Onward March To Heaven, Pt. 2

Ahhhhhhhh

I'm so depressed!

This entry is a continuation of last night's discussion on why Christian fundamentalists oppose environmental protection. This morning I read the entire article on the Grist website, titled, "The Godly Must Be Crazy: Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment ."

I don't know where to start other than to say that this article does the best job I've ever seen of explaining why Christian radicals oppose the environment, and explains the scriptures and schools of thought behind this belief system.

Having grown up in a Christian fundamentalist household, and then having a sudden and extreme awakening to environmentalism in 1997, I can see this issue from both sides of the fence. In February 2003 I even gave a presentation about this phenomenon at a Unitarian Universalist conference in Atlanta. I was acting like I had just stumbled on a big discovery — that the anti-environmentalism of the Christian hard right plays into the hands of industry. Now, two years later, I know this is not a dream — Christian fundamentalists and Corporations are snuggled closely in bed with one another. And how Christian is that??? Again, the article in Grist covers this in detail.

As I've mentioned before, I find it fascinating how Christian fundamentalists continue to engineer their own prophecy. Recently, I blogged about how Christian Zionists played a major role in re-establishing Israel as a state, which is suppose to be a key "trigger event" for the rapture and tribulation. Now, it appears they are trying to trigger the Apocalypse by attacking, derailing, refuting, and simply ignoring environmental science and laws.

Just a few of my favorite quotes from the article:

"Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ," writes reconstructionist George Grant. Christian dominion will be achieved by ending the separation of church and state, replacing U.S. democracy with a theocracy ruled by Old Testament law, and cutting all government social programs, instead turning that work over to Christian churches. Reconstructionists also would abolish government regulatory agencies, such as the U.S. EPA, because they are a distraction from their goal of Christianizing America, and subsequently, the rest of the world. "World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish," says Grant. "We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less." Only when that conquest is complete can the Lord return.

Yikes!

People under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the Apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the Rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a Word?

Yep.

Inhofe, the Senate's most outspoken environmental critic, is also unwavering in his wish to remake America as a Christian state. Speaking at the Christian Coalition's Road to Victory rally just before the GOP sweep of the 2002 midterm elections, he promised the faithful, "When we win this revolution in November, you'll be doing the Lord's work, and He will richly bless you for it!"

Yes, he's the same guy who's leading the drive to drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He's a total sell-out to the petro-chemical industry and, oh yeah, a Christian that we're supposed to respect. Yeah, right.

Neither DeLay nor Inhofe include environmental protection in "the Lord's work." Both have ranted against the EPA, calling it "the Gestapo." DeLay has fought to gut the Clean Air and Endangered Species acts. Last year, Inhofe invited a stacked-deck of fossil fuel-funded climate-change skeptics to testify at a Senate hearing that climaxed with him calling global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

Yes, denial is a great tactic — it bought the tobacco industry years of time.

But the influence of theology, although less discussed, is no less significant. Inhofe, like DeLay, is a Christian Zionist. While the senator has not overtly expressed his religious views in his environmental committee, he has when speaking on other issues. In a Senate foreign-policy speech, Inhofe argued that the U.S. should ally itself unconditionally with Israel "because God said so." Quoting the Bible as the divine Word of God, Inhofe cited Genesis 13:14-17 -- "for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever" -- as justification for permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and for escalating aggression against the Palestinians.

Finally, my favorite, all-time quote:

"It's like half this country wants to guide our ship of state by compass — a compass, something that works by science and rationality, and empirical wisdom," quipped comedian Bill Maher on Larry King Live. "And half this country wants to kill a chicken and read the entrails like they used to do in the old Roman Empire."