BY RAY DUER

Richard Cizik is the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals. Since 2003, he has drawn both widespread support and criticism from his fellow evangelicals for his outspoken advocacy of a brand of environmentalism rooted in scripture. During his recent visit to Harvard, Cizik sat down with HPR to discuss his vision for “creation care” and its implications for the Evangelical movement at large.

HPR: Why is environmentalism an Evangelical issue?

Richard Cizik: It hasn’t always been, but it is now. Ultimately the idea that every Christian should be an environmentalist arises out of service to God—out of a mandate to be a steward. I don’t ask Evangelicals to call themselves environmentalists, because there are too many hurdles for them to do that—old stereotypes and such—so I tell them to be an Earth steward, or a caretaker of the Earth, or an advocate of Creation care— it doesn’t matter what you want to call it as long as you do it.

I have a verse I love to share, from Matthew 6:20, which reads, “But store up your treasures not on this Earth, for moths and rust destroy and thieves steal, but in Heaven, where neither moths nor rust destroy, nor thieves steal.” If heavenly values are the values of sustainability, then our task is to bring that value to this Earth, and ultimately that makes us care-takers, stewards, and, if you will, environmentalists.

HPR: That being the task, what has the National Association of Evangelicals done to accomplish it? How has it become involved in environmentalism?

RC: From our Office for Governmental Affairs, we determined in 1990 that most of our leaders believed that you change the world by changing one individual heart at a time. In 2000, the numbers were just the reverse—75 percent of our leaders determined that you change the world not just by changing an individual heart but also by changing the structures and institutions of society. And so this evolution from being from being neutral, if not hostile, on the Earth stewardship issues towards being activists is a spiritual journey. It begins by understanding both that there are verses which have never been properly preached and that mentalities about how you change the world have evolved as well.

So everything is coming together now; not just a public theology of Evangelical engagement, but also the emergence of leaders who are willing to confront the old order. This “old guard” pays attention to what the Bible says about marriage and the sanctity of life but apparently ignores what the Bible says about what it says about all kinds of other things! I call that “Dalmatian theology”—inspired in spots— and the evolution of the NAE is that we aren’t Dalmatian in our theology anymore.

HPR: Are Evangelicals’ “hot-button issues” changing, or is it all still about gay marriage and abortion? Can a widespread reluctance to move beyond these two fundamental social issues account for the hostility that has been raised against your ideas?

RC: Well I don’t know anybody who believes that the issues are only gay marriage and abortion. I think the mood and the mentality of the Evangelical community has significantly changed over the last few years such that if somebody isn’t yet ready to accept creation care on par with the other issues, at least they’re willing to say it deserves a place in the pantheon of issues. And they’ll make choices about which is most important. But no one should try to tell our community what priority should be given to certain issues. Let them read the Bible and decide what it means for themselves. They can decide whether or not—if the organization Christian Aid of Great Britain is correct—the one plus billion people who will be impacted by climate change before the century is over form an issue equally compelling as the millions killed annually by abortion.

Many leaders in Evangelicalism are telling the rest of us that what we’re doing is a distraction from the essentials of the Gospel. Don’t tell us that this is the Devil’s doing, because it isn’t. The debate over climate change is a proxy for the bigger issue, which is determining who speaks for Evangelicals and what their agenda should be.

HPR: So what should that agenda be?

RC: The agenda should include the issues in the For the Health of the Nation document: religious freedom, sanctity of life, protection of the family, care for the poor, compassion, human rights for all people regardless of their religious convictions, peace-making and creation care. They’re all connected, and you can’t say that two of those seven principles are important and deserving of priority while none of the rest are. People who think that we are going to dilute our Evangelical input by spreading it out amongst all relevant issues couldn’t be more wrong.

HPR: What more can be done to level the playing field among the different goals of Evangelicals, so that more things like climate change can be seen on par with other goals of the Evangelical movement?

RC: I happen to think that the pews are already ahead of the pastors. The latest data reveals that 84 percent of Evangelicals support a mandatory cap on Greenhouse gases and that 70 plus percent believe that climate change is an issue that will impact them and deserves their attention. The pastors get intimidated by a few people who disdain Environmentalism, mistrust science and the media, adhere to free-market Libertarian economics, and believe that we have free will to do whatever we want with what God gave us. On every one of those counts they are misrepresenting the holistic teaching of the Bible.

I reject this idea that we are too small and insignificant to actually do anything to influence the global climate. I believe that humans induce climate change. Only 37 percent of Evangelicals think that, so we have a lot of work to do in terms of building bridges with science and that’s what we’re doing in the NAE. Evangelicals have been pulling around old notions of science for a hundred years and we want to change that. If we can change that mindset, and build common ground with scientists, then we can fundamentally reshape the 21st century.

This is my conviction and my hope. Scientists and Evangelicals are people who dream—people of great moral imagination. Why shouldn’t we dream that we can make a better century? ]]>