Pro-Family Spokesman Accuses Christianity Today of Promoting Junk Science
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
August 16, 2005
(AgapePress) - Focus on the Family is issuing a strong response to a Christianity Today article that criticizes the organization and others in the evangelical Christian community who remain skeptical about the theory of global warming.A recent Christianity Today article by Andy Crouch titled "Environmental Wager" argues that Evangelicals need to warm up to the idea that human beings are changing the climate by emitting large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The article takes a specific jab at "groups like Focus on the Family" that claim significant disagreement exists among the scientific community over the validity of the theory when, the author contends, "There is in fact no serious disagreement among scientists that human beings are playing a major role in global warming."
However, the Senior Director of Government and Public Policy at Focus on the Family, Peter Brandt, contends that it is "junk science" for Crouch and Christianity Today to suggest that the pro-family ministry has no basis for taking its position on global warming. "There's as much to claim that there is global warming as there is to claim that there is not global warming," Brandt says, "and what we have seen the environmental liberals [and radicals] come out with ... is a bunch of stories which, in fact, tend to support [the theory of] global warming."
Meanwhile, the Focus on the Family spokesman says, "There's also good science that tends to support the fact that there is not global warming that has been caused by mankind's presence on this planet." And it is unfortunate, he adds, that Crouch and Christianity Today have resorted to "ad hominem attacks" in order to discredit people who disagree with their "politically correct" views.
Brandt says Christians are to be good stewards of God's creation, but they should not be following what he calls "junk science" or buying into a liberal social agenda. "What we're seeing in Christianity Today," he contends, "is exactly what we saw coming out of the National Association of Evangelicals -- and that is, a buy-in on the part of evangelical Christians toward this politically correct movement."
Liberal Junk Science or Serious Concern for Christians?
Earlier this year, the head of the National Association of Evangelicals and about 100 other evangelical leaders issued a statement declaring that global warming is real and the result of mankind's actions. And Crouch, in his article, cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "whose scientific working group was chaired for many years by the evangelical Christian Sir John Houghton," and which concluded in 2001 that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
Crouch noted that, according to Houghton, the panel's findings were vetted by more than 100 governments including the United States, and the evangelical science expert himself stated that "No assessments on any other scientific topic have been so thoroughly researched and reviewed."
However, Crouch's article argues that because the global warming theory is difficult to confirm experimentally, those vocal skeptics who question it tend to find a ready audience among evangelical Christians. He posits that this may relate to "another politically loaded issue," that is, the long history of antagonism between biblical faith and evolution.
In any event, the author of "Environmental Wager" considers global warming an important issue that Christians need to address. He notes that some Evangelicals, including the editors of Christianity Today, have called for action to address the climatological effects of global warming. But, he complains that the Bush administration, "which generally listens carefully to conservative Christians, apparently hasn't heard enough to reconsider its indifference."
Crouch's article suggests that for many churchgoers, the perceived complexity of the global warming issue has been amplified by conservative Evangelical critics' claims of "significant disagreement" over the validity of the theory. Although Focus on the Family's Brandt and others like him claim these environmental concerns are the overblown results of liberal junk science, the Christianity Today writer compares the dilemma of deciding to believe or not believe the problem exists to a wager with potentially dire and ultimate consequences.
"[W]e have little to lose, and much technological progress, energy security, and economic efficiency to gain if we act on climate change now," Crouch writes, "even if the worst predictions fail to come to pass." However, he warns believers that if they "choose inaction and are mistaken," they will share responsibility for leaving their descendants a blighted world.
