Baptist environment stance set
Some global-warming language removed from final document
Baptist environment stance set

By Carla Hinton

Published: March 15, 2008

Southern Baptists are concerned about the environment and are finding different ways to express their views.

Earlier this week, news about a Southern Baptist initiative on the environment and climate change was released. The Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change was released Monday by Jonathan Merritt, 25, a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.

As project director, Merritt gathered the signatures of prominent Southern Baptists, most notably the Southern Baptist Convention's president, the Rev. Frank Page, of Taylors, S.C.; Merritt's father and a former SBC president, the Rev. James Merritt of Duluth, Ga., and Jack Graham, another former SBC president.

Jonathan Merritt said the declaration released Monday was a challenge to Southern Baptists to speak out on issues of environmental issues and global climate change. The declaration described the Southern Baptist Convention's previous pronouncements on the environment as "too timid.”

In Oklahoma, the Rev. Anthony Jordan, executive director-treasurer of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, said he saw the initiative as a "fresh call” for Southern Baptists to take their stewardship of the Earth seriously.

"The declaration is not a position statement on global warming, which is not substantiated, but is intended to raise greater awareness concerning environmental issues of our day,” Jordan said in a prepared statement.

"God has created this wonderful planet for our enjoyment and holds us accountable for our care of it.”

Messengers at the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting approved a resolution regarding environmental issues.

This fact was pointed out by the Rev. Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, in a prepared statement he released this week.

Land chose not to sign the declaration, a fact that was brought up at a news teleconference hosted Monday by Jonathan Merritt and other project leaders.

Land said that as an official SBC entity, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission follows the consensus of Southern Baptists on public policy matters as determined by the SBC meeting in session each year. He said the commission does not agree that Southern Baptists have been "too timid” in addressing environmental issues.

"One of the responsibilities that accompanies this privilege of serving Southern Baptists is to seek the broadest possible consensus on issues where the Convention has spoken and to encourage change, when it is considered appropriate, through private discussion and dialogue to reach new consensus rather than public critique. We continue to encourage, and to participate in, such dialogues on this issue, as well as many other important issues,” Land said.

Land said some language was removed from the resolution approved at the SBC meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The removed part included a phrase encouraging continued government funding to find answers on the issue of human-induced global warming. Also cut was a phrase saying Southern Baptists support "economically responsible government initiatives and funding to locate and implement viable energy alternatives to oil, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and decreasing the amount of CO{-2} (carbon dioxide) and other greenhouse gas emissions.”

Land said the officially adopted resolution is as close to an "official” position as the SBC is capable of taking, apart from its formal confession of faith, The Baptist Faith and Message.

Comments