The leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention are set to release "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" today, a statement that proclaims that "the time for timidity regarding God's creation is no more." Just a year ago, the convention issued a resolution questioning whether human activity has a significant effect on global warming. While the new resolution might note some progress, it remains pretty timid:
We recognize that we do not have any special revelation to guide us about whether global warming is occurring and, if it's occurring, whether people are causing it. [T]here is not a consensus regarding the anthropocentric nature of climate change or the severity of the problem.
So that's what they're waiting on, eh? Special revelation? I'm sure glad we waited on those revelations that told us it was OK to end segregation, instate the 40-hour work week, and do all those other good things we've achieved as a society. I guess we should be happy that even in absence of revelation, the statement notes that "the claims of science are neither infallible nor unanimous," but they are "substantial and cannot be dismissed."
Robert Parham, a Baptist minister from Nashville writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, gets the reason for their continued timidity absolutely right:
If they backtrack on their convictions about the Bible's special revelation, then they place at risk other issues upon which they have pontificated with uncompromising certainty, such as abortion and the role of women. If they stay in the ravine, they become even more irrelevant, especially to a younger generation.
Amen, Robert.
--Kate Sheppard
