Evangelical Environmentalism: Bought and Paid for by Liberal Million$$$ (PDF) 

Revised October 20, 2014

Has evangelical environmentalism, aka “creation care,” grown up as a native plant among American evangelicals? Or is it an invasive, hybrid species that overshadows the cross of Jesus Christ, developed and planted by secular scientists and religious liberals, watered and generously fertilized by Left-wing foundations^[1] that share little or nothing of evangelicals’ theological and spiritual commitment but see them as a voting bloc ripe for the picking?

Federal tax returns and other sources reveal a previously hidden history that strongly suggests the latter. This Cornwall Alliance special report now tells the in-depth story, complete with irrefutable documentation, for the first time.

Evangelical Environmentalism’s Left-wing Roots

The federal government spends billions of dollars annually on environmental research, regulation, communications, and enforcement, much of that money going to environmental advocacy organizations. But tax dollars aren’t the only funds pouring into the Green movement. In the 13 years from 2000 through 2012, large foundations donated over $80.4 billion to environmental organizations of all kinds. Now, according to environmental policy analyst Paul Driessen, “U.S. environmental activist groups are a $13-billion-a-year industry.”^[2] Some of that money targets specifically evangelical organizations. Foundations have shown particular interest in climate change, with the number of related grants doubling and the amount granted growing from under $100 million to nearly $900 million from 2000 to 2008.^[3]

In April 1994, 30,000 evangelical churches across America received copies of Let the Earth Be Glad: A Starter Kit for Evangelical Churches to Care for God’s Creation.^[4] Mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish congregations received similar kits as part of a campaign by the newly formed National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE), bringing the total to over 100,000 congregations.^[5]

For most, the kits, which sought to convey “theological roots for celebrating God’s creation,” “tools for worshiping the Creator through His handiwork,” and descriptions of “the provisions and abuses of God’s creation,” were a bolt out of the blue. Significant religious involvement in environmental activism had until then been rare, mostly confined to liberal, mainline churches. What few evangelical recipients knew was the history behind the kits.

The version for evangelicals, Let the Earth Be Glad, was distributed by the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), newly formed by Ronald J. Sider, author of the highly influential Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, as part of Sider’s Evangelicals for Social Action—a longtime proponent of the political and economic Left. Sider launched EEN at the request of Paul Gorman, the founding executive director of NRPE.^[6]

NRPE, in turn, had been founded in 1993 in response to an “Open Letter to the American Religious Community” by 32 Nobel Laureate scientists, spearheaded by atheist/Marxist astronomer Carl Sagan of Cosmos PBS series fame. Sagan was worried that humanity was not responding adequately to environmental threats and urged religious leaders to bring their moral authority to bear on the problem. He and others presented the appeal in January 1990 to the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders Conference in Moscow, Russia, and it soon gained the signatures of over 270 global religious leaders from Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim traditions.^[7]

Gorman was at the time Vice President for Program at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, dean of which was the Rev. James Parks Morton, a Gnostic/New Age proponent who, with Sagan, had co-chaired the Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment, based on the “Open Letter,” to which NRPE was a response.

All told over the years, NRPE reports, its “faith groups sent resource kits to over 100,000 congregations: every Catholic parish, virtually every synagogue, 50,000 mainline Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches, and 35,000 evangelical congregations”^[8] during the $4.5-million campaign.^[9] In May of 1999, “NRPE announced a 10-year, $16 million initiative designed to “assure that the next generation of religious leaders in America advance care for God’s creation as a central priority for organized religion.”^[10]

Read the full report here, Evangelical Environmentalism: Bought and Paid for by Liberal Million$$$ (PDF) .

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Endnotes

^[1] Ron Arnold, “Follow the dark money to find what John Podesta is up to in the White House,” Washington Examiner, January 9, 2014, accessed online May 23, 2014, http://washingtonexaminer.com/follow-the-dark-money-to-find-what-john-podesta-is-up-to-in-the-white-house/article/2541895?utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20Reoccurring%20-%2001/10/2014&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest.

^[2] Ron Arnold, “Big Green’s untold billions: Mainstream media don’t know Big Green has deeper pockets than Big Oil,” CFACT, May 14, 2014, accessed online October 20, 2014, http://www.cfact.org/2014/05/14/big-greens-untold-billions/.

^[3] Steven Lawrence, “Climate Change: The U.S. Foundation Response,” Foundation Center, February 2010, revised edition, accessed online October 20, 2014, http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/researchadvisory_climate.pdf.

^[4] Katharine K. Wilkinson, Between God & Green: How Evangelicals are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 20.

^[5] National Religious Partnership for the Environment, About, History, accessed online May 23, 2014, http://www.nrpe.org/history.html.

^[6] Wilkinson, 19.

^[7] “Preserving & Cherishing the Earth: An Appeal for Joint Commitment in Science and Religion,” accessed online May 23, 2014, at http://earthrenewal.org/Open_letter_to_the_religious_.htm.

^[8] NRPE, About, History, accessed online May 23, 2014, http://www.nrpe.org/history.html.

^[9] Margaret Maxey, “Environmentalism: The New National Religion?” LewRockwell.com, January 27, 2000, accessed online May 23, 2014, http://www.lewrockwell.com/2000/01/margaret-maxey-phd/environmentalism-the-new-national-religion/.

^[10] Michael Barkey, “A Green Reformation? Saving Faith from the Environmentalists,” Acton Commentary, March 23, 2000, accessed online May 23, 2014, http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2000/03/23/green-reformation-saving-faith-environmentalists.

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