Re: [asa] Dobson

On 3/5/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, it was pretty stupid of Cizik to mention population control. That
> feeds the worst fears of folks like Dobson. Frankly, it scares me as well,
> and I think Dobson's comment about forced abortion and infanticide in China
> is right on point. Christian environmentalists need to acknowledge that the
> environmental movement was dead wrong about the "population explosion" and
> must distance Christian responses to problems like gobal warming from the
> "secular" environmental movement's untoward emphasis on population control.

I've tried to run down this quote and its provenance is dodgy. It comes from
an e-mail from an AEI member. I could find no transcripts or evidence that
this meeting ever happened. The Christian blog, Bene Diction Blogs On, ran
into similar problems:

> *As far as I can tell the Cizik quote from the World Bank Sustainable
> Development Forum was first trotted out at the Focus on the Family Value
> Voters 2006 Summit by Oklahoma Senator **James Inhofe*<http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:KTWu6sQPfoQJ:www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/25/12463/2968+Rev.+Richard+Cizik+Word+Bank&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=ca>
> *. I cannot find a transcript of the World Bank Forum (May 2006) online to
> put Rev. Cizik's quote in context.*
>

Bene Diction and Christianity Today may have found the real reason for the
hostility:

> *Christianity Today has noted Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family
> wants Rev. Richard Cizik fired for endorsing **this book*<http://www.religionnews.com/press02/PR022707.html>
> *.* [THE JESUS MACHINE How James Dobson, Focus on the Family,* *and
> Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War]

What made Dobson so mad?

>
> "Gilgoff is a writer and journalist of the first rank... This is a book
> that evangelicals, as well as the critics of our movement, should surely
> read."
> RICHARD CIZIK, CHIEF LOBBYIST, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS
>

You have this quote being passed only by two hostile witnesses so I looked
to see if Cizik talked about this topic at some other time and I did find
something here. Cizik has talked on the record about this and here is what
he told the New York Times magazine:

*
>
> ""Creation care'' sounds like a division of Medicare."
> It's still better than environmentalism.
>
> "What is wrong with that term?"
> "It's not the term. It's the environmentalists themselves. I was recently
> speaking with the leadership of the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife
> Federation, and I told them, 'Gentlemen, I respect you, but at this point
> don't plan on any formal collaborations.'"
>
> "Why? Because they lean to the left?"
> "Environmentalists have a bad reputation among evangelical Christians for
> four reasons. One, they rely on big-government solutions. Two, their
> alliance with population-control movements. Three, they keep kooky religious
> company."
>
> "What is your idea of a kooky religion?"
> "Some environmentalists are pantheists who believe creation itself is
> holy, not the Creator."
>
> "And what's No. 4?"
> "There's a certain gloom and doom about environmentalists. They tend to
> prophecies of doom that don't happen. Look at the movie 'The Day After
> Tomorrow,' in which New York City freezes *over."
>
That doesn't sound like someone who is pro-population control to me and he
did what you asked Christian environmentalists to do in that interview.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Mar 5 22:01:08 2007