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\nIn recent years, he has become a leading evangelical proponent in the fight against global warming and helped guide the writing of the NAE\u2019s 2004 document, \u201cFor the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility\u201d<\/a> and the 2007 \u201cEvangelical Declaration against Torture.\u201d<\/a> TIME magazine recently named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and he was a nominee for Beliefnet\u2019s Most Inspiring Person of the Year award in 2006.<\/p>\n
CNS:<\/strong> The NAE has worked with people such as Gloria Steinem on human trafficking issues, organizations in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community on the President\u2019s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Tibetan Buddhists on religious freedom, and the Congressional Black Caucus on Sudan. Why is the NAE working with groups in collaborations that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago?<\/p>\n CIZIK:<\/strong> The current manifestation, of course, is the conversation with scientists over issues relative to creation, the environment, climate change, species extinction, and habitat destruction as well as the impacts on human health, including the unborn, from neurotoxins such as mercury.<\/p>\n This may be a harder sell, frankly, than all the others. There are all these stereotypes. But nonetheless, evangelicals have come to understand that they will have to bridge outward and take the gospel to sectors of society that heretofore haven\u2019t been willing to hear us. And what better way to get them to hear us and hear about salvation through Jesus Christ than if we collaborate with them on issues where we have common ground?<\/p>\n There is a major shift that is occurring or already has occurred since about 1995 and continues today. It\u2019s a shift in methodology. The change is described by a broader vision, a common ground strategy with those who are our erstwhile opponents on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n Lastly, we are using tactics that represent a transformational politics rather than a transactional politics. Transformational politics uplifts, encourages, challenges and inspires – by its nature – because it acknowledges that both the leader and the led are together changing. It\u2019s not a mentality that I will ask for your dollars to lobby on issues for you in a kind of quid pro quo transactional exchange of goods and services.<\/p>\n The Religious Right all too often employs a transactional model: \u201cYou give me money, and I\u2019ll lobby for you in Washington.\u201d Jerry Falwell\u2019s Moral Majority was the epitome of transactional politics. \u201cSend me your dollars and I\u2019ll plant the Christian flag on the other side of the Potomac and I\u2019ll bring Christ to the public sector.\u201d It didn\u2019t work very well, most people will admit, and neither did the Christian Coalition.<\/p>\n Transformational politics relies on citizen lobbyists. Big difference. In the long run it\u2019s much more effective and influential. Transformational leadership, which is occurring these days, is acknowledging that we are all in this together and we will have to grow. Leadership is moving people from where they are at present to where they ought to be. Frankly the NAE, through its board and its churches, has shown incredible leadership in reaching out across traditional lines to accomplish effective change.<\/p>\n CNS:<\/strong> Why are the people who oppose the NAE\u2019s stand against torture largely the same people who oppose your stand on creation care?<\/p>\n CIZIK:<\/strong> I have been thinking about that, myself. It may be another instance in which people put their political ideology even before their theology and say the end justifies the means. And frankly, I don\u2019t think the ends justify the means.<\/p>\n By any complicity whatsoever with torture, we sully the name of Christ and the gospel. I was in a Middle East country where it was brought to my attention by the following conversation:<\/p>\n \u201cDid you know that secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently visited here?\u201d<\/p>\n I said \u201cNo. What for?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo secure a site for the purpose of ER (extraordinary rendition).\u201d<\/p>\n I said it wouldn\u2019t surprise me. I asked what happened.<\/p>\n He said the government denied that it had allowed this, but the people all know it was true.<\/p>\n I asked, \u201cWhat is the consequence of this?\u201d<\/p>\n Answer: \u201cYou say you belong to a Christian nation and you\u2019re bringing detainees to our country to torture \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 them because you can\u2019t do this on your own property. This makes your gospel seem like a gospel of \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 violence and death and torture. And you say you\u2019re a Christian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n All we have to do is follow the Army Field Manual.<\/p>\n CNS:<\/strong> Speaking of President Bush, you said back in 2003 and 2004, you said you wouldn\u2019t want any other person being the leader at that time with regards to going to war in Iraq.<\/p>\n CIZIK:<\/strong> At the time, I said descriptively, not prescriptively, that I thought most evangelicals trusted the president\u2019s perception of the threat. I have said subsequently that I was wrong to have trusted the president\u2019s perception, because we have seen that there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and we know as well that pressure was put on the defense and CIA analysts to say we knew Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n So I say one has to really be careful about trusting your own government when it says we\u2019re gong to go to war because of this, that or the other. We as citizens \u2013 as our own documents Health for the Nation\u201d says \u2013 that we should readily urge our government to extensively pursue peaceful solutions before resorting to military force and that military force must be guided by the classic just war principles.<\/p>\n CNS:<\/strong> Is it fair to say that at the time, you thought there was a lot of congruity between George Bush and what evangelicals believe?<\/p>\n CIZIK:<\/strong> Yes. That is what I was saying at the time.<\/p>\n CNS:<\/strong> Would you say that today? I\u2019ve said elsewhere I think it\u2019s fair to say that George Bush is a born-again Methodist. Secondly, I\u2019m not sure the president\u2019s leadership style is in congruity with what we as evangelicals normally espouse. The president – rightly or wrongly – is perceived by Americans as being stubborn to the point of being truculent, resistant to the customary dialogue that evangelicals usually give to issues of public importance, dismissive of debate, and even arrogant in the manner in which he dismisses those who disagree with him.<\/p>\n It saddens me because that is not what we expected. We expected a man who would live up to his promise of compassionate conservatism and a humble foreign policy. I don\u2019t think we have either.<\/p>\n Let me add, though, that I am a strong supporter of the president\u2019s faith-based initiative because it levels the playing field for service providers who have a faith commitment. I think that is an important accomplishment.<\/p>\n I think the president deserves strong support for his PEPFAR (President\u2019s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief). It may be that we misperceive this president, but for all the good he has done, there are some obvious weaknesses.<\/p>\n The dissatisfaction on my own part comes because I\u2019m a conservative and not because I\u2019m a liberal. I\u2019m a conservative! I\u2019m appalled by the doubling of our national debt in eight years. I believe in a strong foreign policy in defense of democracy, human rights, and religious freedom, but I don\u2019t think you can espouse the practice of torture and extraordinary rendition and at the same time say you stand for human rights. You can\u2019t do that. A strong national defense means you don\u2019t overburden the military and ask it to do that which it can\u2019t do. I say this as a conservative, so this is not coming from someone who is a liberal.<\/p>\n CNS:<\/strong> It sounds like your views are drawing closer to evangelicals such as Jim Wallis?<\/p>\n CIZIK:<\/strong> I still think there are some real substantive differences. For one, I voted for Ronald Reagan twice and George Bush twice. I don\u2019t think Jim can say that. If I\u2019ve changed, so has the Republican Party. But there are those on the Religious Right who haven\u2019t changed with it. That\u2019s why they\u2019re disgruntled with the current Republican standard-bearer.<\/p>\n By the way, one of the criticisms of me back in 2006 and 2007 – by those who wanted to dislodge me from the NAE – was that \u201cRichard is a McCain Republican.\u201d This was their diatribe internally, as if to say we can\u2019t trust him because he happens to like John McCain. Now it turns out they are on the outside of the mainstream, and I\u2019m in the mainstream of the Republican Party. And so what was heresy to them is now mainstream.<\/p>\n CNS:<\/strong> How do you feel about Jim\u2019s statements that he\u2019s not a Democrat or Republican?<\/p>\n CIZIK:<\/strong> He sounds like a Democrat, God bless him. Jim\u2019s my friend. I like him. But let\u2019s face it – you don\u2019t give the Democratic response to the Republican president and not confuse people as to whether you\u2019re a Democrat or confuse people as to whether you are non-partisan. You can\u2019t be non-partisan and do that.<\/p>\n Jim is a prophet in good standing, as far as I\u2019m concerned, as an evangelical, and I\u2019ve never questioned those credentials. But he\u2019s not going to move the Republican Party really. I can because it\u2019s always easier to change a party from within. I\u2019ve already shown that through our legislative accomplishments – we have strengthened our country.<\/p>\n By the way, statistics showed in a Pew Forum study that evangelicals – by 47 to 38 percent – want their American government to do not that which is only in its own interest, but also in the interest of its allies. Sixty percent of us believe that America has a calling to do good in the world. I share that. Not in an American exceptionalism that says we\u2019re better than everyone else. It\u2019s because much has been given to us and much is expected.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s note: to read the first installment, please see Cizik Speaks Out on Global Warming, Criticism<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Cizik\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/BG\/pA\/BGpARnZJrm6yBrf2ZVWSeg\/Cizik.jpg\")
In an interview published yesterday<\/a>, Cizik addressed issues of creation care. Today, he discusses with Covenant News Service (CNS) topics that include the NAE\u2019s new approach to political engagement with unlikely partners, its document opposing torture and extraordinary rendition (the practice of transporting prisoners to another country where torture might be used during questioning), George Bush\u2019s relationship with evangelicals, Jim Wallis, and the Republican Party.<\/p>\n
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\nCIZIK:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019m not sure that I would. I am among those millions of evangelicals that are disaffected with the White House. I\u2019m among those evangelicals who see less congruity between the president and his policies and our own beliefs. There was a time when 79 percent of the evangelicals supported him and that has dropped below 30 percent.<\/p>\n
\nI think it\u2019s fair to say that. The reason I say that is the first criterion for evangelical faith, it seems to me in practice, is regular attendance at an evangelical church. That is not what we have here. He\u2019s chosen to worship at St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church. That is not an evangelical church. There are evangelical Episcopal churches in the Washington suburbs.<\/p>\n