Washington, DC – In a marriage of environmental concern and religious faith, the launch of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation* was announced by Ugandan Ambassador Edith Ssempala, along with a distinguished group of Alliance organizers, at a press conference at the Embassy of the Republic of Uganda. The Cornwall Alliance adds a powerful voice to some of the most prominent environmental and developmental issues worldwide. The coalition promotes the principles of the Cornwall … [Read more...]
No Sure Bet: Two Replies to Andy Crouch’s “Environmental Wager”
The August 2005 issue of Christianity Today (vol. 49, no. 8, p. 66) carried an alarmist piece about global warming by Andy Crouch titled “Environmental Wager” that condemned critics of global warming alarmism and prescribed endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions and mitigate global warming as a new variation on Pascal’s Wager that is so obviously the right thing to do that anybody who objects must be a cretin. The article generated critical responses from two founders of the … [Read more...]
Pascal’s Blunder: Miscalculating the Threat of Global Warming
Prominent religious voices in America, especially among evangelical Christians, are increasingly being heard in the debate over global warming. More often than not, evangelicals - many of whom could easily be described as political and cultural conservatives - see climate change as a man-made problem. The National Association of Evangelicals, a coalition representing 52 member denominations, called on policymakers in October to pay more attention to the problem of “environmental … [Read more...]
God, Man, and the Environment
On April 22nd, much of the world will celebrate international Earth Day. Like many fads, the popularity of this event has waned throughout much of the West. This may owe something to the fact that the dire consequences predicted by many ecologists have not eventuated. Despite this, many people of faith continue to preach a type of “Green Gospel,” claiming that an ecological apocalypse will be upon us unless various policies – usually involving various forms of government regulation – are … [Read more...]
Dominion and Stewardship: Believers and the Environment
“Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created. Hence, man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end.” St. Ignatius of Loyola A welcome development of the past thirty years has been the emergence of less-utilitarian attitudes towards the environment by believers and non-believers alike. No … [Read more...]
Early and Notable Signers of the Cornwall Declaration
Sixty-six people from the Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant communities, as well as other layman, pastors, scholars, and religious leaders, endorsed the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship when it was first released in March of 2000. By June 22, 2000, more than 921 others had joined them. Those first 987 signers are listed below. (Organizational affiliations are for identification only and do not imply organizational endorsement.) Since then thousands of others have joined … [Read more...]
