Christians, Curiosity, Climate Change

Climate change and its repercussions have been debated and discussed for years by countless groups. Democrats and Republicans debate legislation on how to handle the growing crisis. Scientists warn the public of the growing list of environmental changes that threaten our world. Economists examine the long term effects that changing weather patterns and rising sea levels have on economies, especially those that are heavily reliant on coastal cities. Among these groups, and the many others that investigate the effects of climate change, many of their members generally accept global warming and climate change as a viable theory for earth’s increasing global temperature. However, there is one, in my eyes surprising, group that has and continues to deny climate change. That group is evangelical Christians.

The evangelical Christian has been an opponent to climate change for decades, but why? According to Philip Schwadel, a sociologist at the University of Nebraska, based on 18,083 survey responses from 1983 to 2012, evangelical Christians’ denunciation of climate change is correlated with their belief that “the bible is the actual word of god and is to be taken literally, word for word.” This quotation was one of the answers on the survey in response to the question, “Which of these statements comes closest to describing your feelings about the Bible.” Using these responses and looking at data of evangelical Christians over the span of time previously stated, Schwadel found that a correlation existed between white evangelical Christians’ view of the bible and their response to climate change. They were more likely to “de-prioritize environmental spending and not think climate change was something to worry about.” This mindset essentially leads to this line of reasoning: the word of the bible literally explains the world, and if God is the creator then he has a plan for the Earth and all its creatures. Good will handle climate change, not the human race.

For the evangelicals that do care about global warming, it’s in a way that is unnerving and, honestly, sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory. A section of evangelical Christians believe that climate change is a tool of the Antichrist to destroy the world. One evangelical Christian by the name of Hal Lindsay opens his half hour weekly news show with this statement: “On this week’s program, I’m going to scratch the surface of “The Climate Change Fraud” and show you how it is being used to consolidate the governments of the world into a coalition that may someday facilitate the rise of the Antichrist.” This line of thinking too stems from the original discovery made by Schwadel. The evangelicals devotion and literal interpretation of the bible leads to, now seemingly, radical ways of interpreting the global phenomena that is climate change.

This mindset against climate change seems all the more dangerous when one looks at the proportion of evangelical Christians in the United States and the platform with which they can voice their opinions. 70.6% of Americans are Christians; out of that 70.6%, 25.4% are evangelical Christians. This totals to nearly 20% (17.93%) of the United States population being evangelical Christians. Based on Schwedel’s research, 55% of evangelical Christian’s take the bible word for word; it is this, ultimately, 10% (9.86%) that we can say may denounce climate change. That is a ridiculously small population of the United States, why should we worry about them? They can’t do any real damage to the perception of climate change, right? I would argue right, however they definitely have the potential. Although they account for 10% of the population, when evangelical Christians are backed and funded by gas and oil companies, their platform for spreading anti-environmentalist rhetoric grows exponentially. With the economic influence of these companies, the political influence of evangelical Christians is augmented. It is augmented to the point where they have put so much pressure on some conservative republicans that they are unwilling to express their true beliefs on climate change and instead discourage essential, progressive speech about global warming.

The reason I bring all this up is not to ridicule or minimize the evangelical perception of climate change, however it is to express my fascination and genuine desire to understand this outlook. A woman by the name of Rachel Lamb is on the steering committee for a group called Young Evangelicals for Climate Action and in her efforts to educate young evangelical Christians about climate change she’s heard a plethora of arguments against climate change and combating global warming. “If God’s in control of everything, he’s not gonna make a mess of things.” “The world’s gonna burn up anyways, so maybe climate change is signifying the end is coming and we should just use it as a warning sign.” Both of these arguments against intervention are bewilderingly apathetic and passive for a religion in which stewardship is one of its major principles. Stewardship simply defined states that the Christian steward is one who must look after the earth, its people, and its creatures, thus taking care of God’s dominion. To me, this clearly states that one has to care about the environment and not shove it off as something that God will take care of Himself. I take the Louis C.K. approach: if God gave us the earth why the hell would we not have to look after it!? After thinking to myself for hours while I read through articles, I realize that I will never truly understand this outlook for one simple reason: I do not share the same level of faith, if any, as the average bible-worshipping evangelical Christian. I see faith as the one factor that tips the scale and causes so many evangelical Christians to see global warming in such a radical way; it baffles my mind that such an intangible, often inexplicable belief in something can cause a person to dismiss mounds of evidence in favor of the existence of a problem of this magnitude. Faith’s being the critical factor is dangerous because that isn’t something that can just be explained away. If faith continues to play a role in how people perceive climate change, I honestly don’t think that we will see eye to eye on climate change any time soon.