Tony Campolo said it best: "There's nothing wrong with Christians being political, but there is something wrong with Christians being partisan." I'm not going to pretend to know the true motives of Dobson and others who take his position, but to my mind it seems that his position and the position of those advocating "official" Christian involvement in the issue just represent two sides of the same coin. It does also strike me as a bit mercenary that non-religious liberals are all too eager to welcome evangelicals into the fold when they happen to share their political beliefs, but otherwise dismiss them in terms such as have been used in these letters.

I see how Christians may care less about keeping the earth as God gave it since the real paradise is heaven, but isn't respecting the earth as important as respecting God's other rules? If St. Peter is at the gate adding up how many times you were mean to people to decide if you get into heaven, wouldn't he also count how often you polluted the river or poisoned the air? Isn't poisoning the earth a bad thing that could keep you from getting into heaven? Wouldn't disrespecting God's gift of the earth risk sending you to hell?

Sometimes the real reason why a group takes a particular stand, in this case, Evangelical "neutrality" on global warming, is well hidden from outsiders because they think "other people wouln't understand". Through constant probing of my evangelical friends, I found out that they felt any action taken against global warming will be useless because Christ will soon come and "create a new heaven and a new earth-revelations".

If this is really the reason, Evangelicals who believe in doing something about global warming should directly address their theological argument.

The Earth, like all God's gifts are given with the understanding that Christians will be good stewards of the gift. Destroying the planet is NOT being a good steward. My evangelical mother didn't understand how I "turned into such an environmentalist" until I told her the above. I'm not sure she "trusts" my perspective and she certainly doesn't understand any of my other left-leaning ideas, but I think I made a little bit of an impact on that one.

I'm sure I'd have to learn to "agree to disagree" with the evangelicals in the article on other topics, but on this one, I'd gladly join their efforts.

Sorry, but a large part of the civil rights movement DID NOT evolve from evangelicals like Dobson, a fucking racist bigotted piece of garbage. Jews and Blacks were the primary moving force behind the civil rights movement. Please give credit where it is due.

It is easy to say "don't include politics with religion" but it is not that simple. As a leftie evangelical christian (we exist!), it's hard to stomach most of the input my fellow believers have in politics, but it is their right and responsiblilty. I HATE HATE HATE Dobson and all he stands for, but what he and his sheep believe, they have a right to advocate for it.

Also, a large portion of the civil rights movement came out of evangelical christianity. Think that effort should have been stunted?

I for one am glad that someone (no matter how small the effort) is awakening christians to climate change. Perhaps the call to christians to 'be good stewards of the earth' can line up with some of the great environmental movements going on today.

And most educated christians have gotten past their ingrained distrust of science. It's just that you only hear from the radical radicals.

Dobson and Co. are all going to sizzle and fry in hell anyway so they might as well get accustomed to it now.

But a gift that we are allowed to decide what to do with.

To answer "cosmic" as to why environmentalism is not a more natural position for Christians; I've found that they fall into 3 seperate groups of thought.

1: Yes, the earth and all its creatures is a gift from God. The caveat lies within this passage from Genesis: {1:28} "And God blessed them, andGod said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Some Christians interpretation of this is that God gave the earth to man to do whatever he saw fit to do to it. If man sees fit (I'm not sure if we're supposed to have an election over this: Vote Prop 172!) to kill all the animals, plants, and raze the earth, well, that's his right because the earth is ours. Obviously not a great deal of PETA/Christian crossover, here.

2: The earth is a "worldly" plane of existence, much like our worldly vessels (our bodies), that really doesn't matter much other than we're forced to exist in it for the duration of our earthly lives (some even view earth as a kind of hell-unto-itself that the dead are lucky to be out of) but that the real life we should be concerned about is our heavenly (immortal) afterlife. Mostly because it will literally last forever!

In this interesting world view, loved ones are not looking down upon us from "on high" to see how we're doing. They could give a crap. The last time they cared about us was when they flipped us the bird as they entered the heavenly gates as if to say "So long suckers, I'm livin' the high-life now!". The end result is a very laissez-faire attitude towards earthly stewardship: why bother since it won't matter to me - I'll be friggin' dead. Sort of like Republicans and the deficit.

3: The sort of Christians written about in the excellent article. The only ones who can truly (as far as I'm concerned) call themselves Christians because they are truly Christ-like: concerned about the well-being of others, not thinking about the big M-E.

This is from a Baptist-turned-Catholic-turned-Secular-Humanist, so take it with a grain of salt...