Evangelicals Broaden Their Moral Agenda

To some evangelicals, however, the new issues are less clear than the old ones, which have led evangelicals to vote overwhelmingly Republican in recent elections.

"I definitely don't like the widening of the agenda, because it muddies the water," said the Rev. Michael Haseltine, pastor of the 2,000-member Maranatha Assembly of God Church in Forest Lake, Minn.

"Be good stewards of the environment? Sure, but how? These tree-huggers and anti-hunters think it's terrible to kill animals. Oppose poverty? Sure, but what's the best way to do it? We can't solve everybody's problems for them," he said. "Family and life issues -- abortion, sexuality -- they're much more clear from the biblical standpoint."

The global-warming radio ads are tied to a documentary film, "The Great Warming," that has been shown in hundreds of churches. "Environmental degradation is an offense against God," the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, says in the film.

Cizik has come under fire for his stand from some conservatives, including James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who contend that it is uncertain whether global warming is a man-made phenomenon and what to do about it. But the Rev. Pat Robertson, who a year ago criticized the NAE for teaming up with "far-left environmentalists," has changed his mind. "It is getting hotter, and the ice caps are melting, and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air," he said in August.

The Darfur appeal was backed by full-page ads in yesterday's Washington Post and other newspapers, paid for by $575,000 in donations from two individuals who wish to remain anonymous, according to Jack Pannell, spokesman for the liberal evangelical magazine Sojourners. "Without you, Mr. President, Darfur does not have a prayer," said the ads, addressing Bush.

"This is an important day. You see evangelical leaders from across the political spectrum coming together to speak as one voice," Jim Wallis, Sojourners' editor, told reporters.

Conservative signers of the appeal made it clear that they did not intend it to be critical of the White House's efforts to end the crisis. "The president really has been doing more than anybody else, but the president cannot do it alone, and America cannot do it alone," said Land, who heads the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.