From the Salmon

This month’s Christianity Today coverboy is Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of a Colorado Springs megachurch.

Now, I’ve had some harsh words for Pastor Haggard in the past, and I’ve also given him a little praise. As most of my past reaction was informed by Jeff Sharlet’s article in Harper’s, I was interested to see how Haggard might be portrayed in a mainstream evangelical publication. Maybe a different perspective would change the way I felt about Pastor Ted.

The cover hails Haggard as “A New Kind of Evangelical,” and Tim Stafford spends a couple column inches telling us about how Pastor Ted doesn’t wear suits, how he has a ”Vote for Pedro” bumper sticker on his truck, and how he’s the most optimisticest person you’ll ever meet. The article quotes a retired pastor from Colorado Springs, saying “It’s really pretty hard not to like Ted Haggard. You can not like some of the things he does, or some of the things he might say on occasion, but it’s pretty hard not to like him personally.”

Okay, fine. He’s likeable. Sunny. Optimistic.

Great.

But since Haggard is also one of the most prominent and powerful evangelicals in the US, the things he does and the things he says are pretty important. And, quite frankly, it’s the doing and the saying that still bother me. A lot.

Under Haggard’s leadership, the NAE has encouraged evangelicals to become more involved in environmental conservation and in fighting poverty. Last year, they released a position paper called ”For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” that details their positions in these and other areas. I don’t agree with every thought in the paper, but I read it when it was first released and was greatly encouraged by it.

Sadly, whenever Pastor Ted starts talking about the new evangelical focus on the environment and poverty, I start to become less encouraged.

I’ll start with the environment and save Haggard’s ideas about poverty for a later post. In an interview that is a companion piece to the CT article, Haggard has this to say (rather than trying to excerpt, I think you should read the whole thing):

Where is the NAE on environmental issues?

We’ve released a document, “For the Health of the Nation,” that talks about environmental issues. And we hold that, along with several other items, as very important issues for evangelicals. Our position on environmentalism is that God created the heavens and the earth, we are human beings made in the image and likeness of God, and we have domination, control over the earth right now. That makes us responsible for it.

We think there needs to be a strong environmental voice that believes that human beings are superior to animals and that human beings are not animals. We are the image and likeness of God on the earth. We are his representatives. We’re salt and light. We are the church. So because of it, we can eat cows and chickens, and we can swat mosquitoes with no guilt. But we also have a responsibility to endangered species and to the forests and to the oceans to make sure that we are stewards of the earth.

So, how have the environmentalist groups taken to what you say?

We don’t respond to them. They’ve all tried to reach us and communicate with us, but we are so diametrically opposed to some of the traditional environmentalist philosophies that we don’t return their phone calls, because we think this should be an evangelical Christian issue. We think the environmental solutions should come from our philosophy of human responsibility and dignity, because we’re in the image and likeness of God, rather than we’re a fellow animal in the animal kingdom.

We think that our approach is a pro-business, pro-free market approach to environmental problems, where their approach is typically anti-business and anti-free market. Their solutions will never work. It’s going to require our approach to improve some of our environmental problems. I think our strategy is better. Our strategy is more thoughtful.

Ultimately, since God created it all and God is sovereign and God will judge it all in the end, it’s only God-type solutions that will work. All the other attempted solutions that various human beings will try will fail.

You’re using biblically-based arguments to say we should protect the environment. Should Christians impose that reasoning on the rest of society?

There’s nothing wrong with the biblically based argument as long as there’s also a compelling state interest for people who don’t believe in the Bible. The environment is everybody’s concern. Everybody breathes the same air, everybody swims in the same ocean, everybody drinks out of the same water. Right now all we’re doing is heightening the awareness among evangelicals that it’s okay to be like me. I am a white, heterosexual, conservative Republican evangelical, and I am an environmentalist. And that needs to be okay. But in some circles, they would assume a white, heterosexual, conservative Republican evangelical can’t possibly be an environmentalist. That’s the switch we want to make.

First of all, I’d like to welcome white, heterosexual, conservative Republican evangelicals to the table. It’s kind of a shame that Pastor Ted seems interested in talking only to you, but since you’ve been a little reticent to address environmental issues until now, it’s good to have you aboard.

The fact that Haggard starts his argument with a strawman is a pretty clear sign of where he is coming from. The scolding environmentalist killjoy that wants to take away Pastor Ted’s chicken and save the precious mosquitoes might be a standard liberal bogeyman that conservatives use to frighten their children, but it’s an insult to groups that have worked for decades to preserve the very things that Haggard now says he cares for.

Are there groups out there that advocate completely giving up meat and not even killing insects? Probably. But that doesn’t describe the more established, respected environmental organizations. Sure, these groups might target huge factory farms because the animals live in appalling conditions and because of the profoundly negative impact the farms have on the surrounding land and waterways. But that doesn’t mean they want to take away your steak. These groups might be concerned that unchecked corporate practices are devastating ecosystems and wiping out species at an alarming rate. But that doesn’t mean they don’t swat mosquitoes when they’re getting bitten.

Hell, I kill ants by the thousands, and nobody’s protesting outside of our apartment. And if they’d do it anywhere, it’d be in Berkeley.

This mischaracterization of environmental groups is disturbing, but I’m particularly worried by Haggard’s unwillingness to even begin a discussion with these groups. For one thing, if he really is interested in caring for creation, he’s got a little catching up to do, and I’d think that the more well-established environmental groups might offer resources and experience that evangelicals could learn from. And if Pastor Ted is so convinced that his strategy is better and more thoughtful, then he should be willing to talk about it. But instead, he doesn’t even take their calls. Wow. From someone who is so passionate about evangelism, this just seems maddeningly counterproductive.

Haggard claims that what makes his approach better than any other is that his is a “God-type” approach — pro-human, pro-business, and pro-free market. And while I understand the Biblical basis for the “humans are not animals” bit, I’m not sure what is particularly Christian about an environmental approach that favors business and the free market. In fact, I’m pretty sure that business and the free market played a starring role in causing many of the environmental problems we have today.

Let’s go over this again. The free market runs on a single, powerful engine: rational self-interest. Christianity? Not so much. ”In humility consider others better than yourselves” doesn’t do much for a market, unless it makes you buy better gifts. Actually, I’ll be writing more about this in the next post, so I’ll just leave it there.

But the biggest problem with Pastor Ted’s discussion is that it’s not immediately clear just what his approach is, exactly. I assume that “creation care” is a little more specific than caring really, really hard about creation. And I truly hope that Haggard’s plan isn’t just “heightening awareness” among white, heterosexual, conservative Republican evangelicals that it’s okay to be an environmentalist, as long as they don’t support any existing environmental groups.

Because in his sunny, optimistic way, that’s what he makes it sound like.