How do you think Southern Baptists in general will respond to E.O.Wilsons proposals?
It’s always dangerous to try to predict how Southern Baptists in general are going to respond to anything. Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the country, and there’s a significant amount of diversity among us. I mean, after all, I’ve voted against [three] Southern Baptists in my lifetime who were running for president — Jimmy Carter twice, Bill Clinton twice, and Al Gore. So they were Southern Baptists with whom I have some diversity. But I find that Southern Baptists are very responsive to the issue if it’s framed in a way that they don’t turn it off. For instance, I talk about creation care. I talk about our biblical mandate to be good stewards of God’s creation. I assiduously avoid the phrase “global warming,” because I find that if I want Southern Baptists and Southern Baptist audiences to listen to me, that’s a phrase I should avoid, because when I use it they either turn me off or they begin to look at everything else I say with a jaundiced eye. They u
