You might not know it, but each week at the White House, some members of the Trump Cabinet sit down for a chat about the Bible - and Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), thinks it's "such a wonderful thing."
This week's Trump Cabinet Bible study was all about the "false religion of Radical Environmentalism."
Referencing the book of Genesis, the leader of the group, Ralph Drollinger, argued it was unbiblical to believe that man can change the environment.
"To think that man can alter the Earth's ecosystem—when God remains omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent in the current affairs of mankind—is to more than subtly espouse an ultra-hubristic, secular worldview relative to the supremacy and importance of man," Drollinger wrote.
According to Drollinger, who is a professional basketball player turned clergyman, we can all rest assured that God will "sustain our world's ecosystem." Never mind the fact that last year over 15,000 scientists issued a second warning to humanity about the state of our planet.
The Bible study also offered some advice for those in charge of environmental policy, like Pruitt and Interior Department Head Ryan Zinke.
"The biblically informed public servant must therefore order his thinking in light of God's revealed hierarchy in creation," Drollinger argued, before listing said hierarchy.
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"To allow fish to govern the construction of dams, endangered species to govern power plants, flies to govern hospitals, or kangaroo rats, homes, is to miss the clear proclamation of God in Genesis," he continued.
But to disobey the clear proclamation of God, Drollinger argues, is to commit sin.
For instance, Drollinger explains, environmentalists are living in sin because they "tend to have had only one child, if that, in the last two decades."
"Accordingly: what radical environmentalists have committed is akin to ethnic suicide - let's call it ideological suicide," Drollinger wrote.
"Hopefully the religion of Radical Environmentalism will soon be relegated to fringe minority status in American society. Amen."
While the specific members of Trump's cabinet that were in attendance remains unconfirmed, the Bible study is also distributed in print to public officials, including the President himself.
Drollinger has even said that the President has sent him positive hand-written notes about the studies. And it's no secret that Pruitt is a huge fan of the Bible studies.
"To spend time with a friend, a colleague, a person who has a faith focus on how we do our job, whether it's through prayer or God's word and to encourage one another in that regard is so, so important, and we have that in our Cabinet," Pruitt told the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).
Drollinger's teachings certainly fit nicely with Pruitt's willingness to create EPA policies based on faith and not science.
Last year, Pruitt cited the Bible when he stopped allowing scientists that had received EPA grants from serving on the agency's advisory committees – though he had no problems with industry experts remaining on these boards.
"Joshua says to the people of Israel: choose this day whom you are going to serve," Pruitt said, according to BuzzFeed News.
"This is sort of like the Joshua principle — that as it relates to grants from this agency, you are going to have to choose either service on the committee to provide counsel to us in an independent fashion or chose the grant. But you can't do both."
In February, Pruitt defended his policies for oil and gas drilling by arguing that such practices were grounded in the Bible.
"The biblical world view with respect to these issues is that we have a responsibility to manage and cultivate, harvest the natural resources that we've been blessed with to truly bless our fellow mankind," he told CBN.
If nothing else, the recent White House Bible study makes it clear exactly where the Trump administration stands on environmental issues.
In 2015, Pruitt boiled his religion down to a comforting thought: "A Christian worldview means that God has answers to our problems."
Amid a series of scandals that threaten his job at the EPA, Pruitt needs all the help he can get.
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