On Sunday it was 112 degrees in Portland. Check out Robinson Meyer‘s sobering piece at The Atlantic. A taste: The Biden administration has been teased for trying to stuff climate change into an infrastructure frame. But this week has affirmed […]
climate change
Evangelicals seem to be coming around on climate change
In 2007, Richard Cizik, then vice-president of the National Association of Evangelicals, came under attack from some prominent evangelicals for his opposition to global warming. Jerry Falwell Sr. described evangelicals concerned with climate change as “earthism worshippers.” James Dobson called […]
*Rolling Stone* tackles creation care
Here is Alex Morris: From the inside, the issue is still often spun as theological. But as awareness of the climate crisis has grown, young evangelicals who grew up singing, “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” have started […]
God $ Green
If you want to know how American evangelicals have come to reject climate change watch “God $ Green: An Unholy Alliance,” a video from the University of Virginia’s Religion, Race & Democracy Lab. It includes commentary from American historian Darren […]
Mapping Catholic land; fighting climate change
Molly Burhans, a liberal arts graduate of Canisius College, a Catholic college in Buffalo, is leading a major project to help the Catholic Church map its vast landholdings in order to help it fight climate change. David Owen of The […]
My case for Joe Biden
Many have asked me to weigh-in on the election. Let me begin by saying that my choice of a candidate was not difficult. Donald Trump is immoral. He is a pathological liar. He is a narcissist. He is a racist […]
How did the court evangelicals respond to last night’s debate?
They loved it, of course. Let’s begin, one more time, with American religious historian Grant Wacker from his biography of Billy Graham: The crucial point is that Graham continued to defend Nixon long after most Americans smelled a rat. When […]
What COVID-19 exposed about the United States
All of these points come from Ed Yong’s recent piece at The Atlantic: “How the Pandemic Defeated America.” We under-fund public health. Our health-care system is weak. Too much of what we do spend on healthcare is wasted. We have not […]
Tampa Bay Catholics and Evangelicals Discuss Climate Change
I am happy to see these local conversations taking place. Here is the Tampa Bay Times: On the fifth anniversary of an historic papal document about the environment and as the coronavirus continues to imperil the world, a panel of Catholic […]
Does “End-Time Apathy” Explain Why So Many Evangelicals Don’t Care About the Environment?
If Jesus is coming back at any moment to “rapture” his church, why should evangelicals care about the environment? As religious studies scholar Robin Globus Veldman writes, this theory has been “widely accepted” by environmentalists to explain evangelical apathy about […]
What Will American Religious Historians Say About the 2010s?
Over at The Anxious Bench, historian Philip Jenkins asks, “what will future scholars of Christianity highlight when they write the history of the 2010s? What tremors reshaped the landscape of faith?” Here is part of Jenkins’s answer: I would start […]
Why Christians Should Be Concerned About Climate Change
Last night I went to a George Will lecture on campus and listened to him question whether climate change was man-made. (This was not the focus of his lecture, but the subject came-up during the Q&A period). When it comes […]
Robert Jeffress: Environmental Activist Greta Thunberg Needs to Look at a Rainbow and Read Genesis 9
Here is court evangelical Robert Jeffress on 16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg: “God said he created the environment to serve us, not for us to serve the environment. This Greta Thunberg, the 16 year-old, she was warning today about the […]
Overcoming Fear with Hope: On Climate Change
Jonathan Franzen’s recent New Yorker essay on climate change is sobering. But is also hopeful. Franzen argues that we are investing too much time and money into trying to reverse the consequences of climate change when it is probably too late […]
Scientists Need the Humanities to Address Climate Change
“I want to do something about climate change, but I don’t like science and I am not good at it.” “I love history, literature, or philosophy, but I don’t see these disciplines advancing real change in the world.” If you […]
Katherine Hayhoe: Climate Scientist and Evangelical
The Washington Post is running a really interesting piece on Katherine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and an evangelical Christian. (Her spouse is a Christian author, pastor, and radio host). Those evangelicals who want to reach public […]
Evangelicals Call for Renewable Energy in Indiana
21,000 evangelicals that is. Learn more from Rebecca Thiele’s piece at WFYI (Indianapolis). A taste: A group of evangelicals in Indiana wants the state to expand wind and solar energy. The Evangelical Environmental Network delivered more than 21,000 signatures to Gov. Eric […]
The Effects of Climate Change
We had a good discussion at my dinner table tonight about the Fourth National Climate Assessment. As a young evangelical, my seventeen-year old daughter is passionate about this issue and it was fun to see her so engaged. She is […]
The Fourth National Climate Assessment Report is Here and it Doesn’t Look Good for the Planet
Read it here. What is this report? A taste: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 mandates that the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) deliver a report to Congress and the President no less than every four years that “1) integrates, […]
Young Evangelicals and Climate Change
Jeremiah 29:7: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” What might the application of this verse […]