I never thought I would see this.

Both CNN.com and the New York Times website carried stories of a new declaration on the environment from a group of 44 influential leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention. According to the news reports - I have not yet located a copy of the declaration itself, so I have to rely on the articles - the leaders wrote, '“We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues has often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice,” the church leaders wrote in their new declaration.' (from the NY Times story by Neela Banerjee).

This is significant for several reasons. First, these leaders in the SBC, who include the current President of the Convention and two past Presidents, seem to be contradicting a resolution passed at the 2007 annual meeting of the SBC, which took a more skeptical stance about global warming and humanity's role in it. Second, this is the first time that any leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention have spoken out about environmental issues. Again relying on the NYT article for the quote, Jonathan Merritt, a seminary student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, said, "I learned that God reveals himself through Scripture and in general through his creation, and when we destroy God’s creation, it’s similar to ripping pages from the Bible." Third, this flies in the face of the criticism that many conservative evangelical leaders have made of Rev. Cizik's (he of the National Association of Evangelicals) call for responsible environmental action on the part of the church.

It will be interesting to see how this declaration is received by others within the SBC and the broader conservative evangelical community. It will be even more interesting to see whether SBC churches are motivated to take any action because of it.