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[greenyes] Global Warming and Evangelicals
BOSTON GLOBE
Official chides Christian right
Moral Majority called aberration
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff  |  February 5, 2005

SOUTH HAMILTON -- Evangelical Protestants, despite enjoying increasing 
cultural influence as a result of their perceived electoral clout, have 
sometimes ''lost their perspective" by paying too little attention to social 
concerns such as the environment and poverty, leading evangelicals said 
yesterday.

A top official of the National Association of Evangelicals told reporters 
gathered at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary that the Moral Majority, a 
1980s political movement dominated by Christian conservatives, was ''an 
aberration and a regrettable one at that," even though it drew evangelicals 
into the political process, because the organization was ''fatally flawed by 
a hubris that made the movement condescending and more than a bit 
judgmental."

''The Moral Majority lacked a servant heart of Christ born out of humility 
and compassion for a fallen humanity," said the official, Robert Wenz, who 
is vice president of national ministries for the National Association of 
Evangelicals.

''Instead, it was all about making America a nice place for Christians to 
live. This is not the kind of social involvement that we need or that 
evangelicals espouse."

Instead, Wenz cited as a positive sign what he described as ''a reemergence 
of the evangelical church in the inner city" with programs addressing 
substance abuse, parenting, and ''healing ministries of all kinds." He said 
those churches have emerged at a time when many of the more visible 
evangelical churches, the so-called megachurches, have located in suburban 
areas.

Wenz spoke at the first of a series of courses that evangelicals, basking in 
attention following polls suggesting that moral values played a role in 
President Bush's reelection, are holding in an effort to explain the 
influential religious movement to news reporters. Organizers plan similar 
sessions at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., next month, and 
then at seminaries in Dallas and Los Angeles.

Wenz said it is important for evangelicals to be clear that they have no 
allegiance to the Republican Party and that the GOP owes them nothing. In an 
interview, he said evangelicals, for example, are increasingly concerned 
about environmental issues, not an issue traditionally associated with the 
Republican Party.

''Global warming is a reality and is not a bunch of liberal hype," Wenz said 
in an interview.

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_________________________
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4513 Vernon Blvd. Suite 15
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Ph: (608) 231-1100
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Cell: (608) 698-1314
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