Calvin B. DeWitt, co-founder of the Evangelical Environmental
Network (EEN), is a professor of environmental studies at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. DeWitt is also the Director of
the Au Sable Institute for Environmental Studies, a Christian
environmental stewardship institute in Michigan. The Institute's
mission is to "bring healing and wholeness to the biosphere
and the whole of Creation." Rounding out DeWitt's credentials
is his role as president of the Christian Environmental Council.
DeWitt helped found the EEN in 1993. The EEN claims to be a coalition
of mainstream evangelical leaders concerned about the environment.
Closer examination of the EEN's connections reveal there is nothing
mainstream about it: When the EEN launched a multi-million dollar
public relations campaign in January 1996 to convince the American
people that the Endangered Species Act is the "Noah's Ark
of our day," it was the Washington, D.C.- based Fenton Communications
that ran the group's media relations. Fenton Communications has
long been a favorite of the far left: During the 1980's, for example,
Fenton Communications had contracts with the Christic Institute
and the communist governments of Angola and Nicaragua. It was
Fenton that managed to talk CBS's "60 Minutes" into
reporting as fact an unproven claim by the Natural Resources Defense
Council that alar, a chemical used to ripen apples, was a serious
cancer risk to children. Horrified parents across the nation quit
purchasing apples as a result of the report.
But Fenton Communications isn't the EEN's only questionable association.
The EEN's cost of ad production in defense of the Endangered Species
Act was underwritten by the Environmental Information Center (EIC),
which is a virtual "Who's Who" of liberal Democratic
Party politics: Philip E. Clapp, the EIC's executive director,
served as a member of the national steering committee of Environmentalists
for Clinton-Gore; Mike Casey, the group's media relations director,
came directly to the EIC from the Democrat Congressional Campaign
Committee; and staffer Arlie Schardt served as press secretary
for Albert Gore's unsuccessful presidential bid. Board Members
of the EIC include Francis C. Beineke of the Natural Resources
Defense Council and Douglas Foy of the Conservation Law Foundation.
The EEN operates on a $200,000 annual budget out of the Philadelphia
offices of Evangelicals for Social Action, another notoriously
liberal "evangelical" counter group. One of EEN's key
leaders is Ron Sider, who is president and founder of Evangelicals
for Social Action. Sider is also one of the leaders of "Call
to Renewal," a religious coalition established to counter
the Christian Coalition. Sider was also an outspoken critic of
the GOP's "Contract with America," telling Christianity
Today that the GOP plans to "slash $380 billion from
programs for the poor" while giving "$245 billion in
tax cuts to the rich and middle class" -- a statement virtually
indistinguishable from the White House line.
While Calvin DeWitt is a professor of environmental studies, he
has few credentials as a biblical scholar. Yet DeWitt, it seems,
has exploited the Scripture for political purposes. He has done
so by quoting verses of Scripture out of their full context in
order to promote his own political agenda. He has, for example,
asserted that the Bible lays out a series of "stewardship
principles." These principles, according to DeWitt, are the
earthkeeping principle, the fruitfulness principle, and the Sabbath
principle. DeWitt suggests that "stewardship of creation
is the care and keeping of the life-sustaining integral system
of which people are but a part, which, when fully practiced by
all, becomes a way of life, and thus no longer has to bear the
label 'stewardship.'"
Take Genesis 1:22 for example: "And God blessed them(the
fish and birds), saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the
waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.'"
DeWitt claims this verse means that God gives the first and primary
blessing to be fruitful and to multiply to the fish and birds.
Building on this, DeWitt posits that since all of the fruitfulness
and multiplication blessings are given to all other creatures
before humans, then humans are to defer to all creatures. His
rationale is that since these are the first blessings given, the
creatures come before the humans. But Genesis 2:18-19 contradicts
his interpretation of Genesis 1:22: "Then the Lord God said,
'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him
a helper fit for him.' So out of the ground the Lord God formed
every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought
them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever man
called every living creature, that was its name." In
addition, Genesis 1:28 explains that God created humans in His
image, and gave humans the intellectual and physical capability
to "subdue the earth and to have dominion over every living
creature that moves upon the earth." Clearly, this particular
book (Genesis 1) of the Scripture implies that God gave humans
power over the earth and all its creatures.
Another example of DeWitt's intellectual dishonesty is his use
of Genesis 2:15: "The Lord God took the man and put him in
the Garden of Eden to till and to keep it." DeWitt's interpretation
of this verse of Scripture is that God expected Adam to "serve"
the garden. However, it seems that DeWitt's interpretation of
Genesis 2:15 directly contradicts Matthew 4:10: "Then Jesus
said to him, 'Be gone, Satan! for it is written, You shall worship
the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.'"
In Christian Environmental Stewardship: Preparing a Way for
Action, a paper written by Dr. DeWitt, DeWitt states that
"biblical teachings reinforce our responsibility for the
care and keeping of Creation: they give the grave warning that
those who destroy the Earth themselves will be destroyed (Revelation
11:18)." In this case, DeWitt does not even take one whole
verse out of context. Rather, he has the audacity to take one
phrase out of one verse out of context. Revelation 11:18, in its
entirety states: "The nations raged, but thy wrath came,
and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants,
the prophets and saints, and those who fear thy name, both small
and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth."
The "destroyers" clause is hardly what DeWitt claims:
A reinforcement of humans' responsibility to care for and keep
God's creation. Rather, it seems as though God is explaining that
those who have chosen not to serve the Lord will be punished.
For it is those who have chosen to live their life independent
of God who are the true "destroyers of the earth."
Selected DeWitt Quotes
"The first blessing of fruitfulness is in Genesis 1:22. It
is the blessing and mandate to the fish and birds to be fruitful
and multiply and fill the sky and seas. Why is that said first?
It is said first so we don't forget them. The blessing comes to
all other creatures first."
- Dr. Calvin B. DeWitt in his presentation to the 10th Joint
Faith Meeting on the Environment, January 28, 1997
"Deluges -- in Noah's time of water, and in our time of floods
of people -- sprawl over the land, displacing God's creatures,
limiting their potential to obey God's command, 'be fruitful and
increase in number.'"
- Dr. Calvin B. DeWitt, Christian Environmental Stewardship:
Preparing the Way for Action
"Without exception, these degradations have one causative
agent in common. They are not due to deficiencies in the way the
natural world works; neither are they by-products of otherwise
beneficial natural processes. The common elements in these degradations
is that all derive from the same causative agent. The human species
is responsible for them all."
- Dr. Calvin B. DeWitt, Theology, Science, and Creation: Extending
the Horizon of Science and the Christian Faith
(Apparently, Dr. DeWitt is not as well versed in the rudimentary
aspects of environmental science as he should be. For example,
volcanoes do emit sulfur dioxide and particulate matter into the
atmosphere, just as trees emit hydrocarbons.)
"Ours is not first of all to worry about those among our
very numbers with New Age tendencies but to bring the gospel to
those who are seeking, so that what they seek need no longer be
invented for how can they hear without someone to preach to them?
(Romans 10:14)"
-Dr. Calvin B. DeWitt, Christian Environmental Stewardship:
Preparing the Way for Action
(Romans 10:14 implores followers of the Lord to spread the gospel
of Jesus Christ to all people.)
"But we are finding-- to our embarrassment-- that much of
our makings cannot be sustained, that our creations have been
bought at the expense of Creation, through degrading, expending,
destroying the larger Creation which sustains us."
-Dr. Calvin B. DeWitt, The Importance for Life and Vocation
of Being at Au Sable Institute
Version Date: February 1997
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