More on "They Don't Get It"

I blogged a few days ago about the old guard right wing of the Evangelical movement's efforts to deny climate change. David Roberts had an interesting take on this group--and why they are fighting so hard against reality:

We've written a great deal on Grist about the split in the evangelical leadership between those who recognize the danger of global warming and those who don't. The former includes lots of younger churchgoers who want to broaden the church's mandate beyond abortion and homosexuality, taking on poverty and environmental issues and asserting the church's independence from the Republican party.

The latter group, the old guard, is filled with people who have become extremely rich and politically powerful through their association with the Republican party, and are keen to preserve the status quo. Their role is to keep the religious wing of the Republican base in line by stoking (but never resolving) the culture war, providing ground troops and votes for an agenda that ultimately serves the party's corporate backers.


In this context, it's particularly galling to see the We Get It manifesto focus not only on old-fashioned flat-earth skepticism -- that's to be expected -- but also on a purported concern for the world's poor. After years of supporting and mobilizing votes behind an agenda that exacerbates inequality and diminishes America's already tattered social safety net, these guys -- James Dobson, Sens. James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, Richard Land -- are now beside themselves with concern that a cap-and-trade program might hurt the poor. "With billions suffering in poverty, environmental policies must not further oppress the world's poor by denying them basic needs."

(For the record, Coburn and Inhofe were among the 23 Senators who voted Nay on the Biden-Lugar amendment to restore $4.1 billion to the International Affairs Budget, to fund crucial international programs to fight poverty.)

The cynicism is something to behold. You gotta squint pretty hard to see what God's got to do with it.


Read it all here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giles Fraser on Gay Marriage

Image
The Rev. Gileas Fraser offers thoughtful piece on gay marriage on BBC Radio this morning: Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the Book of Common Prayer was being put together, marriage was said to be for three purposes: First, It was ordained for the procreation of children … Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication .. Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. How do these three concerns relate to the prospect of gay marriage? The third priority insists that marriage is designed to bring human beings into loving and supportive relationships. Surely no one can deny that homosexual men and women are in as much need of loving and supportive relationships as anybody else. And equally deserving of them too. This one seems pretty clear. The second priority relates to the encouragement of monogamy. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has rig...
Read more

Religious Map of United States

Image
This map shows which of eight major Christian denominations has a plurality in the United States, county by county. the map obviously does not capture the full story given the rich diversity of Christian denominations in the United States, but it does show much of the regionalization of the major denominations. The map and analysis can be found here . Hat Tip to my friend Jim .
Read more

New Climate Change Study

What a coincidence. Yesterday, I blogged about the James Dobson et al "We Get It" effort to deny climate change. Yesterday, NASA scientists issued a new report showing a strong causal link between human activity and climate change. Here is the Science Daily report: A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scal...
Read more