Environmental Movement Finds New Supporters Among Evangelicals

With a congregation of more than 26,000 people and more than 1 million square feet of space, the Plano, Texas-based Prestonwood Baptist Church's utility bills topped $2 million a year. But that started to change in 2006 when the church had its energy use audited.

Members soon curtailed the church's energy use by 40 percent, resulting in more than $2 million in savings over the next two years. But according to Executive Pastor Mike Buster, the reasons for Prestonwood's transformation go well beyond the financial.

"The Bible and Jesus say let nothing be wasted," Buster said. "We are not only to be good stewards of our financial resources, but also of the earth."

Prestonwood is one of a growing number of churches around the country taking a closer look at the impact of their energy usage on the environment.

"The vision [is] that we would exercise our God-given responsibility to be stewards of the earth, which means to care and protect," said Richard Cizik, a vice president with the National Association for Evangelicals. "You can't have that responsibility and ignore what is happening to the earth."

The NAE has urged its more than 45,000 churches to reduce their energy consumption by 25 percent.

The association estimates if the 300,000 houses of worship across America cut energy use by 25 percent, it would eliminate 5 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions -- the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the road -- and would save nearly $500 million.

The government has also seen this potential, ordering the Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Department of Energy, to develop Energy Star for Congregations, a program that has worked with more than 1,500 congregations in the last two years to reduce their energy use.

"Despite their own relatively lower energy use," Jerry Lawson, national manager of Energy Star, wrote in an e-mail, "we consider congregations a very important market segment because they are highly influential in how their members look at environmental stewardship in their own homes and businesses -- and the faith community is increasingly involved in the community and national energy policy discussion as a religious issue of stewardship."

A growing environmental movement within evangelical churches has sparked some concern among congregation leaders about a loss of focus on their more traditional issues, such as abortion, marriage and abstinence education.

In a letter written last March to the NAE, these concerns were spelled out.

"We have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time," 25 conservative Christian leaders, including James Dobson, Don Wildmon and Tony Perkins, wrote, "notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children. In their place has come a preoccupation with climate concerns that extend beyond the NAE's mandate and its own statement of purpose."

Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, also signed the letter. "God would want us to take care of our environment," he said. "What concerns us is whether it will be exaggerated out of importance as the issue, over life and marriage."

But for leaders of churches like Prestonwood, they see environmental awareness as part of their faith.

"If we can avoid putting pollution in the air, if we can be part of the solution, as Christians we should," Buster said.

He cautions, however, against an overemphasis on their energy reduction.

"Churches are not to be focused on the environment," Buster added. "It's a byproduct of being a good steward. We have to be careful to be focused on what the church is created to do. We're much more focused on people than on trees."

Other evangelicals note that, though the movement has gained increased traction within the last two years, the model for environmental stewardship has been present for some time.

"What's happening is people who have a fair amount of prominence have given people permission to talk about these things, and they've been ready for quite some time," said Cal DeWitt, an environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-founder for the International Evangelical Environmental Network.

For the National Association of Evangelicals' Cizik it comes down to a question of faith, saying, "This is not just an environmental issue. Or a scientific, political or economic issue. Of course it's all of these, but it's more fundamental than all of that. It's a moral and spiritual issue."