May 11, 2009

Over the last year multiple polls have shown very few evangelicals share fears of manmade global warming. In fact, they are the least likely of all Americans to support global warming legislation.

So, what do you do when you're desperate to get lawmakers to believe they'll have evangelicals' support if they back massive, expensive legislation to fight global warming?

If the latest development is any indication, you fake it. You try to create the illusion of massive evangelical support even when it's not there.

It began with the Evangelical Environmental Network's (EEN) attempt to get the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) to endorse what became known as the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI). In January 2006 the NAE, wisely seeing that there was no consensus among evangelicals, declined, despite strong support by then-vice president for governmental affairs Richard Cizik (since resigned in a flack over his public support of civil unions for homosexuals).

Undeterred, Cizik, assisted by other ECI supporters like the EEN's Jim Ball and Florida megachuch pastor Joel Hunter, spent the next two years giving speeches around the country, asserting that support for global warming legislation was a moral imperative. Cizik rarely acknowledged that he spoke for himself personally, not for the NAE--whose executive board had instructed its staff not to exceed the language of its 2004 "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," which didn't even mention global warming.

All to no avail.

• A January 2007 Barna survey found that only 33% of evangelicals "identified [climate change] as a major issue"--one of the sharpest differences between evangelicals and the general public.

• A September 2007 Barna study concluded that "Evangelicals would rather think about other things."