriculture, or even the use of coal and other fossil fuels for the Industrial Revolution.

Second, our nation is on the brink of a major political and religious transition, especially among young evangelicals. Cizik predicted that “creation care will change politics, even in a state like Kansas.” Creation care, not politics as usual, will become the basis of who you vote for. “Evangelicals who care about creation care are starting to transcend traditional political boundaries.”

Last, he pointed out the creeping, slowly prevailing sense that former world views don’t work well for people anymore. Extremes of either rationalization (overdependence on science) or emotionalism (rejection of science) don’t work. There has to be some sort of middle ground that can handle complexity and mystery – a cosmos-based perspective, rather than a human-centered one.

Given these historical conditions, a new vision – creation care – is emerging, and the people in the churches are key to accomplishing the transition. Cizik is also convinced that if they do not, then they will suffer the consequences of God’s judgment.

How do evangelical leaders feel about climate change and creation care? Cizik cited two interesting opinion surveys – often, many evangelical leaders do not accept the scientific findings of climate change, or make creation care a priority. In contrast, a majority of their followers do believe that both are important, especially the younger generation of evangelicals. This tension will likely come to a head in some fashion.

Creation care theology, however, often raises difficult challenges for some traditional lines of Christian thought – for example, the implicit assumption that the main story of religion is primarily about God v. Satan, and that getting to Heaven is the goal of faith.

Within this limited framework, Cizik asked, where indeed does the Earth fit in?

“Your job as a Christian is not just to get to heaven,” he told the crowd, citing examples from the Bible. “Your job is to be good stewards and take care of the earth.”

So how do we make a place for creation care in our faith? Cizik offered three major ways to make the creation care shift from a human-centered point of view, to a cosmos-centered one – think more clearly, care more deeply, and act more boldly.

To think more clearly takes a balance of science and spirit. Right now, the failure to confront climate change “is the greatest failure in all history, for man to think.”

Caring more deeply means caring not just about the poor and displaced who will be disproportionately affected by climate change. It also means building bridges with other communities with whom you might not agree, from scientists to environmentalists to other Christian communities.

Acting more boldly means having the courage to point out the difference between the status quo and what God expects of us. When people become aware that their actions and their beliefs are out of sync, it creates disequilibrium, and they act to put their worlds back in balance.

“People are coming, one way or another, to the truth that we can’t live the way we’ve lived.”

The audience also asked hard questions. One woman asked how he responded to critics from other religious communities, who didn’t like his discussions of stewardship. Can we really have this conversation with Christians of other faiths? Can you really reach the old guard? The answer – (a) yes, if you care deeply, and (b) if young evangelicals speak out, they have an even better chance of shaping the dialogue.

Another questioner asked whether multinational corporations who spread disinformation about climate change had sinned. Cizik answered that the moral judgment was beyond him, but personally for him, lying was a sin, the disinformation perpetrated a falsehood against God and creation, and – basically – a sin is a sin.

However, he also seemed more concerned that American leadership has allowed this disinformation to occur. He also spoke strongly on the argument that the U.S. can’t act on climate change unless India or China does first.

“First, we’re leaders,” he said. “If we don’t lead, no one will follow. But more than anything, that argument is a way to escape moral responsibility. No excuse can absolve you of your responsibility to act in the face of injustice – it doesn’t matter at all what other politicians or corporations do or don’t do. You always have responsibility.”

For creation care to succeed, to shift from a human-centered vision to a cosmos-centered one – how realistic is this?

“It doesn’t just take influentials to create change,” Cizik said, “With their networks and connections. Above all, it takes a movement of people who agree about what it means to live and act with integrity.”

Cizik deeply believes that a spiritual renaissance is occurring right now that will shift society in the direction of creation care.

“We don’t need everybody,” he said. “We just need enough of them to shift the collective mind.” He admitted that sometimes “it’s hard when you sense that not even the Bible, God’s word, will persuade them. Some people just dig in their heels.”

However, he told his listeners not to underestimate their own power. “Simply by sharing your views in your community, you do make a difference. You shape what people are talking about, and this is powerful. And be open to the fact that people do change their minds.”

“I changed mine.”

— posted by Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org