Podcast
Why are Evangelicals Missing in Action on Climate Change?
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Climate change is a major long term threat to our world. Yet, we find very few evangelical Christians voices or mass engagement on this issue. Why this disturbing gap? To explore this question, Curtis is joined by Bruce Huber who teaches about environmental law as Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. Together, they explore the deep reasons why many Christians struggle even to make proper sense of climate change.
Laudato Si’ — Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical on “Care for our Common Home”
The website of Jonathan Haidt — see especially “The Righteous Mind”
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It is a noble and good goal you have to “help each other make sense of the world”, but it’s going to be very difficult to achieve if you only ever present one side of the controversial subjects you address.
In this podcast you’ve taken the “Climate change is a major long term threat to our world” (or climate “alarmist”) side and invited on a guest that agrees with you. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’ve left out the fact that there is a very reasonable other side. This article: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-case-for-climate-change-realism makes a very substantial and scientifically based argument for the climate “realist” side of the issue, in case anyone is interested.
I agree that Christians have generally taken either a hand’s off approach or a “if the government says it, I don’t trust it” approach to climate change, but trusting our institutions to get it right is not the answer. The answer is to engage Christians with both sides of the issue and have reasonable discussions about it. Your podcast has the opportunity to do this, and I hope you take up the challenge.
Thank you for addressing this issue. The climate change issue is near and dear to our family. As trained scientists, we have raised our children with a deep respect for science and the scientific process. For what its worth, we’re also followers of Jesus, and have been actively involved in the churches we attend. As such, my son, when he participated in a national faith-based speech and debate competition at age 14, chose to research, write, memorize and perform a 6 minute speech on the need for Christians to take seriously our role in addressing the very real issue of climate change. Knowing he would be facing a conservative set of judges, he chose to focus on the science and the effects of climate change. He made a six minute cogent, well researched and impassioned plea from both scripture and the science that it is the responsibility of followers of Jesus to actively work toward addressing the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, it did not go well. He was the recipient of some extreme dirision and dismissal from teachers and leaders of the group, from judges and from fully grown fellow believers who sat in the same pews with us on a Sunday morning. Well respected speech coaches accused him of questioning the authority of God and of scripture. Leaders within our church community confronted him during a youth group meeting, incredulous that he believed climate change was real. It was eyeopening and damaging. My son is now aged 20, still a follower of Jesus, but has yet to find a community where he and his bent toward both strong science and faith are fully welcomed. He is in college now. He sees it as his life call to show the love of Jesus by doing practical work to mitigate the effects of global warming for those who will suffer the most from its effects around the world. I think it’s really important for those of us in the church to recognize that my son’s generation is deeply concerned about climate change, and the church’s failure and unwillingness to see our God-given mandate to steward creation and show the love of Jesus to people around the world in this way is one of many factors that is turning his generation away from the faith.
It makes my heart hurt to read this post about your son, Kristin, I’m so sorry he and y’all had to go through that. I am so encouraged to hear he’s still following Jesus and has a passion to care for this beautiful world God created. Saying a prayer right now that he’s able to find a community of believers that share his passion.
Curtis, this was the first Good Faith podcast episode that left me disappointed. Not because of the content, it was excellent. But because it was mis-titled, and I was eager to hear your answers to the question in the title. Dr. Huber’s and your comments were outstanding on the complexity of understanding and moving toward sustainable outcomes in regard to the environmental distress facing the world. The discussion on the politicalization (i.e. weaponization) of the topic was excellent too. But, I don’t think the question posed in the title was really broached, must less answered.
My undergraduate training was in zoology and chemistry and my graduate training was in systematic theology. In 1972 the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was amended and renamed The Clean Water Act. As part of that “upgrade,” the EPA created research grants to be distributed to a dozen or so industries in the U.S. to determine reasonable discharge standards for that industry. Electroplating, paint, leather tanning, etc. I worked as a research chemist for 5 years on the project focusing on the split-leather tanning industry, and our research lab was created in a city in Minnesota that had a large tannery. All that to say, I have been (and still am) passionate about the environment for half a century.
So, when I saw the title, (and being a huge fan of the GFP), I was pumped to listen. Here’s my critique. I think you were off on the causes of the absence of evangelicals in the conversation. You mentioned early on that the issue was epistemological. I don’t agree with that. It is (for believers/evangelicals) first and foremost theological. I realize that theology can be seen as a subset of epistemology, but most believers don’t have epistemic problems with the Bible. As a Bible teacher for the past 4 decades, (and as one formally trained in systematic theology) I’ve come to believe that the root of our noninvolvement has to do with our theology; and our lack of theology. The majority of spirituality in the U.S. is rooted and driven by systematic theology not biblical theology. And within that systematic circle, the Reformational doctrines of justification and sanctification are paramount. When you combine a justification-driven theology with the cardinal aspects of a free-market democracy, you are left with a spirituality that is private (me) and parochial (us). American evangelicalism has no biblical theology to provide ballast to the cardinal doctrines that define it. It is from biblical theology that you distill theologies of race, gender, wealth & possessions, the poor, and yes, Creation. It is this theological anemia that was responsible for the Church being caught with nothing to say regarding all these modern cultural issues. This is tragic because the Scriptures are replete with statements that, taken within the circumference of the larger biblical narrative, provide all that is needed to forge doctrines on these issues. Second, there is an educational factor as well; one that is shared by believer and unbeliever alike. That I saw firsthand working as an environmental chemist. When it comes to industrial pollution versus individual consumption, industry was always demonized. I came to realize that America’s environmental problems were, at their heart, due to consumption and is commensurate waste on the personal level, not on the corporate level. Of course corporate/systemic neglect is real and substantial. But, it’s the 20 pair of shoes in our closets that drive the tanneries to produce. I saw this in technicolor at a conference I attended as a chemist. The keynote speaker boasted in 1975 that we would have solved our air pollution issues by the year 2000. During a break, I walked the floor and 50% of the attendants were smokers. There was a total disconnect between their contribution and their research. Churches are notorious for waste, much of it styrofoam. The other issue that’s neglected is the relationship between purification and land management. All the purifiers and scrubbers in industrial chimneys do their job by concentrating the wastes. Those wastes have to be disposed. Many are put in landfills or in some off-site containment system. Home water purifier filters are an excellent example. Purification doesn’t remove waste, it concentrates it. And the waste in its concentrated form has to be buried, incinerated, or contained. It’s really been “moved” more than removed. I would say that the reason evangelicals are MIA on the environment is because their theology drives them away from the actual narrative of Scripture, namely God’s “plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in heaven and earth in Christ.” To rescue the groaning Creation from its curse, the restore shalom. In fact, the narrative ends with the appearance of a city whose name is Jeru-shalom, “vision of peace.”
One final thing. If you are still committed to exploring this topic with someone who has a deep intellect, an amazing grasp of Scripture and theology, and has done extensive field work on the topic, I’d suggest you contact Dr. Sandra Richter, author of “Stewards of Eden.” She teaches at Westmont College, and her training as a Deuteronomist gives her incredible insight into the beautiful way Yahweh has woven into the OT Law provision for Creation care. The late Francis Schaeffer’s 1970 book, “Pollution and the Death of Man: A Christian View of Ecology” is worth revisiting as well. His ideas on the topic shaped my life 53 years ago.
Thanks again for all your work. Like I said, this was an excellent podcast. I just don’t think you answered the leading question in a way consistent with your previous 98 episodes.
Curtis, I have a podcast guest suggestion for this topic. Her name is Sandra Richter, and she is an Old Testament professor at Westmont College. However, pertinent to this subject, she is also a Christian Environmentalist. Her book, Stewards of Eden, (what scripture says about the environment and why it matters) is an excellent scriptural apologetic for how we, as Christians, are called to treat the environment. She frequently speaks on the subject, and would be an excellent guest! She will show that this is not something God allows us to ignore.
I just read the comment before mine, and now I realize there are two votes for Dr. Richter!!
I love that you addressed this issue in your podcast! I have always felt that as people that are aware of God’s mandate to us to care for his creation Christians should be on the frontlines of environmental issues.
I am a mom of 11 and 13 year old boys and a parent raising kids in our present moment I find it can be challenging to know how to educate them on challenges our planet is facing and the importance of doing what we can while also assuring them that they don’t need to be anxious about it because ultimately God has a plan for us and our planet.
On that note I thought I’d share an amazing resource I found to help with this for any other parents out there facing this similar challenge. “All of Creation: Understanding God’s Planet and How we can Help.” is a fantastic book that covers a lot of these topics. It covers topics from endangered species to soil to the poles and global climate. Each chapter starts with the problem we’re facing, then it talks about it from a biblical perspective, and finally gives ideas of how kids can help. It’s an easy read for kids and teens to understand and has beautiful pictures, as well. We read a little bit each night at dinner and discuss when appropriate. It’s not perfect and there are at times things we don’t agree with, but we just stop and discuss those difference of thought with our kids as we read, which I think is another important lesson for us to teach our kids. Overall, though, I love that it both educates and empowers our kiddos. Just thought I’d pass that along to any parents out there looking for resources to help start this conversation in your own home.