The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice-president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), is pushing to persuade evangelical Christians to care about global warming.

|PIC1|But while most U.S. evangelical Christians tend to vote Republican, the environmental cause is more associated with the Democratic Party, Cizik said in a Reuters interview.

Cizik notes that since the 60 million or so American evangelicals tend to be more concerned with such social issues as abortion and the war in Iraq, getting them into tackling global climate change or other environmental problems is not an easy task.

"There are people who disagree with what I'm doing ... within the evangelical community of America," he said.

"Simply for standing up and saying, 'Climate change is real, the science is solid, we have to care about this issue because of the impact on the poor' -why would that be controversial? Well, I'm sorry to say, it is controversial and there are people who want to take my head off."

Cizik is part of an overall ecological push by evangelical Christians known as "creation care," the notion that the environment is a divine creation and must be protected by humans.

This movement included a highly successful pitch to evangelicals to use more fuel-efficient vehicles, dubbed "What Would Jesus Drive?" The title was inspired by the popular bromide, favoured by Christians including President George W. Bush - "What Would Jesus Do?"

Cizik said, "The Bible is authoritative in our lives, in our personal actions ... that's not to say that the Bible dictates one bill or another - of course it doesn't. But it dictates stewardship of our natural resources."

Those who fail to care for the environment will face a divine reckoning, he said.

"Never mind what the voters say or do, there will be a judgment by God himself on these matters and it's a very serious consideration ... for this president, any senator, any House member, if you think about these issues in terms of what the Bible says."

When confronted with projections that half of all species may be extinct by the end of this century, Cizik sees a "biblical concern."

"God made 'em," he said of endangered species. "And He says we are to exercise a stewardship responsibility of this earth ... We're tenant-landlords and we will have to return it at some point, at the end of time, to God who made it. And are we going to return it in the condition it was made?"