This
week I read two more sections of The
Global Warming Reader. Both sections
were about the links between Christianity and climate change. In many of the part articles I have read, the
claim had been made that Christians do not care about climate change or other
environmental problems and their values may have led to much of the
environmental degradation of the past.
The paragraph written before the article “Climate Change: An Evangelist
Call to Action” mentioned this, saying that ecology was considered similar to
paganism by the evangelicals for a period of time. Yet, the two articles I read this week stated
almost the opposite of that point.
The first article was a speech given
by Sally Bingham. This speech focused on
the point that the world is God’s creation, so destroying it is an insult to
him. Additionally, it discusses the idea
that climate change is a justice problem because the richer countries are
creating the problem and the poorer countries are and will continue to have the
biggest challenges as a result of it. The
second article, which was mentioned earlier, discusses similar feelings towards
climate change and emphasizes the moral responsibility that Christians have to
loving their neighbors and to being good stewards of the Earth.
Religion is all about
interpretation. As the second article
stated, Evangelical leaders believe that it is their responsibility to morally
lead the nation, using the bible to guide them.
Many evangelicals have realized the importance of solving environmental
problems, including climate change.
Environmental problems have not changed, but the interpretation of
environmentalists from paganists to humanitarians has changed. Sally Bingham brings up the clarification of
the word dominion in her speech. She makes
it clear that dominion does not mean domination. Instead, dominion is like how a mother treats
her kids, who she has dominion over. She
treats them with love and compassion, which is how the Earth should be
treated. This comparison or
re-clarification is a re-interpretation of the bible, which supports an
environmental cause.
Again, this switch from Christians
not supporting environmental causes to supporting environmental causes relies
on the connection being made between environmental science and human
interests. I think that the evangelicals
began caring about climate change when they began to understand how climate
change would affect people negatively, especially the poor. Helping the poor and loving your neighbors
are two huge parts of Christianity, which Christians already take a part
in. Since climate change has now fallen
under the list of things that Christians care about, it has changed their
opinions on climate change.
I think that evangelical Christians
caring about the environment is an absolutely huge step forward for the climate
change movement. First of all, there are
millions of Christians around the world, which makes it huge if this becomes a
major issue for them. Second, the
Christian community is strong already so it does not need to be built in a lot
of the world. There is already a place
where people meet and community service is common in many churches. Discussions and helping the community are a
big part of getting people involved and leading a successful movement, as shown
in SCOPE. Third, Christians now have a
moral obligation to actually do something about the problem, giving them the
emotions to push forward and actually work for a solution to the problem.
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