Ecumenical Group Decries Environmental Extremism

 

WASHINGTON, DC April 19, 2000 (CWNews.com) - An ecumenical group on Tuesday announced the formation of the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship (ICES) and issued a statement criticizing the excesses of "modern environmentalism's frequent flirtation with extremism."

The group said it will offer "a much-needed, balanced, Judeo-Christian perspective to current environmental debates, thereby combating some of the extreme policies and ideas being proposed by major environmental groups and their allies in certain liberal religious organizations." Among the members of the new group are Father Richard John Neuhaus of the magazine First Things, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, and Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition.

The council also issued the "Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship" at the press conference. The declaration identifies three areas of misunderstanding in environmental debate, especially religious environmentalism: a tendency to "view humans as principally consumers and polluters rather than producers and stewards"; a romantic view of nature that sees an untouched Earth as the ideal; and a tendency among decision makers to pursue "misguided, though well-intended, policies" that hurt the poor by impeding economic growth. "We aspire to a world in which human beings care wisely and humbly for all creatures, first and foremost for their fellow human beings, recognizing their proper place in the created order," the declaration concludes. [http://www.cwnews.com/index.cfm]

BACK