{"id":242,"date":"2008-03-11T05:48:52","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T05:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/03\/hooray-for-the-southern-baptis.html"},"modified":"2008-03-11T05:48:52","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T05:48:52","slug":"hooray-for-the-southern-baptis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/03\/hooray-for-the-southern-baptis.html","title":{"rendered":"Hooray for the Southern Baptists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Southern Baptists are finally getting it! Hallelujah!<\/em> Southern Baptists are finally getting it! Well, some of them are, anyway. And that\u2019s a start.
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\n(NOTE: This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the intersection of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God<\/em>, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The \u201cNew Spirituality\u201d is defined by the author as \u201ca new way to experience and express our natural impulse toward the Divine without making others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.\u201d The author\u2019s latest book is Happier Than God<\/em>, published in February by Emnin Books and distributed by Hampton Roads.)
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\nIt took forever\u2014and for a while there I never thought it would happen\u2014but even Southern Baptists are, at last, \u201cgetting\u201d that we have an environment that we have to protect.
\nIn what The New York Times<\/em> yesterday called \u201ca significant departure\u201d from the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s \u201cofficial stance\u201d on global warming, 44 Southern Baptist leaders have broken from the pack to issue a statement that, for them, had to have taken enormous courage\u2026even though, for the rest of the world, it may seem like a simple noticing of the obvious.
\nTimes journalist Neela Banerjee reports that those leaders \u201chave decided to back a declaration on climate change.\u201d
\nNow that is news. No kidding around. That is news<\/em>.
\nSouthern Baptists are, of course, among the most politically and socially conservative people around. And most conservatives, if you don\u2019t know it, do not believe there even is <\/em>a Climate Change Problem. They regularly poo-poo the views of environmentalists on this (and most every other) subject, have roundly denounced Al Gore\u2019s movie\/book An Inconvenient Truth<\/em> as a pack of, well, wild exaggerations, if not outright lies, and have even, in some instances, called the whole climate change claim a gigantic hoax.
\nNow come over 40 members of the leadership of this movement to tell us that, on this subject, their denomination has had it…er…wrong. The group that signed what was called \u201cA Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change\u201d included Rev. Frank Page, the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as Rev. Jack Graham and Rev. James Merritt\u2014two Convention past presidents. In other words, some movers and shakers within the movement, which, with 16 million members, is the second largest religious denomination in the United States (Roman Catholics are first).
\nIn their Declaration these 44 leaders said, in part, \u201cWe believe our current denominational engagement with these issues has often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice.\u201d
\nYou have to understand what a departure this is. The Times <\/em>reports that just last year the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that took \u201ca more skeptical view of global warming.\u201d
\nYet this new Declaration pulled no punches. Other wording from the present document includes this paragraph:
\n\u201cOur cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed.\u201d
\nSo let\u2019s give credit where credit is due. That statement, from the current president. two past presidents, and 41 other denominational leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention will surely draw some disagreement (if not antagonism) from other members of their group.
\nIt is true, of course, that evidence of global warming\u2014and of mankind\u2019s role in creating it–is<\/em> mounting (to the point of making the matter embarrassingly clear), and so this Declaration may, indeed, seem to be a simple statement of the obvious\u2014yet sometimes (in fact, usually<\/em>) even stating the obvious can get you in trouble.
\nKudos, then, to the Southern Baptist leadership for signing on to a document that, according to the New York Times <\/em>report, \u201calso urges ministers to preach more about the environment and for all Baptists to keep an open mind about considering environmental policy.\u201d
\nBut don\u2019t get too excited just yet. As the same Times<\/em> story noted, while the new Declaration on climate change was certainly noteworthy, \u201cStill, many powerful Southern Baptist leaders and agencies did not sign the declaration, including the convention\u2019s influential political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.\u201d
\nIt would seem that George Bernard Shaw had it right. \u201cAll great truth,\u201d he famously said, \u201cbegins as blasphemy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southern Baptists are finally getting it! Hallelujah! Southern Baptists are finally getting it! Well, some of them are, anyway. And that\u2019s a start. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-news-and-the-new-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nHooray for the Southern Baptists - Conversations with God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/03\/hooray-for-the-southern-baptis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hooray for the Southern Baptists - Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Southern Baptists are finally getting it! 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