The Religious Right shows its true colors

Diane Rehm, who has a wonderful program on NPR, did a segment on Christian voters this past Wednesday. One of guests was Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council (better known as NAMBLA). Diane asked Sprigg why conservative Christians do not care about issues beyond gay marriage and abortion. Here is the answer:

I think the difference on some of these issues is primarily in the proper approach. It is not in the level of concern about it. Certainly conservatives are concerned about poverty as well. But the question is: do you believe that the answer to the problem of poverty is throwing more government money at it or is there something more underlying in terms of our cultural values?

Cultural values? Like allowing rich people to keep even more of their money?

If you look at statistics you find, for example, that family structure is very highly correlated with poverty levels. So that if people get married and stay married they're unlikely to live in poverty. It's people who are raised by single parents or who live as single parents, for example, who are the most likely to live in poverty.

To quote the Bible according to Lewis, "At this point the left side of my brain turned to the right side of my brain and said, 'It's dark in here, and we might die.'" People are poor because they get divorced? Oh, that's right, the sun rises in the morning because the rooster crows. Doing a little math here...the divorce rate is 50%...carry the five...take the square root of seven...we must be the poorest nation on Earth! Apparently, statistics are the work of the devil. Otherwise this guy is just plain stupid.

But please continue:

On the environment, I think there is a Christian obligation to care for the stewardship of the Earth. But the question is: for whose benefit?

I don't know...the glory of God?

We believe that we need to do what's for the benefit of human beings not for the benefit of snail darters or something like that and therefore we should consider the economic costs of proposals for environmental regulations.

Unbelievable. Sprigg must hold a literal interpretation of the Bible. Consider Deuteronomy 7:13...

And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

See? We don't need to protect the environment. God will take clean up the environment for us!

I should point out that not all evangelicals are this pathetic when it comes to the environment. Consider the Evangelical Environmental Network:

As many of the scriptures demonstrate, the Bible teaches that both "nature" or "the environment" and humanity are part of creation. Both are inextricably linked to one another, have been ever since God formed us from the earth (Gen. 2:7; 3:19; Ps. 104:27-30), and will continue to be in God's future when we will exist as resurrected bodies on a new earth (I Cor. 15:35-44; Rom. 8:19-23; Isa. 65:17; Rev. 21:1). In other words, humanity and the rest of creation are part of all of creation. Therefore, creation-care does not just mean caring for "nature," nor does it just mean caring for humanity; it means caring for both. A biblical creation-care ethic is a holistic ethic.