Earlier this month Richard Cizik, the Vice President for Governmental Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), was forced to resign after comments he made about his support for civil unions for gay couples. Many leaders of the so-called Christian Right were glad to see him go. For a few years now James Dobson’s Family Research Council has been trying to oust Cizik for his efforts to make the care for the environment–he called it “Creation Care”–a vital part of the evangelical political agenda. Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council, wrote this about Cizik’s resignation:
This revelation should not come as a surprise. This is the risk of walking through the green door of environmentalism and global warming – you risk being blinded by the green light and losing your sense of direction. How else can you explain enthusiastic support for what will probably be the nation’s most pro-abortion, anti-family president in our nation’s 232 year history? (Read Perkins’s entire blog entry here).
While Dobson, Perkins, and company may be rejoicing over Cizik’s departure from the NAE, the green evangelical movement has hardly come to an end. In fact, if J. Lester Feder is correct (and I hope he is), it may be thriving. In his essay “The Floral Majority,” which appeared on-line today at the New Republic, Feder chronicles the local, grassroots, and apolitical attempts by evangelicals to live out Cizik’s Evangelical Climate Initiative.
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