Pro-Abortion Group's Bucks Boost Evangelical Environmental Initiative

by Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
October 9, 2006

Like This Page? Tweet

(AgapePress) - - A conservative Christian organization is taking an evangelical environmental group to task for linking up with a pro-abortion foundation.

"The Evangelical Climate Initiative" includes several well-known Evangelicals among its more than 85 signatories -- Rev. Rick Warren, Pastor Jack Hayford, and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev. Leith Anderson. These Christian leaders and others, many of them educators at Christian universities across America, earlier this year signed the statement called "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action." It calls for action by evangelical Christians to "make life changes necessary to help solve the global warming crisis" and to "advance legislation that will limit emissions, while respecting economic and business concerns."

Now the Hewlett Foundation has donated several hundred thousand dollars to the initiative. The Foundation, according to Mark Tooley with the Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, has radical ideas abut population control.

Mark Tooley

"[The Hewlett Foundation's] attitude towards population includes strong support for abortion on demand, for example, because in their view that will reduce the population," he explains.

Tooley questions the evangelical coalition's alignment with such a group, noting that the Bible does not support the killing of innocent children -- and he wonders why a Christian group would be involved in the environmental initiative in the first place.

"They seem to think that the Earth and the environment should take priority over people," he says, "and that basically humanity is acting as almost a stain upon the Earth in terms of degrading it and polluting it." Consequently, he states, they believe that "reducing the population should be the objective in order to preserve the environment."

The alliance of signatories notes that, according to a poll conducted by Ellison Research, almost three-fourths (70 percent) of evangelicals who responded to a survey believe global warming would pose a serious threat to future generations. Slightly less than two-thirds (63 percent) said even though they believe global warming is a long-term issue, the problem is being caused now -- and must be addressed immediately.