Climate change legislation has officially arrived as the next battleground in national politics. A major domestic policy agenda for the Democrats, this legislation already echoes the healthcare scenario, replete with hyperbolic punditry and vapid, inflammatory political discourse. 

In a clear indicator of the direction of the debate, Senate Republicans displayed their position by simply not showing up for a committee vote on the bill.  And, like the healthcare fracas, centrist Democrats are joining the fray in their attempt to make the bill more palatable for U.S. industry in the name of fiscal concern.

But with this obstructionist stance, the GOP risks alienating a once reliable partner in its increasingly fragile alliance with Evangelical Christians.

The political strategy in opposing climate change legislation mirrors most of the tactics in response to healthcare. Conservatives are warning of excessive taxation and blatantly denying the severity of the crisis. They are, arguably, picking up momentum with the ubiquitous "cap and tax" meme and an increasing skepticism about the reality of global warming.

Conservative Christians proudly took credit for the gubernatorial victory in Virginia, demonstrating that the Religious Right still has its hand in national politics. Yet, with a few notable exceptions (i.e. The Family Research Council), prominent Evangelicals were relatively absent from the healthcare debate.

Several Christian leaders, however, have taken a signficant stake on climate change issues, building formidable, diverse coalitions around the theological principles of stewardship and "creation care."

In 2006, 86 Evangelical leaders signed onto an initiative to fight global warming, citing its disproportionate impact on the world's poor. While some leaders in the Religious Right stay on message with their political counterparts, a splinter has emerged mostly along a generational divide. Aging giants of the movement, James Dobson and Charles Colson, signed onto a counter letter that proclaimed, "Global warming is not a consensus issue."

Younger Evangelicals, like Rick Warren and Ralph Reed, have stood on the opposite side. Leaders like Warren, who is steadily becoming the new face of Evangelical America, are arguable more influential than their predecessors. Reed's infamous Coalition recently became a strange bedfellow with environmental groups when it urged the Senate to enact legislation that curbs greenhouse gases and invests in renewable energy.

Yesterday's arrival of the Greek Orthodox "Green Patriarch" at the White House is an indicator of a growing international, interfaith consensus that views action on climate change as an imperative. Al Gore recently identified the "moral duty" of his environmental pursuit, a savvy acknowledgment of the strength of religious tides behind his movement.  

Stuart Scott, an author of the Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change, told the French press that, "Global warming and its impacts cannot be looked at just as a material problem. The root causes are spiritual." This remark is an interesting twist on the conservative talking point that climate change is not man-made and, thus, negligible. As the number of Evangelicals framing climate change as a moral issue increase, the vitriol from Sen. Inhofe, George Will, and Sarah Palin will settle further out on the fringe.

It is important to watch if and how Evangelical leaders support variants in the potential legislation that Congressional moderates are pushing, such as nuclear energy and clean coal. But most signs indicate that the right-wing can no longer assume the support of its religious arm. Hopefully, this demonstrates that Christian movements in the U.S. can tear themselves apart from an instep alliance with a political agenda.