What Would Jesus Emit*

Church Group Slams Bush On Clean Air Act A national group of Christian leaders is sending a scathing letter to President Bush to coincide with Earth Day, accusing his administration of chipping away at the Clean Air Act. ... "In a spirit of shared faith and respect, we feel called to express grave moral concern about your 'Clear Skies' initiative -- which we believe is The Administration's continuous effort to weaken critical environmental standards to protect God's creation," the council wrote in an advance copy of the letter provided to The Associated Press. -- via Melanie

The nice thing about Christian environmentalism, I think, is that it doesn't require theological liberalism. Theological and political liberalism tend to go together, and for some issues the bond is tighter than for others. For example, while you needn't be a Unitarian to believe God approves of gay rights, you're not going to get the politically liberal answer if you start out assuming the literal inerrancy of the King James translation. Environmentalism, on the other hand, strikes me as entirely consistent with a conservative exegetical approach. A Biblically-based Christian environmentalism could be an important partner to that conservative environmentalism I'm still holding out hope for, even (especially?) if it focuses more on general principles of stewardship of Creation and environmental justice rather than advocacy of particular policy prescriptions.

*Remember this post for sometime down the road when I put "What Would Jesus X?" jokes in the kiosk.