Some prominent Southern Baptist leaders will be among the speakers at an upcoming conference focusing on caring for the environment.
The inaugural Flourish National Church Leaders Conference on Creation Care will be held May 13-15 at Cross Pointe Church near Atlanta, where former Southern Baptist Convention president James Merritt is senior pastor. Merritt is scheduled to speak, as are Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research; and Mark Liederbach, professor of ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Merritt’s son, Jonathan Merritt, is organizing the conference. In March 2008 the younger Merritt authored a statement called “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change,” which was signed by 65 Southern Baptist leaders, including Johnny Hunt, current president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Taylors First Baptist Church pastor Frank Page, who was president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the time the declaration was published, also signed it. He said he is “fully supportive” of the upcoming conference.
“I have long stated that true believers need to be more intentional in issues of environmental stewardship,” Page said. “I applaud this effort, which I believe will be both balanced and biblical.”
Rudy Gray, pastor of Utica Baptist Church, Seneca, and president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, said he sees a “wide range of diversity” among the speakers and believes the discussion could be beneficial.
“On a larger scale,” he said, “I think it is the responsibility of everyone – but especially God’s people – to treat his creation with respect. Caring for God’s creation is important, and we need to be better informed as to how we can be effective in doing that.”
Gray said the “best approach” to caring for the environment is to be pro-life while “maintaining a responsible approach to creation’s resources.”
“As I see it, this conference is part of a continuing conversation about God’s creation and how we should relate to it.”
Hal Lane, pastor of West Side Baptist Church in Greenwood and a trustee of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he hopes speakers at the Atlanta conference will “draw a clear distinction between a proper stewardship of the environment and the radical environmentalist agenda.”
Lane, a former president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, pointed to a “secular global warming dogma” that “denies creationism, the sanctity of human life and other basic biblical beliefs.”
“The focus of the environmentalist movement is on the salvation of the planet, not lost people,” he said. “The movement is for many a worship of the creation rather than the creator.”
Lane said many Southern Baptist leaders “wisely distanced themselves” from Merritt’s declaration when it was published. Richard Land, president of the ERLC, released a statement at the time citing a 2007 SBC resolution urging Southern Baptists to “proceed cautiously in the human-induced global warming debate in light of conflicting scientific research” and to support measures that “improve the stewardship of the earth’s resources without resulting in significant negative consequences” on the economy.
Referring to the 2007 action, Land added that the approved action “is as close to an ‘official’ position as the SBC is capable of making, apart from its formal confession of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message.”
Other scheduled speakers at the conference include Chris Seay, pastor of the Ecclesia Christian community in Houston; Joel Hunter, pastor of the Orlando-area Northland Church and author of books including “A New Kind of Conservative,” and Andy Crouch, senior editor at Christianity Today International.