Thursday, March 08, 2007

The "Great Moral Issues of Our Time"?

So there appears to be a bit of a foofoorah brewing on the internet around a recent letter written by James Dobson and his friends from the religious right to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)

In the letter, Dobson and co. criticized Rich Cizik, an NAE leader, for focusing on global warming as a moral issue. They said

"More importantly, 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, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."


Now Jim Wallis of Sojourners has challenged Mr. Dobson to a public debate on "What are the great moral issues of our time for evangelical christians?"
What do think? Are ...

1.The sanctity of human life
2.The integrity of marriage, and
3.The teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children

... the top three great moral issues of our time? Or could perhaps ...

4.16,000 children die of starvation every day
5.What the U.S. government has called "genocide" in Darfur
6.800,000 people, (including 14,000 into the U.S.) being trafficked every year

... be equally or even more pressing moral issues?

Indeed, if, as NOAA suggests, global warming may lead to increasing occurrence of highly destructive category 5 storms (i.e., more Katrina like events--more people dying, more internally dispaced persons, etc.), then doesn't that make global warming a great moral issue?

4 comments:

LP said...

ok, so yes, the Sanctity of life is a huge moral issue, but that includes:
the starvation
the genocide
the human trafficking
the people dying from floods related to global warming
and abortions.

but not just abortions, as "the sanctity of human life" seems to mean.

and yes, marriage and teaching our children good/healthy values is important, but how believable is it to love your spouse and teach your children to act in a way that shows love/respect to themselves and others, when we don't make it a priority to show love to the most needy people in the world??? NOT VERY BELEIVABLE!!!!!!!!

frickin JD&C. there's more to the world than america.

Unknown said...

Great post, B. You nailed it!

byron smith said...

Did you know that Jim Wallis is going to debate James Dobson on this point?

Benjamin Ady said...

byron,

tell me more. I can't find reference to a pending debate anywhere.