It’s not easy being green…especially if you’re an evangelical.

Richard Cizik was ousted from the leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals for his vocal support of environmental efforts, what many Christians call “creation care.” Now Cizik finds himself a very popular figure being invited to many conferences and speaking to the younger generation of Christians who take environmental issues like global warming very seriously.

But does Cizik’s departure from the NAE represent the failure or the future of evangelicalism?

There is a battle going on to define 21st century Christianity in North America. Will it continue to be a block whose moral agenda is limited to issued related to sexual/reproductive ethics: abortion, same-sex marriage, and the preservation fo the Western nuclear family? Or will evangelicals embrace a wider moral agenda…

I just watched the forum at Saddleback with the presidential candidates conducted by Rick Warren. My initial thoughts:   

1. Obama didn’t win over any evangelicals tonight. We already knew his answers on abortion and same sex unions wouldn’t be popular, but I thought he might have won some people with his candor or moderation. I don’t think it worked. He really should have focused more on reducing the number of abortions and how his policies are proven to do just that. A tough, straight answer like, “An Obama administration will save more unborn children than a McCain administration that continues Bush’s domestic agenda” would have been amazing. Obama could have made it clear that he wasn’t going to retreat the moral ground on the abortion issue. He didn’t. He did…

A very interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal today about Bobby Jindal’s journey from the Hindu faith of his family to embracing Christianity as a teenager. Some have questioned the authenticity of Obama’s Christian faith saying it was a conversion of convienence- a community activist simply connecting with a powerful church to get political leverage. I don’t share that cynical view of Obama’s faith, but I understand why some might hold it.

Jindal’s story is different. His converstion began as a teenager- I assume his decision to follow Christ was not because this son of Indian immigrants living in Baton Rouge was plotting a political manuever to become governer and possibly vice president. Anyway, with faith being such a hot topic in this political year I thought others might be interested…

Francis Wilkinson from the New York Times recalls an interview with John McCain two years ago in which the senator told the story about leading worship services for other POWs during captivity in Vietnam. The sermon McCain recounts gives clues to his ideas about God and government. From the article:

I was intrigued by a passage in which he described leading religious services in Hanoi for fellow prisoners of war. “Not because of my particular excess of religious zeal,” he explained, “but because I’d gone to that boarding school and, of course, to the [Naval] Academy, where you had to go to chapel. So I knew all the words to the service.”Here’s Mr. McCain’s description of a sermon he delivered :

One day I talked about the parable of…

Many people I know have an impression of Christianity based largely upon what they see while surfing the television—an impression that I do not fit and work hard to deconstruct. Televangelists are loud and energetic; I’m rarely the life of the party. Televangelists have big hair; I have no hair. Televangelists fly around in private jets; I ride a bike to work to save on gas.

My work to deconstruct the image of gold-gilded Christianity appears to be getting some help from the United States Senate. Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating possible financial shenanigans on the part of six widely known TV preachers. From Ted Olsen’s article at ChristianityToday.com:

“Recent articles and news reports regarding possible misuse of donations made to religious organizations…

You may think writing a sermon every week is challenging work, but imagine writing speeches everyday for the leader of the free world. That was Michael Gerson’s job for six years under President George W. Bush. Last night I attended a benefit dinner in Chicago where Gerson was the keynote speaker. Prior to the dinner I participated in a small roundtable discussion with Gerson about his time in the White House and his perception of current challenges—domestic and international—facing the country.Much of the conversation focused on Gerson’s responsibility in crafting the President’s response in the days following 9/11. Leading a nation in shock and grief is not easy, but simultaneously showing strength and resolve is a challenge few presidential speechwriters have faced. Gerson was almost universally praised for…