Griper Blade: On a Mission from God

You know Eliot Spitzer's hooker problem? Turns out that's not the only thing that's happened in this young week. While Spitzer's reputation as a law and order straight arrow makes his story a "man bites dog" one, there's been an almost as surprising turn around elsewhere. The gay-hating, abortion-fighting, evolution-denying Southern Baptist Convention has decided not to be crazy about an issue. It's not really a fundamental shift -- it's been coming for some time -- but good news out of these guys is so rare that it pays to stop and pay attention to it.

Associated Press:

In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination has been "too timid" on environmental issues and has a biblical duty to stop global warming.

The declaration, signed by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention among others and released Monday, shows a growing urgency about climate change even within groups that once dismissed claims of an overheating planet as a liberal ruse. The conservative denomination has 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the U.S.

The signers of "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" acknowledged that not all Christians accept the science behind global warming. They said they do not expect fellow believers to back any proposed solutions that would violate Scripture, such as advocating population control through abortion.

However, the leaders said that current evidence of global warming is "substantial," and that the threat is too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend.

Real science wins out in the SBC -- wow...

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