The Cornwall Alliance is a coalition of clergy, theologians, religious leaders, scientists, academics, and policy experts committed to bringing a balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development. The Cornwall Alliance fully supports the principles espoused in the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, and is seeking to promote those principles in the discussion of various public policy issues including population and poverty, food, energy, water, endangered species, habitat, and other related topics.
On April 17, the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation released its highly anticipated policy agenda on a special 45-minute press call in which it highlighted such stewardship issues as “poverty and development” and “climate and energy.” Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, National Spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance and General Editor of the Agenda, Dr. Stephen Livesay, President of Bryan College and Co-Chair of the Agenda, and Dr. Barrett Duke, Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission and Co-Chair of the Agenda conducted a press call in which they discussed the details of the groundbreaking document. CA
This declaration, though sincere, is being used to give the false impression of a major split among Southern Baptists over global warming. Indeed, according to the most prominent signer, Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page, the official position of the SBC has not changed from earlier resolutions that question global warming claims.
Dr. Page clarified that he does not think the denomination’s resolutions have been “too timid,” according to a separate statement issued the same day. “As Southern Baptist Convention President, I totally stand behind the resolutions that have been passed in recent years…. The scientific research on human-induced global warming is conflicting at best. CA
God calls us to steward creation, but presently much environmental advocacy and activism contradict sound theology and sound science. In response to this, a diverse task force representing a wide range of the theological, scientific and economic disciplines has been brought together to craft the Cornwall Stewardship Agenda. This agenda is designed to flesh out the broad principles of the 2000 Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship (endorsed by over 1,500 clergy, religious leaders, and other people of faith), and answer the practical question of what public policy principles religious leaders and policymakers should support in their desire to achieve Biblically balanced stewardship. CA
The so-called “Southern Baptist” statement is not an initiative of the Southern Baptist Convention, which voiced its views on global warming last summer in a resolution, “On Global Warming”.
“[Southern Baptists] reserve to themselves the right to decide through Convention action what the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy positions are to be,” ERLC President Richard Land said. “[T]he Convention has officially addressed the issues of creation care and environmental stewardship in its 2006 and 2007 Conventions through resolutions adopted by the Convention’s duly elected messengers,” and the 2007 resolution “is as close to an ‘official’ position as the SBC is capable of making, apart from its formal confession of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message.” CA
March 7, 2008 — From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism
I have spent most of my life under the communist regime. A week ago, I [said]… “Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical – the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality.” What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism. CA
