RELIGION, like science, helps people understand a complex and uncertain world. Like science, it helps people define priorities and choose lifestyles. And like science, it is full of competing claims made by sincere people struggling to interpret basic truths.
Science and religion have not always made easy partners, as exemplified today by Christian fundamentalists opposing the teaching of evolution and research into stem cells. It is, therefore, significant that the US National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an umbrella group that encompasses 45,000 churches, 40 per cent of the Republican Party and has power to influence US Supreme Court nominations, considers advocating immediate action on climate change.
The NAE already advocates government programmes to reduce pollution and increase fuel efficiency, so a position on climate change seemed a logical next step. However, after influential members argued that “there should be room for Bible-believing evangelicals to disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue”, the organisation shied away from taking action. Nonetheless, other evangelical leaders decided to march ahead, and in February launched the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which acknowledges global climate change as a problem relevant to Christianity. “Governments, businesses, churches and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change – starting now,” they declared.
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Some evangelicals and others of faith have long struggled with “green” theology, citing well-known passages in which God gives humans dominion over “every living thing that moves upon the Earth”. Flora and fauna exist for humans to name, subdue and use until the Second Coming. Any obligation to tackle pollution, climate change and resource depletion can be discounted because the devout should spend their time ensuring that they and others are among those saved.
Then there’s the fear that environmentalism tempts pantheism by placing plants, animals and Gaia above humans, angels and God. Even religious people who are green sympathisers worry that the billions of dollars redirected to climate and related environmental programmes could be better spent addressing immediate crises of water, sanitation, food, AIDS, poverty and genocide.
Meanwhile there is growing support for the modern Christian doctrine known as the “prosperity gospel”, which teaches that God will reward faith with wealth and material success. This presents additional challenges for conservationists because it encourages or is at least complicit with the harm that results from industrial expansion, deforestation and the extraction of resources. It is also controversial because it conflicts with Christian teachings of self-denial, humility, suffering and tending to those in need. The challenge to conservation is significant because capitalism is the driving force behind environmental change, and many Christian denominations – in particular Protestantism – accept rather than challenge capitalist priorities and morality. The Protestant work ethic may have changed the environment more than any other social force.
“Many of those who helped establish the environmental movement were inspired by faith”
Green theologians, on the other hand, emphasise the call, announced in Genesis, to serve, tend and keep creation. God deemed all his creations “good”, therefore God values nature beyond how it serves humans. Alternative interpretations of the Second Coming find in it a renewed call for environmental stewardship, quoting Reformation theologian Martin Luther: “If I knew the world was going to end tomorrow I would plant a tree.” Advocates of a green theology also find rationale in the golden rule: treat others as you would have them treat you. That obliges you to tackle climate change and environmental degradation because they often disproportionately affect people of limited means, through pollution, flood and drought.
Religion deals directly with the big moral questions environmentalism raises, perhaps better than science does. True, religion was once used to justify settling, taming and in some cases extinguishing many natures and cultures, and evangelists and missionaries walked beside conquerors and merchants, wittingly or unwittingly helping subjugate native landscapes. Yet religion has also motivated key conservation efforts. Many of those who helped establish the environmental movement in the US, such as Gifford Pinchot and John Muir, were inspired by deep faith.
It is about time that the religious and environmental faithful joined forces. No one wins when divisive politics pits the right to human life against the sanctity of biodiversity, or family values against ecosystem services. There are infinite compatible reasons to love, cherish and steward Earth.
