Last Thursday in Washington D.C., I had a chance to read the following letter to the press, addressed to America's political leaders.
President Bush, Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid,
Young Christians are concerned about climate change. We have seen pictures of its effects from all over the world: disappearing glaciers, deadly heat waves every summer, melting permafrost in Alaska and Siberia, warmer oceans, and storm-swept levies in New Orleans. All over the world, lives and livelihoods are destroyed daily by this escalating crisis. As the next generation of evangelical Christians, we are waking up to our kingdom responsibilities as members of a global community with regard to climate change.
And the verdict is in: humans are responsible for most of it. Shamefully, we Christians have been slow to come around to this tragic reality. For this we are solemn, and we are sorry.
We mourn for the global “last”, who will be the first to be devastated and displaced by climate change. If we don’t act, millions of the world’s poorest persons will be threatened by rising sea levels and more intense weather events. These are the folks Jesus had in mind when he said that as we do unto the world’s “least of these,” we do also unto Him (Matthew 25:40). We take those words pretty seriously. Hopefully, all of you do, too.
We are saddened to hear that climate change will devastate God’s creation. In Genesis 1:26-28 God commanded humanity to tend His great garden, and in Romans we read that it’s now groaning under us in anticipation of a better future. God made a good Earth, and we want to do a good job of protecting it. To us young Christians, this means getting serious, and seriously active, about climate change.
Therefore, our allegiance to Jesus Christ demands that the threat of climate change no longer be ignored. There’s plenty we can do to combat it. As ambassadors of the real King, we implore you to swift and compassionate action.
But we’ll only get to meaningful climate solutions together. We implore you to collaboratively pass and sign strong laws to combat climate change – soon. We challenge Congress to draft such laws and President Bush to promise specific actions on climate change in the State of the Union Address. Resume America’s leadership on this.
We confess that all of us, including our nation’s elected leaders, will be held accountable for what we did or did not do to combat climate change by the true President of Presidents, Speaker of Speakers, and Leader of Leaders: our King Jesus. We pray that you will act wisely in such light.
Sincerely and respectfully,
The leaders of the Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative
