The Spectacle Blog
Back in 2006 a few environmentalists produced the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which with the help of the media, portrayed the mainstream of Evangelicalism as onboard with global warming alarmism. It was a wholeheartedly deceptive document, with the names of about 190 Christian leaders — mostly proponents of a liberal “social gospel” message rather than a literal interpretation of the Bible — collected secretly as signatories, without consultation from what most people properly recognize as conservative mainstream of Evangelicalism. I wrote about the effort at the time for American Spectator Online.
The same few activists, led by Rusty Pritchard and Jim Jewell (now with an Earth ministry called Flourish), are at it again with a new declaration titled “Caretakers of Creation.” They are taking the same approach, circulating the document to the same types of people while keeping it from conservative Evangelical theologians and leaders. Flourish went to such lengths as to include a proviso on the new statement on their Web site which said, “Please do not publicize this link except to potential signatories.” But after The Washington Times published my commentary this morning about Flourish’s underhanded and blatantly political maneuverings with the statement, they removed the proviso. Fortunately we saved a picture of the page, with the proviso, in a screen capture.
Clearly Flourish wanted to again ambush Evangelicals by getting the media to present a formal proclamation that pressures them into adopting environmental extremism in the cloak of “Creation care.” This time they were caught before they had a chance to go public. Shame on them.
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Russell C| 5.20.11 @ 1:55PM
It gets thicker: the #2 person on Flourish's Board of Directors http://flourishonline.org/about/team/ is Matthew Anderson-Stembridge, a direct tie to what I call "the '96-to-present smear of skeptic scientists", because he's the same Stembridge I wrote about in my American Thinker article last December, "The Case of the Curious Climate Covenant" http://www.americanthinker.com.....limat.html
Stembridge is tied to the enviro-advocacy group Ozone Action, and all of my research indicates it is the place where the 'successful' portrayal of skeptic scientists as corrupt originated. The Sierra Club tried this first, but that went nowhere until Ozone Action took over the narrative.
James Jewell | 5.20.11 @ 11:55PM
The Caretakers statement is hardly part of a “behind the scenes” secret discussion intended to fool evangelicals into environmental action. We published it at www.flourishonline.org and distributed public copies at two major evangelical gatherings. We removed the request on the Website that people not publicize it because while we have not hid it, we hoped to publicize in the days ahead. Our timetable has shifted; thank you for saving us money on publicists.
The Caretakers document is not a trick of secularists to co-opt faithful evangelicals. We are Bible-believing evangelicals and this statement comes from the center of the evangelical community, aligned with and quoting often from the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization's Cape Town Commitment. You didn’t bother to mention that.
You may disagree with our positions on creation care, but stop mischaracterizing our faith, lying about our intentions, and smearing the reputation of brothers and sister in Christ who believe God does call us to care for the world he has entrusted to us. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Rusty Pritchard and Jim Jewell
Co-founders, Flourish
Russell C | 5.21.11 @ 1:36PM
In response to Mr Pritchard and Mr Jewell, I offer the same question I posed at the end of my above-cited "The Case of the Curious Climate Covenant" article: "So which is the bigger sin? Failing to stop a so-called global warming crisis which has increasing credibility problems with its underlying science assessments, or breaking the 9th Commandment in order to be sure scientists' criticisms aren't taken seriously?"