Glenn Scherer’s much-cited piece “The Godly Must Be Crazy,” which argued that far-right Christian evangelicals are hostile to environmental protection, is apparently not the end of the story. The Washington Post‘s Blaine Harden finds evidence that evangelicals are going green. Joel Makower discusses the issue, as does the Progressive Blog Alliance. Sustainablog also points us to more info at Harvard’s Forum on Religion and the Environment and Rev. Larry Rice’s essay “As the Giant Sleeps … Creation Suffers.”
This strikes me as a subject in dire need of some empirical — as opposed to anecdotal — research. Just how many evangelicals are the raving End Timers Glenn describes and how many the “creation care” types Harden describes? There’s an anthropological flavor to a lot of this reportage, which just goes to show how poorly understood the evangelical community is, particularly in light of their extraordinary political influence.
