Professor sees "guilt by association" as root problem

WAKE FOREST, N.C. — John Hammett believes one of many problems with Jonathan Merritt’s statement on the environment is the classic “guilt by association” factor.

John Hammett

“It seems that if somebody on the Left is for something, then we must be against it,” he said. Hammett is the systematic theology professor whose comments on the environment motivated Merritt to draft the document.

“Some individuals on the left of the discussion do tend to almost worship the environment in their zeal to protect it, and that can be off-putting. On the other hand, we don’t worship the creation but worship the creator and have a biblical mandate to protect His creation.

“That results in a considerable crises of conscience for some people and that’s very understanding. To a degree we both want to protect the environment but for vastly different reasons, but that’s OK if the end result is the same.

“It’s what Francis Schaeffer called ‘co-belligerence’ – those on the other side are against the same thing we are against (environmental destruction) but we are on the same side of the end result (environmental protection),” he said.

“The deep problem we are struggling with is that we can’t seem to separate the basic issue from those who claimed the high ground early in the debate. What I said in the class is that we have a biblical responsibility to work for environmental preservation and that we, of all people, should be on the frontline of the debate.”

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