This past week on the Good Faith podcast, we kicked off a new three part series (that will be spread over a couple of months) on Christians and Climate Change. I wanted to use this newsletter to share with you all my personal path to this series and, of course, to encourage you to tune in to these important conversations.
We first addressed this topic in a conversation with University of Notre Dame professor Bruce Huber. The compelling nature of this episode — I encourage you to check it out — points to the rich dimensions of this topic.
But this episode dropped more than two years ago. I have not revisited it until this series. What’s the reason for this gap?
Well, sadly, the issue of climate change has — like so much in our culture — become politicized and polarized. I’ve been hesitant to step on toes. I confess I haven’t practiced what we’ve preached in The After Party: that Christians can talk to one another across differences, so long as we all approach the conversation in good faith. I hope this series makes amends for my lapse by creating a space for dialogue.
Good faith conversations also work best when parties openly share their starting points. Here’s what you should know about my starting point: I believe in the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and poses a serious threat to the wellbeing of all who inhabit creation. The series reflects my beliefs, but I also intended the episodes to make room at various points for those who might disagree. I invite you to listen to our first episode in the series with leading climate scientist (and devoted follower of Jesus), Katherine Hayhoe, and you can decide whether I’ve succeeded in this delicate balancing act.
I hope that one starting point truth that we all can agree on as followers of Jesus is that we ought to care for God’s creation. God’s commandment to humans to care for the natural world is given at the very beginning of the Bible (Genesis 1:28).
Another starting point that should unite us is the Second Greatest Commandment given by Jesus “to love our neighbor as ourselves” (Mark 12:31). How I apply this commandment to climate change is to recognize the rippling circles of damage involved. Many of us in the advanced Western world are already experiencing the weather “getting weird,” natural disasters getting more extreme, and even our local habitat that we enjoy degrading. But our wealth gives us a variety of ways to mitigate (at least for now) the impact. That’s not the case for our global neighbors. As our series will illustrate, the poor in the less privileged parts of the world (and many of them are actual brothers and sisters in Christ) are already suffering from climate change, and will continue to do so more and more. Our upcoming episodes will explore these various circles of concern.
There is one more reason to step thoughtfully into this topic. I think our personal approaches to climate change can lead to deeper spiritual insight.
How this spiritual growth has happened for me is by exploring another reason I have hesitated to revisit this topic on the podcast (in addition to not wanting to step on toes). I have realized that on climate change, I personally feel a great deal of despair.
I have despaired about how the data shows we are on an accelerating trend towards more environmental harm. The current political landscape points to national inaction at best, and at worst, policies that will further the damage. The Good Faith podcast already covers political issues in our country that strain hope in the short term; to layer on a threat to the entire planet in the long term has felt like straining hope to the breaking point. And I as an individual possess practically zero capacity to determine the ultimate outcome.
I’ve thought more about my despair. The precise nature of one’s despair can vary by personality. I’m a typical Type A person who deeply wants control over my environment. For me, despair is most tempting when I believe I can no longer influence outcomes. When things feel hopeless beyond my control, it can feel too painful to care. I want to pay attention to something else — perhaps something that feels more under my control.
The process of designing a series on climate change has caused me to reflect on the nature of my despair vis a vis the nature of love. The question is this: should we care about what we cannot control? Despair whispers “No.” But Love answers this question quite differently.
Think about parental love. Parental love has a special way of reflecting our Father God’s love, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Eph. 3:16). But this love does not demand control over outcomes. Indeed, as my daughters grow ever further into adulthood, my influence over their life outcomes wanes. Every parent knows the truth of this reality or will eventually discover it. Yet our love for our children and our deep care for their well being abides ever more.
In this kind of love, we parents truly reflect the nature of our Father God. While we (and the creation whose outcome is inextricably tied to us) were headed for a disastrous outcome — “while we were yet sinners” (Rom. 5:8) — our Father God so loved us that he entered this very world in Jesus. By inhabiting this natural world instead of distancing himself from its fallen reality, he demonstrated his love for this world and its inhabitants.
And for each one of us as individuals, this love exercises no decisive control. He lets us choose our outcomes, including ones that are disastrous. The Father God’s love — and our own reflections of His love as parents — declares boldly, “Yes, we do care about what we cannot control!”
As Christians, we actually hold very good reasons to hope for this planet and its people. First and foremost, the widely memorized verse of John 3:16 declares that “God so loved the world that He sent his beloved Son.” That God loves this world so much should give us great hope for the ultimate destiny of this world. This truth about God’s love, however, does not exempt us from actively caring about the world. Rather, we humans are called by God to reflect his love for this creation and its inhabitants. We love even when it seems we cannot control what happens.
These truths have led me to this series, Christians and Climate Change. I hope you’ll join me.
We’re thankful for our production partner on this series, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. Their commitment to inclusive education and healthcare, vibrant spiritual communities, and care for creation reflects a hopeful investment in our common future. Good Faith also wishes to thank A Rocha USA for their collaboration on this project.