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The Sunday Forum, November 18, 2007 Faith and Environmentalism: A Natural Partnership |
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Sunday Forums
Sunday Forum On-Demand:
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November 18, 2007, 10–10:50 am Faith and Environmentalism: A Natural Partnership with Richard Cizik
Cizik says, “I believe the degrading of the environment is an offense against God.” As an evangelical, he encourages Christians, particularly within the evangelical movement, to heed scientists’ warnings about human responsibility for damage to the earth. An effort to silence Cizik or remove him from his position at the NAE backfired when the NAE’s board concurred with him about the issue.
Cizik believes that environmentalism is a “victim of the origins debate.” Some Christians who do not believe in evolution extend their mistrust of evolutionary science to other forms of science.
Cizik recounts his visits to the Arctic Circle, where millions of acres of trees have died in recent years. Closer to home, he has seen results of nitrogen pollution in the Chesapeake Bay region and beyond. “It’s time for business as usual to be over,” he says of public and political reluctance to take concrete action to safeguard the environment. Cizik considers environmental degradation to be a question of national security, and mentions the struggle for natural resources as a key element in the Darfur conflict. 
About the Guest The Reverend Richard Cizik is Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals. His primary responsibilities include setting NAE’s policy direction on issues before Congress, the White House, and Supreme Court, as well as serving as a national spokesman on issues of concern to evangelicals. His background includes a B.A. (cum laude) in Political Science from Whitworth College; M.A. in Public Affairs from the George Washington University School of Public & International Affairs (now called the Elliot School of International Affairs); Master of Divinity from Denver Seminary, and an honorary Doctorate of Ministry from the Methodist Episcopal Church in Christian Leadership. Post-graduate research awards include a Scottish-Rite Graduate Fellowship to George Washington University and a Rotary International Graduate Fellowship to the Republic of China. He is the author of over one hundred published articles and editorials, author and editor of The High Cost of Indifference (Regal Books), a contributor to On Christian Freedom (University Press of America), the Dictionary of Christianity in America (Inter-Varsity Press), and the landmark document “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Engagement.” The Rev. Cizik was ordained in 1992 to a specific ministry calling in public affairs with the National Association of Evangelicals by the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (one of 61 member denominations of NAE) and maintains a very active preaching and speaking schedule.
(also listed in Cathedral worship service leaflets) For more information, please contact Deryl Davis at (202) 537-6382 or e-mail ddavis@cathedral.org. |
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“Faith and Environmentalism: A Natural Partnership” is the topic of
this conversation between the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for
governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE),
and Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III.
Lloyd asks why evangelicals, along with countless other Americans,
have been slow to support environmentalism. Cizik mentions several
causes, including disdain for environmentalists as leftists, distrust of
mainstream science and media, free market economics, and interpretations
of human “dominion” over the earth. “And yet I would say that it is fast
changing,” Cizik adds, pointing out a broad new environmental awareness
among evangelicals.
Although environmentalism is sometimes considered outside the scope
of evangelical concerns, creation care is linked to the sanctity of
life, Cizik maintains. He cites birth defects from mercury pollution as
one example.