(RNS) Former Vice President Al Gore has been named “Baptist of the Year” by EthicsDaily.com, the Web site of the Baptist Center for Ethics.
“He has pressed for the global good with a compelling message about the danger of climate change and a clear call for moral responsibility, knitting together science and faith, reason and passion,” wrote Robert Parham, the center's executive director, in an announcement of Gore's selection.
“He has refused to be distracted by the character-assassins, the fear-mongers, the science-deniers and the merchants of short-term gain.
“He has remained faithful to his mission of protecting the earth and its inhabitants.”
The Baptist Center for Ethics, based in Nashville, Tenn., was founded in 1991 and is supported by a variety of Baptist groups, including the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
Parham noted that Gore's fellow Baptists have not always supported the vice president's efforts.
“Regrettably no Baptist has received less applause from Baptists than Gore, a shameful but not unexpected reality from a people snarled in religious fear, suspicious of science and stuck in the rut of spiritualized reading of the Bible,” Parham wrote.
The EthicsDaily.com honor comes two months after Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work on global warming.