An Email From The Cornwall Alliance

Posted by Martin S Pribble on July 12, 2012 in Featured, From The Mailbox, Thoughts | 9 comments

You might (and should) all remember The Green Dragon campaign, a group of conservative pastors, politicians, religious activists, scientists and special interest groups (read corporate companies with vested interest in profiteering) who call any and all “green” or environmental movements “anti-american”, “anti-Christian” and “from Satan”? Well when I was preparing the blog piece “Resisting The Green Dragon”, I had to give them an email address, which of course inadvertently added me to the mailing list for their nutty propaganda.

Their current campaign is called “In HIS Image 2012″, a campaign which… wait… I won’t spoil it for you, I’ll just insert the entire email below in chunks with my comments between. Here we go!

Restoring the Glory, Dignity, and Purpose of People in God’s Created Order.

First it was the demand that religious organizations provide health insurance for contraception and abortion.

Next it was Presidential support for same-sex “marriage.”

Then, shockingly, it was the Supreme Court upholding a health care law that, among other travesties, will ration life-saving medical treatments and provide taxpayer funding for abortion on demand.

And through it all, families are hurting and countless jobs are being lost as America’s bountiful energy resources are locked away and burdensome new regulations are passed all based on false claims of environmental crisis.

Is there any solution?

I believe the answer is a resounding Yes!

With YOUR help on an urgent campaign in several initial states, I believe we can begin to turn the tide on some of the most critical issues facing America…

…and even gain a powerful new pathway for advancing the saving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

From the words “contraception and abortion” right down to “saving the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”, this email is tugging at the heart strings of the conservative American Christian, telling us that they are not only under fire from the president, but that the American public is being denied access to fossil fuels, coal and whatever else they can burn by false environmental movements. They are the victims of a conspiracy which is trying to take Jesus away from them, and not only that, IT’S URGENT!!! Let’s read on.

Well yes it does sound too simple. And what this guy believes is beside the point. What is important here is the fact that he uses biblical interpretation to set up a premise, one which talks of a mission, of destiny and of dominion. “… to be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth, and subdue and rule over it.”

These are the passages it talks of:

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number;
fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

With what comes next, I fail to see how these passages suggest anything more than what they actually say, regardless of how unbelievable they are. There is such thing as interpretation, but this stretches interpretation to a point of either wishful thinking or some bizarre sort of confirmation bias.

I’ve written about this attitude before, and defenders of the passage always say that “dominion” does not mean “use all of the earth’s resources, and treat the planet like a slave” but instead put forward the idea of custodianship, where humans are here to look after the planet. As we see clearly here, that’s not what this guy means. In no part of the English language does “subdue” mean “look after” as a caretaker might. It’s the language of a warlord, of a tyrant, or of an abusive spouse. More on this later. The letter continues.

Okay now I’m confused. Those two little verses reveal all that? Really? They talk of euthanasia, abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity and the destruction of the family and even all of society? How? I’d be very keen to hear any interpretation of these words that can convince me that any of this is the case. They say nothing of the sort, so in what bizarre world of interpretation can this be gleaned from these passages?

The verses do say, if interpreted by what they say, that we should continue to fill the earth up to the brink with people. And I don’t blame the writers in 1200BCE for thinking this way. The way societies worked back then, the more people in any one tribe the safer and more powerful the people in that tribe become. Of course back then the world was only as big as the distance to the next country, and they thought the world was flat. No doubt the resources they were gathering seemed endless, so why bother with preserving them? After convincing the readers that they are under fire, that America is going to hell because of secular ideals, and that the Bible, in its opening chapters, condemns homosexuality, promiscuity, and euthanasia are immoral, the letter goes on to say that with a small donation to The Cornwall Alliance America can be saved from the evils of secularity. Read on.

“Sanctity”, “beauty”, “centrality”, “goodness”, and “dignity”. All emotive words, reinforcing the Christian position of righteousness in a world that understands itself far better than it did when the biblical words were written.  According to the author this is not political, it’s a social objective, and one that aims for “traditional” ways of life to return to the mainstream. The message is to return to the social standards of the forefathers, and forge ahead, using these “virtues” as a basis for their ideals. And you can be part of it! Keep reading, this is the bit where he asks for money.

Now the true agenda becomes clear. The Cornwall Alliance aims to bridge the church/state gap, stop any environmental movements or regulation of the use of resources, get the bible back into schools, and spread their version of the Christian gospel. This pretty goes up against every single thing I value and strive for. Will you stand with them in this critical battle?

Now, you can take all this at face value; sure, I know these people at Cornwall Alliance believe in the custodianship of the earth, and that their version of family values is the only way to keep the structure of society, well, in the 15th century. And this is apparently their aim. But dig a little deeper into the anti-environmental aims of the Cornwall Alliance, and a much much darker picture emerges, and it involves money and oil. Lots of it. (You’ll see Dr E. Calvin Beisner’s name in the second link.)

The Cornwall Alliance, along with being hyper-conservative evangelical biblical literalists (and liberal interpreters of the bible), are pushing an agenda which goes against everything humanity should strive for. It also makes claims about the finite resources of our planet, saying that it’s God’s will what we continue to fill the world with people, that we continue to use up the finite resources of the planet, and that we aim toward the finish-line, one where mankind is judged on how well we played God’s game. They are playing on the fears and ignorance of the American people, saying that they will be inconvenienced by future alternative energy sources (“What do you mean? I can’t drive my 1970s Ford Galaxie at 2 miles a gallon anymore?”), they will have to change their habits as food sources become more scarce (“What do you mean I can’t have bacon in every meal? What is a food shortage?”).

Normally I look at conspiracy theorists and laugh. They often link unrelated things because of the lack of actual evidence. But this is one conspiracy I see unfolding before us, that adds fuel to the fire of the oil barons, the conservative politicians, the religious evangelicals, and the corporate giants that depend upon fossil fuels for their existence. We can talk all we like about reducing greenhouse gasses, CO2, and other environmental pollutants, but when actual oil companies get behind the emotive language of faith and belief in order to ensure they continue to sell the oil they have to the very last drop, I see a big problem indeed. These are not your average Americans looking to hold onto their values, this is a very well organised group of people who wish to keep their first-class American lifestyles intact, no matter what the scientists say, and they’re doing everything in their power to do just that. The only way to defeat this movement is to bring as much attention to it as possible and show it for the evil that it is.