Rev. Richard Cizik is Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals in the United States. His primary responsibilities include setting the NAE’s policy direction on issues before Congress, the White House, and Supreme Court, as well as serving as a national spokesman on issues of concern to evangelicals.

Richard Cizik has earned a reputation as an evangelical diplomat and peacemaker. He has been involved in international causes for the NAE since 1980, and is regularly called upon as an expert witness on creation care, human rights and religious freedom before professional groups, the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad, and in meetings with officials of the National Security Council in the White House, the State Department and Congress.

Since 2002, when Rev. Cizik was first “converted” to the cause of climate change, he has been an advocate for action on climate change within the US evangelical community and beyond. He was a participant in Climate Forum 2002, at Oxford, England, which produced the “Oxford Declaration” on global warming, and was instrumental in creation of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, introduced in 2006.

In 2005 the New York Times dubbed him the “Earthy Evangelist” for his advocacy on climate change, and in 2008 he was named to TIME magazine’s list of “TIME 100” most influential people.