Overreaching

Global-warming zealots want to make policy wonks out of pastors | Marvin Olasky

Remember Psalm 24? Verse 1: The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. Verse 2: The godly who dwell therein should embrace a global-warming pollution tax and a cap-and-trade approach designed to reduce CO2 emissions by over 50 percent. Verse 3: The Panama Canal is America's, for America founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.

I've made up verses two and three to suggest that both the left and the right have problems when they argue that all evangelicals should support the specific policy prescriptions that their leaders think are best.

I became a Christian 31 years ago despite being turned off by one evangelical organization that labeled as sub-Christian a Senate vote to turn the Panama Canal over to Panama. Whether or not the plan was imprudent, hopping from a general beware-of-tyrants principle to a highly specific policy proposal is a large leap indeed.