"The Great Moral Issues of our Time"

I'm almost out of exile. What I mean is that I almost have a valid passport which will allow me to leave (and return to) Egypt. Last weekend when we travelled to Sinai and the Red Sea, I was American for the weekend, and used my roommate's passport to get through the Egyptian desert checkpoints. This morning I waited for an hour in a huge Soviet-style government building that is the epitome of Egyptian bureaucracy until they finally found my passports (old and new) among the piles of papers and other passports. Then I walked it over to Window #12, where my favourite lady works (we've become friends between my passports and the 50 American passports I've brought to her over the last year) and now I just have to go back tomorrow and, insha'allah (God willing) the passport saga will finally be finished. Well, that is until they give me trouble at the borders of various Middle Eastern countries because my new passport number doesn't fit with the number on a passport list we gave their border security last month. Should be a fun time.

New topic...

The other day, in a letter to the "National Association of Evangelicals", our favourite Dr. Dobson wrote this:

"More importantly, we have observed that Cizik [a fellow member of the NAE who is working on environmental issues] and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."

Apparently, attempting to preserve creation (and preserve millions of lives in the process), is neither a great moral issue, nor does it concern the sanctity of human life... (note the sarcasm)

Jim Wallis wrote what I thought was a good response (I don't always agree with Wallis, but in this case I definitely do):

"That [Dobson's comment on how climate change is not a moral issue] is indeed the key criticism, and the foundation for the real debate. Is the fact that 30,000 children will die globally today, and everyday, from needless hunger and disease a great moral issue for evangelical Christians? How about the reality of 3 billion of God’s children living on less than $2 per day? And isn’t the still-widespread and needless poverty in our own country, the richest nation in the world, a moral scandal? What about pandemics like HIV/AIDS that wipe out whole generations and countries, or the sex trafficking of massive numbers of women and children? Should genocide in Darfur be a moral issue for Christians? And what about disastrous wars like Iraq? And then there is, of course, the issue that got Dobson and his allies so agitated. If the scientific consensus is right - climate change is real, is caused substantially by human activity, and could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths - then isn’t that also a great moral issue? Could global warming actually be alarming evidence of human tinkering with God’s creation?Or, are the only really "great moral issues" those concerning abortion, gay marriage, and the teaching of sexual abstinence? I happen to believe that the sanctity of life, the health of marriages, and teaching sexual morality to our children are, indeed, among the great moral issues of our time. But I believe they are not the only great moral issues, and Dobson says they are."