Today is Earth Day. The first Earth Day was commemorated on April 22, 1970.
I am reminded of these words from Neil Pogue’s book The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle Between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement:
Initially, I approached my investigation with the impression that the stereotypically militant, stubborn, and intolerant conservative evangelicals likely rejected the environmental movement in 1970, just as they had virtually done with women’s liberation, gay rights, and pro-choice issues. This supposition proved to be surprisingly incorrect. In 1971, for example, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) passed resolutions condemning homosexuality and abortion–two traditional religious right positions. That same year, the NAE pledged to protect the environment. Other period documents from this community beyond the NAE corroborated such nature-friendly sentiments. What happened between 1971 and 2000? Following a decade of research that expanded the investigation from 1967-2020, a clearer picture developed between politically conservative evangelicals and the environment proving the relationship to be much more complex than previously supposed.
In fact, conservative evangelicals nearly became active supporters of nature protection efforts not only in 1970, when Earth Day was first observed, but also twenty years later, in 1990, on its twentieth anniversary….
Happy Earth Day!
For more on Pogue’s book, check out our interview with him at The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast.