The Baptist Doofus of the Day Award

And with a kind and irenic spirit, we here at www.thebigdaddyweave.com nominate David Hankins, Executive-Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, for this prestigious award.

Over at Baptist Press, David Hankins responds to the signers of The Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change with this piece of drivel.

But here is the pertinent passage that qualifies Hankins to be the recipient of the Baptist Doofus Award:

Should Southern Baptists be more engaged with environmental issues? Any issue presented for action by the convention ought to pass at least two tests:

1) Is it a real and pressing problem? Is it right to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre? Only if there really is a fire. Otherwise, raising the alarm is the only real danger. Is climate change more important than, say, world hunger and economic stability in the third world?

I award David Hankins with the Baptist Doofus of the Day Award because only a doofus would imply that issues such as climate change and world hunger are not directly related. If one takes world hunger seriously, how can climate change be ignored? Changes in the climate cause droughts, floods and ultimately a decrease in the food supply. That's basic stuff that even 5th graders know, Jeff Foxworthy included!

Here's a passage from Southern Baptist ethicist David Gushee's new book that I recently read which relates directly to David Hankins odd belief that the issues of Climate Change and World Hunger can somehow be separated from one another:

World Vision in recent years has turned its attention to environmental issues, including global warming. In December 2006, David Schieman, U.S> director of World Vision's Africa programs declared, "World Vision's experience in field operations in Africa points to climate change as a major factor in reducing crops and livestock herds. Every farmer we talk to says there is either not enough rain, or it's very erratic, or both. They can't feed their families anymore and the situation is getting worse. Ten years ago that kind of concern {economic preservation} was associated with tree huggers,' but now we are all thinking much more in these terms and looking at ways to protect the land, trees and vegetation."

The conservative evangelical compassion ministry - World Vision - seems to even understand something that the highest ranking Baptist official in Louisiana does not. Environmental issues and Hunger issues are connected at the hip. We can't ignore one for the other. Baptists have to tackle both.

Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Initiative

Check out this new website called Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Initiative

http://www.baptistcreationcare.org/

Here's the Greeting:

Welcome to the home of the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative (SBECI). This ministry began as a simple conviction that Southern Baptists sould be actively involved in creation care, but it has now become a promising vision for Southern Baptist Stewardship.

You certainly do not need this website to tell you that creation care issues are some of the most pressing of our day. In the past, these conversations have been largely abandoned by evangelical Christians. But today, both younger and more established Southern Baptists are excited to produce a unified moral voice on these issues.

And snippets from the Declaration:

We have recently engaged in study, reflection and prayer related to the challenges presented by environmental and climate change issues. These things have not always been treated with pressing concern as major issues. Indeed, some of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that these are real problems that deserve our attention. But now we have seen and heard enough to be persuaded that these issues are among the current era’s challenges that require a unified moral voice.

We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues have often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice. Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better. To abandon these issues to the secular world is to shirk from our responsibility to be salt and light. The time for timidity regarding God’s creation is no more.

Therefore, we offer these four statements for consideration, beginning with our fellow Southern Baptists, and urge all to follow by taking appropriate actions. May we find ourselves united as we contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all. Laus Deo!

Read the 4 statements here.

See the list of signatories here (original) and here (recent).

They include: Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Seminary; David Dockery, President of Union University; Ronnie Floyd, Pastor of First Baptist Springdale, Arkansas; Timothy George, President of Beeson Divinity School; Jack Graham, Pastor of Prestonwood BC and former SBC President; Johnny Hunt, Pastor of FBC Woodstock, Georgia; James Merrit, former SBC President, Frank Page, President of the SBC;

And many more...

My friend Nathan Finn, a Professor at Southeastern, has blogged about the website and Declaration here. He writes:

As you may know, last year the SBC voted to affirm what I believe is a rather pitiful resolution On Global Warming. I was not impressed. Thankfully, I am not the only SBC conservative who thinks there is something to the threat of global climate change and the need to be better stewards of God’s creation. A group of forty-four Southern Baptists, including current SBC president Frank Page and a number of my colleagues, have signed a statement titled “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change.” The statement can be found at a new website called the Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Initiative. There is also a place to add your signature to the document. I signed it about ten minutes ago.

I am thrilled that some Southern Baptists want to engage this issue more holistically (and biblically) than is the tendency among many ideological conservatives. Be sure to also check out the document “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action,” a document drafted in 2006 that was also signed by several SBC leaders and that I publicly endorsed on my blog.