Climate Change Moral Questions

I'll have to write more about this tonight, but seriously?!?: Southern Baptist leaders shift position on climate change

UPDATE: As I should have expected, the news media got it wrong. The website that the CNN report (linked above) refers to was put together in part or in whole by Jonathan Merritt who is a seminary student and not acting as a representative of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). I am no Southern Baptist, but apparently the declaration posted to this Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Initiative site was in fact signed by some rather prominent members of the SBC, and therefore does carry some weight. I think it's pretty clear that CNN is making a mountain out of a molehill though simply to spite the most conservative Christian denomination in the country for having stated that they weren't as concerned about global warming less than 1 year ago. SBC was even so quick to jump on this issue that they have already written an article online about it.

In any case, this is more pandering to either side of this debate by BOTH parties, CNN and Mr. Merritt's website. This is not an issue of the salvation of one's soul. It is an issue that can be dealt with in the scientific and political realm alone, and there is no need to stir this in with religion by painting a certain subset of Christians in this nation as somehow backwards when it comes to the science of global warming concerns. And I'm not claiming this is CNN's fault alone. Both Mr. Merritt's website and CNN's article are doing the same job of being divisive on this issue, in my opinion. Why? Because Mr. Merritt has the appearance of "bucking the authority" of the SBC since they just posted a lengthy statement about their stance on global warming which generally seems to say that they're not going to pursue it much as an important topic to the Southern Baptist Convention of churches. Secondly, because CNN's verbiage implies that the SBC has done a 180 on this issue, even though even the little bit of background research that I have done this evening - as a non-professional journalist - indicates that this statement, while signed by important leaders in the Southern Baptist denomination, has not been adopted by the SBC at large as standard policy.

Is it really so hard to think about the consequences of one's actions before speaking (or writing) in this day and age?