![\"Palmberg](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/tQ\/9D\/tQ9DhoRmGLPcqJOyooJhow\/NAE.jpg\")
Cizik spoke during a chapel service and later met with students for further discussion. The accompanying photo shows Cizik (right) with Evangelical Covenant Church President Glenn Palmberg.<\/p>\nCHICAGO, IL (April 10, 2008) \u2013 Today\u2019s young people must become \u201cthe greenest generation\u201d if the world is to stave off ecological disaster, students at North Park University were told Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy generation has, in effect, been the greediest generation, I\u2019m sorry to say, and yours needs to become the greenest,\u201d said Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).<\/p>\n
Cizik spoke during a chapel service and later met with students for further discussion. The accompanying photo shows Cizik (right) with Evangelical Covenant Church President Glenn Palmberg.<\/p>\n
He has been a leader in moving evangelicals to promote \u201ccreation care,\u201d a phrase he has popularized. The upcoming May issue of TIME Magazine names him as one of the 100 most influential people in America.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest challenge you will face is living out your lives in the \u2018Great Warming,\u2019 \u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He warned them that the threat is real, recalling his visit with other evangelicals and scientists to the Alaskan fishing village of Shishmaref, a small island located above the Arctic Circle. The village is gradually being swallowed by water levels that are rising due to global warming. On the last day of the trip, the group watched one house fall into the water.<\/p>\n
Cizik says \u201ccreation care\u201d connects Christians to the biblical mandate in Genesis 2:15: \u201cThe LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.\u201d (TNIV) \u201cWe were given a mandate,\u201d he believes.<\/p>\n
Despite that mandate, Cizik said, \u201cWe\u2019ve acted like we can have dominion over (the earth) and can do anything we want with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cizik told the students that when they get to heaven, God will not ask them what they believe about how the earth was created, but what did they did with it. If Christians do not work to save the environment, he added, \u201cthen we will experience God\u2019s judgment, I assure you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christians will need to live with a new perspective if they are to stop the destruction of the environment, declared Cizik. \u201cThe vision you have to have is stewardship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cizik, warned, however, that, \u201cA vision without a strategy is a hallucination.\u201d That strategy also will require \u201ca whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of living.\u201d<\/p>\n
The paradigm shift would mean turning from a way of life he described as \u201ctake, make and waste\u201d and turning to \u201cborrow, use and return.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make things and then we wasted them,\u201d Cizik said. \u201cWe have to live by a different ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tactically, Cizik said, Christians must hold their political leaders accountable for change because there are too many powerful interests that will try to stop it. He likened the situation to the power-hungry Darius throwing Daniel into the lion\u2019s den for not honoring the king as god. \u201cThere are a lot of Dariuses in Washington trying to build empires,\u201d Cizik said.<\/p>\n
Cizik is trying to bridge the worlds of scientists and evangelicals, who often have distrusted and even sneered at each other. A lot of progress has been made, he said.<\/p>\n
Cizik told the students that James Gustave Speth, dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences at Yale, said scientists know they cannot change the hearts of people, but that Christians can. \u201cAt this time in history, the rest of the world is looking to ways faith can save us,\u201d Cizik added.<\/p>\n
Not all evangelicals agree with him. Some such as James Dobson called on the NAE to fire him last year, saying Cizik was anti-capitalist, un-American and leading evangelicals astray from being concerned about issues such as abortion and gay marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of that is true,\u201d Cizik later told students, noting that he still holds his position and has received support from the board.<\/p>\n