Environment
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The friendly religious face of antienvironmentalism is the Washington,
DC-based Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship (ICES). The
Council was founded in 1999 at the initiative of Fr. Robert Sirico, CSP,
a Catholic priest, former gay activist, and head of the Grand Rapids,
Michigan-based Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.45 Fr.
Sirico was instrumental in forging the 1999 antienvironmentalist Cornwall
Declaration that sought to counter established faith-based environmental
initiatives by Catholic, Jewish, evangelical, and especially mainline
Protestant bodies. This manifesto essentially repackages conservative
ideology under the rubric of environmental stewardship in the style of
Marvin Olasky's "compassionate conservatism" approach to poverty
and social welfare. Olasky is a member of the ICES advisory board.
According to journalist Bill Berkowitz, the Christian Right hopes to
do for environmental issues what "free-market think tanks have done
for the debate on social and political issues." To do this they
seek to "harness scripture in the service of free-market environmentalism."46 ICES
describes itself as "building a network of religious, academic and
community leaders who can offer sound theological, scientific and economic
perspectives on these issues. Soon they will provide a credible alternative
to liberal environmental advocacy for people in congregations, schools,
government, and the religious and secular media."47
The Cornwall signatories epitomize the current trend in political coalition
building on the Christian Right, as conservative evangelicals join rightist
Catholics like Fr. Frank Pavone, and John Neuhaus, and a few conservative
Jews such as Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Notable signatories include James Dobson,
Don Wildmon, Christian Reconstructionist author George Grant, Bill Bright
of Campus Crusade for Christ, David Noebel of Summit Ministries, Charles
Colson of Prison Fellowship, and Diane Knippers of the Washington, DC-based
Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). Knippers' organization was
established in the early 1980s to counter the social justice orientation
of mainline Protestantism.48 IRD
has projects aimed at undermining the historic social justice traditions
of the mainline Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopal churches.
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