Evangelicals and Environmentalists Find Common Ground

[cal04]

Warming Issue Unites Disparate Groups
At 8 on a Saturday morning, just as the heat was permeating this sprawling Orlando suburb, Denise Kirsop donned a white plastic moon suit and began sorting through the trash produced by Northland Church.

She and several fellow parishioners picked apart the garbage to analyze exactly how much and what kind of waste their megachurch produces, looking for ways to reduce the congregation's contribution to global warming.

"I prayed about it, and God really revealed to me that I had a passion about creation," said Kirsop, who has since traded in her family's sport-utility vehicle for a hybrid Toyota Prius to help cut her greenhouse gas emissions. "Anything that draws me closer to God -- and this does -- increases my faith and helps my work for God."

Her conversion to environmentalism is the result of a years-long international campaign by British bishops and leaders of major U.S. environmental groups to bridge a long-standing divide between global-warming activists and American evangelicals.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/07/AR2007080701910.html?hpid=topnews

[theredpen]

1. Maybe the evangelicals read their Bibles

Of course, the stuff about us being appointed by God to be caretakers of the Earth is in the first few parshats, so they didn't have to read far.

Maybe they'll get to the "thou shalt not kill", "love thy neighbor" and "love thy enemy" stuff eventually and turn around on this war thing, too.

But seriously, I have no great love for megachurch evangelicals, but I welcome them to the green fold.