By Philipp Harper

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So, just what would history's most famous Nazarene drive if he were alive today?

For the sake of argument, it helps to narrow the choice to one of those new hybrid cars versus an old International Harvester school bus of the sort that countless hippies once called home.

The hybrid's obvious appeal is the minimal carbon "footprint" it and its driver would leave on God's creation. The ecological shortcomings of the school bus are just as obvious -- think guzzled gas and a stinking cloud of burned oil.

But what the bus lacks in fuel efficiency it makes up for in passenger capacity, and that's of utmost importance to anyone seeking to convey the greatest number of needy souls to the nearest soup kitchen.

So, again, what would Jesus drive: the hybrid or the bus?

The question is hardly frivolous.

Environmental evangelism emerges

In fact, a few years ago in its broad formulation the question became the centerpiece of a public relations campaign begun by a group of evangelical Christians to raise public awareness of climate change and its moral dimensions. For purposes of the sponsoring coalition, the correct answer was and is any vehicle that by dint of its fuel efficiency contributes as little as possible to pollution-related health problems, global warming and dependence on foreign oil.

Given those criteria, a hybrid of some sort would seem to win the day.

But not so fast. As often happens where religion is concerned, schisms developed.

At this point, a quick note: While adherents of the various world religions have weighed in on global warming -- Protestants and Catholics, members of the Greek Orthodox faith, Jews and Moslems, Buddhists and others -- it's America's Christian evangelicals who seem best able to mine the subject for controversy, political as well as religious and scientific. So far, most of the debate has taken place at the national level.

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