Theologically, Thomas probably has the upper hand. The Apostles, you'll recall, all believed that Jesus had promised to come right back; to them, environmentalism probably would have seemed a bit like cleaning the motel room before checking-out.
That's what, at least nominally, the "green schism" amongst evangelicals is all about: One side believes there's a moral duty, imposed by God, to clean the motel room for the next generation of visitors. The other side says, "Nah, we've got more important things to do."
But there's something else at work, too; there's a new generation of leadership impatient to see the Old Guard put to pasture. They recognize that undoing Roe v. Wade is probably a lost cause that is off-putting to prospective customers, and they want to quit harping about it. Richard Cizik himself, the object of the ire of Dobson et. al., said as much. From the Dobson letter: "For example, he granted an interview with Fast Company, dated June, 2006, in which he said 'We are the future, and the old guard,' he continued, 'is reaching up to grasp its authority back, like a horror movie where a hand comes out of the grave.' To paraphrase, Cizik apparently believes 'the old guard' which defends traditional values is like a rotting corpse that will not die."
Global warming claims offer the prospect of growth for evangelicals because much of the public appear to accept them, and Genesis' creation story is easily adopted to serve "Creation Care" as a moral stance enjoying Biblical authority.
Falwell, with his embarrassing fulminations about Satanic trickery, and Dobson, enraged by not very subtle allusions to his own mortality, are making fools of themselves and they are going to lose. Their day has passed, their language bespeaks a time and a perspective that has passed, and they know it — and that's what their desperate, virtually simultaneous attacks were all about.
Perhaps, being no fan of either Falwell or Dobson, I shouldn't have reached for Shakespeare's lion to title this piece; that connotes a certain nobility of spirit that both men lack. Maybe an old Arab proverb would have been better: The dog barks, but the caravan moves on.
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