Foundations Spend Millions Peddling Climate Message to Evangelicals

DEMOCRATIC FOUNDATIONS SPEND MILLIONS PEDDLING CLIMATE "ACTION" MESSAGE TO YOUNG EVANGELICALS [Excerpts]

The Christian Coalition of America, once a $26 million political bastion of the Christian right, has fallen upon hard times. Its budget has shrunk to about $1 million, including income from a companion 501(c)(3). It might not have survived at all but for environmentalist cash: From 2007 to 2014 it collected at least $3.4 million from groups identified with environmentalism or leftist politics: the Green Tech Action Fund, the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund, and the Energy, Hewlett, Marisla, and Rockefeller foundations.

Tax documents say the grants to Christian Coalition were approved for such purposes as educating conservatives and churches on “clean energy and climate issues”; to support the Christian Coalition’s energy platform, which embraces renewable power and efficiency standards in vehicles and appliances; and to promote energy reform among young conservatives.

There’s nothing illegal or unethical in the Christian Coalition’s transition, and the group still supports religious liberty, human life, budget balancing, and Israel—but a green Christian Coalition is a surprise.

You might also find surprising the work of another recipient of environmental cash: the Evangelical Environmental Network. The group finances and oversees Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA), one of several recent efforts to reach young evangelicals with a message of creation care and carbon cuts. Launched in 2012, YECA has trained and paid stipends of $1,000 to a handful of “Climate Leadership Fellows” at college campuses.

At Greenville College in Greenville, Ill., for example, a YECA fellow has organized a “Green Team” to promote “creation care and climate action.” The team has planted milkweed, participated in cleanup projects, and placed recycling bins in dorms.

At Grace College in Winona Lake, Ind., a YECA fellow has started a campus recycling program and is spreading awareness of climate change. Last September he recruited 13 fellow Grace students to participate in the People’s Climate March in New York City. The group carpooled to New York in a van and purchased carbon credits to offset the 11-hour drive.

Last year YECA’s national organizer, Ben Lowe, spoke about global warming to students at about 40 college campuses. His recent engagements include Cedarville University in Ohio, Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash., where students have gathered over 450 signatures in a petition drive asking the Whitworth president and trustees to divest the school of fossil fuel investments.

Promoting wise stewardship and repenting of abuses is well and good, but is reducing American output of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide—an essential plant nutrient—a moral imperative for Christians?

[Some say] yes, because global warming affects the world’s poor. “From Malawi to Guatemala to Honduras, people are already definitely being impacted on how they can grow crops, water shortages, food scarcity, being forced to move.” He denies his organization’s message is influenced by its secular donors. “We are pro-life evangelical Christians, and we will not accept and do not accept any funds that would allow us to change who we are.”

But some scientists and theologians don’t see climate change as a crisis. They have signed a statement, published by the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, opposing climate change legislation and asserting global warming may be part of a natural cycle, and is likely to produce human benefits.

Cornwall spokesman E. Calvin Beisner said efforts to reduce global warming will prolong the poverty of the world’s poorest: “Cutting CO2 emissions means raising the costs of energy to everyone, but the poor are hurt more than anyone else by that.” Spreading that message among young evangelicals is a challenge, though: Beisner only lands speaking engagements at four or five Christian colleges a year. “That’s largely because the folks on the other side manage to keep the doors closed.”

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