Do You See More than Just a ‘Carbon Footprint’?
Religion & Liberty Online

Do You See More than Just a ‘Carbon Footprint’?


Call it something like an anthropological Rorschach test. What do you see when you look at the picture above? Do you see more than just a ‘carbon footprint’?

It’s a fair question to ask, I think, of those who are a part of the radical environmentalist/population control political lobby. It’s also a note of caution to fellow Christians who want to build bridges with those folks…there is a complex of interrelated policies that are logically consistent once you assume the tenets of secular environmentalism.

Some worldviews just aren’t compatible with others.

Rev. Richard Cizik, the point-man on environmental policy for the National Association of Evangelicals, said in a speech earlier this year to the World Bank:

I’d like to take on the population issue, but in my community global warming is the third rail issue. I’ve touched the third rail . . . but still have a job. And I’ll still have a job after my talk here today. But population is a much more dangerous issue to touch. . . We need to confront population control and we can — we’re not Roman Catholics after all — but it’s too hot to handle now.

Just how much has secularist misanthropy already infiltrated our thinking?

For more on the connection between the climate change lobby and population control, see the newly released joint paper from the Acton Institute and the Institute on Religion & Democracy, “From Climate Control to Population Control: Troubling Background on the ‘Evangelical Climate Initiative'” (PDF here).

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.