If you are a religious and political conservative, be careful to bridle your tongue or you might end up writing a massive tirade attributing an extreme environmentalist, anti-family message to a movie that was actually written to promote a Christian theme.  Sadly, if the only tool you possess is the hammer of conservatism, everything that bothers you will take the shape of the nail of liberalism, and you might, as seen in the M* post referenced above, end up doing damage to the Church by publicly projecting evil intentions onto the work of good people of other faiths.

Regarding the substance of that bizarre Wall-E screed, I fully acknowledge that there are people in the environmental movement who take their position to some awful and unfortunate places.  Conversely, there are a lot of political conservatives who treat Adam Smith’s invisible hand as a god superior to the God we worship, who insists that our stewardship of the earth and our care for the poor are more important that our own convenience and comfort.

As I have said before, if I treat environmentalism as a part of my faith, it may be because there are members and leaders of the Church who I admire, who do so as well.

Ezra Taft Benson:

A common problem is a concern for our environment. It is not likely that someone who does not love his neighbor will be concerned with his adverse impact on the environment. To love one’s neighbor is a spiritual law. Just as physical laws are interrelated, so are spiritual laws. One dimension of spiritual law is that a man’s self-regard and his esteem for his fellowmen are intertwined.

If there is disregard for oneself, there will be disregard for one’s neighbor. If there is no reverence for life itself, there is apt to be little reverence for the resources God has given man. The outwardexpressions of irreverence for life and for fellowmen often take the form of heedless pollution of both air and water. But are these not expressions of the inner man?

(Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 643.)

Whatever mortal reasons there are to be concerned about environment, there are eternal reasons, too, for us to be thoughtful stewards. President Brigham Young said: “Not one particle of all that comprises this vast creation of God is our own. Everything we have has been bestowed upon us for our action, to see what we would do with it-whether we would use it for eternal life and exaltation, or for eternal death and degradation.”

…We are concerned about scarred landscapes that cause floods and leave an economic emptiness that haunts the coming generations. Similarly, unchastity leaves terrible scars, brings floods of tears and anguish, and leaves a moral emptiness. Significantly, both imprudent strip mining and unchastity rest on a life-style that partakes of an “eat, drink, and be merry” philosophy-gouge and grab now without regard to the consequences. Both negligent strip mining and unchastity violate the spirit of stewardship over our planet and person.

(This Nation Shall Endure, 72 – 73)

Hugh Nibley:

[Satan] has us all believing that if we stop working for him we will starve, that if we do not play his game we must become the victim; “he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey” (Isaiah 59:15). The treasures of the earth-the precious metals, oil, coal, uranium, and so on-have indeed enabled the prophesied “secret combinations for power and gain” to buy up kings and presidents, armies and navies, popes and priests (the military-industrial-ecclesiastical complex, if you will) as a rule of blood and horror even now spreads over the entire earth.

(Approaching Zion, 285)

That Nibley quote reminds me of political conservatives’ insane argument about the environment, that if we take measures to ensure more clean forms of power generation, it will somehow ruin our economy.  Thankfully, the First Presidency of the Church feels that government policy should reflect care for the environment, period.

Returning to liberal and conservative approaches to faith, I feel confident asserting that more people have stayed in the Church thanks to the influence of religious liberals than the infuence of religious conservatives, and many more people have left the Church — or refused to investigate in the first place — over the words and actions of religious conservatives, such as lay members who feel a misguided need to “steady the ark” by policing the orthodoxy of other members.