Whoopee, we're all gonna die...

An article in Creative Loafing notes a big split in the Evangelical Rightwing Christian movement:

"...their power relies heavily on claiming the Second Coming is coming soon: Why worry about Mother Earth when you, Tim LaHaye, Ralph Reed and a few others are about to be raptured up to heaven?... "

The spilt is over Environmentalism. An environmental statement has been issued by a large group of Evagelicals, urging that steps be taken to prevent Global Warming. In a greater context what they are asking is this, "Is it a Christian act to destroy the Earth?"

These people think so:
"... Those who refused to sign the global warming statement included America's foremost ayatollahs: Jerry Falwell; the Rev. D. James Kennedy of the mammoth Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in South Florida; James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University; Donald Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association; and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition..."

I find the greatest paradox in the warped FundXtian value system to be the anti environmentalist agenda. To deny science is to deny reality. Pollution equates to murder as surely as firing a weapon into a crowd. Not knowing exactly who will be hit, whether by a bullet or by cancer, does not forgive the person who pulls the trigger.

How can a religious person accept Creation as a work of God and allow that very creation to be destroyed in the name of corporate proffit? Isn't every species of life more demonstrably a work of the creator than the collection of old stories edited by a committee 1700 years ago and again more recently? There is more information in the organisms living in a handful of dirt, than in all the books ever written in all of history.

There are other spilts between the Evangelical pulpit and those seated in the pews.

"...62 percent of fundamentalists and almost 80 percent of moderate and liberal Christians favor stem-cell research,"...

"...Similarly, Americans (by an overwhelming 82 percent in one poll) disapprove of the political and religious right's frenzied attempt to capitalize off of Terry Schiavo's death last year in Pinellas Park, Fla. Polls show even a majority of evangelicals opposed the Schiavo antics of George and Jeb Bush, Senate Majority leader Bill Frist and then-leader of the House Republicans, Tom DeLay."

"...Two-thirds of Americans oppose overturning Roe vs. Wade."


America, it seems, realizes that Roe v Wade is about people being protected from their government in the right to make the most personal of medical decisions. America, it seems, realizes that corporations and their religions may not have their best interest at heart when it comes to Global Warming and the ability on planet Earth to support life.

Ultimately, I hope the people win.


Peace,
Steve

Excerpts are from this article: Creative Loafing


Knoxville area folks can check out John Tullock on:

“Volunteer Gardener” Saturday, May 27th at 4:30 on Channel 2 (PBS).

I have his new book, "Growing Hardy Orchids" which is worth the price just for the photographs of the native orchids he tells us how to grow in our own gardens. Go see John at Barnes and Noble in Knoxville, where he is a manager, and maybe he'll sign your copy.

The book