The Evangelical Awakening to Environmental Concern

Presented at the Lets Tend the Garden Conference September 20, 2007

Imagine that you believe in a God who is the creator of heaven and earth. Your fellow believers debate details: some say this took place six thousand years ago in six, twenty-four hour days; others accept the old earth of mainstream science

(about 4.5 Billion years) but deny that evolutionary process accounts for life's diversity; still others say God used natural processes (evolution) to create the diversity of life as we know it. One thing you're all sure of: God is the maker of all this. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

Imagine that your faith taught you that we humans are under orders from the maker to tend the garden, to guard and protect it (see Gen. 2:15), the first order of business in fact with no record of it having been rescinded.

Imagine that your sacred writings reveal humankind under the influence of a mysterious fatal flaw born of our rebellion against God. A tendency to miss mark, distort, abuse, neglect, and deny it all in the act of doing it.

Imagine that your faith uniquely prepares you to accept the global impact of humanity, having been commanded to multiply and fill the earth. A command we apparently responded to with unusual vigor. Imagine that you were also prepared by your faith to face the truth that while our global impact was meant for good, it's gone horribly wrong given our rebellious ways.

Now imagine that you believed your God was so committed to fixing the mess we made of things, that he sent his only Son into the world so that the footprints of God could once again be found in the dewy grass of the garden. Imagine furthermore that his coming was all about restoring and renewing the face of earth; that his followers are to become "salt of the earth" to preserve what's good and limit the destructive power of evil until such time as the whole thing can be wonderfully renewed in glory [how and when this will happen is a matter of considerable debate with your community and has been for millenia.]

Is it any wonder that those who carry such a faith would also believe this good news is the answer to our personal, our social, and perhaps especially, our most pressing global problems--this being a global gospel?

Let's add another twist and say that you've been in a coma for the past 30 years.You know nothing about the American evangelical landscape or response of evangelicals to present day environmental concerns. All you know is what we profess to believe.

Wouldn't it seem odd to discover that your particular branch of Christianity, your tribe, has a pre-disposition to doubt there is a global environmental crisis caused largely by human activity run amok, exacerbated by greed, selfishness, and the overuse of God-given resources?

Wouldn't you find it curious that people passionate for the gospel would lean toward denying a global problem that the gospel could be the answer to?

American evangelicalism is a large and diverse movement. It would be odd if there weren't at least a few who thought the environmental crisis was over-blown. We do have a contrarian streak. If the world says po-tay-to, we say po-tah-to.

But we're not inclined by our faith to dismiss the severity of the global drug problem, the global crime epidemic, or the crisis assailing the modern family. When social researchers come up with studies saying that things are bad in these arenas, we're the first to site the studies and say, "Amen! And our gospel is good news in the face of this bad news!"

And yet, until recently, the American evangelical community has been slow to recognize the global environmental crisis.

It is odd. It is out of place. It doesn't fit.

And that's why it's in the process of changing.

In the 18th century, evangelicals in England woke up to a global problem--the slave trade--and saw in their good news the answer. (The story is told in the recent movie, Amazing Grace.)

Many people of biblical faith in 18th century England had gotten used to slavery. They didn't see that the message of the Bible had a trajectory from bondage to freedom. They took a few passages that seemed to allow slavery or accept it as a societal given and assumed this meant they were to oppose efforts to end slavery.

It didn't help that ending the slave trade might impinge on a comfortable lifestyle e.g. that it might raise the price of what was then a new taste sensation: table sugar from cane harvested overseas by slaves.

When some religious nuts said "boycott sugar to undermine the evil slave trade," many of these people of biblical faith just rolled their eyes and put a few extra sugar cubes in their tea.

But it was odd. It didn't fit their faith. Slavery had nothing to do with good news. It was bad news. And so it changed.

Why did it take American Christians another hundred years to join their British brothers and sisters in the fight to end slavery?

Maybe the American Christians weren't in the mood to learn from their British brethren who supported King George and his tax and spend policies. (Which we can imagine many of those American evangelicals didn't like one bit.) So they weren't inclined to lend a hand to the "British" free-the-slaves cause. And maybe they had their own comforts to worry about, like inexpensive cotton for their clothing.

But by the 19th century, America Christians, led by evangelicals, woke up to the problem of slavery and saw in their goods news the answer: a savior committed to setting the captives free.

At first they wrestled with each other over this issue. Some called it a grievous problem that we must address by faith. Others said, "don't divide the body of Christ with such talk."

But eventually, what was odd, what didn't fit, what had nothing to do with a savior who actually saves was left behind. This change was led by the likes of Charles Finney, the father of modern mass evangelism. Finney invented the "altar call." When people responded to invitations to commit to Christ they also swelled the ranks of the abolitionist movement.

It's a simple principle at work. What doesn't fit with God's heart can't stay forever; eventually, it's gotta go.

And so, in the 21st century, we are on the verge of an evangelical awakening to the global environmental crisis. To describe this crisis in the simple terms, I mean pollution that lands heavy on the poor; an unprecedented loss of bio-diversity (entire species created by God to reflect his glory perishing from the earth due to environmental stress); and the warming of the average temperature of the planet leading to rising sea levels, increased flooding in low lying coastal regions, an increase insect born diseases, and more severe droughts is many areas.

God's creation is being plundered and the gospel is the answer because it has power to transform hearts, confront powers that be and change the course of history. What are we waiting for?

We evangelicals know that big awakenings happen one soul at a time.

Here's how mine happened.

I attended a retreat in Georgia with a mix of 28 evangelical leaders and the some of the nation's leading environmental scientists. Cal DeWitt, an evangelical pioneer in the environmental movement, made the biblical case for environmental stewardship. It wasn't a difficult case to make. From the first command in Genesis to take care of the earth as stewards, through the glories of bio-diversity celebrated in Psalm 104, to the chilling warning in the book of Revelation that there will be a day of reckoning for "the destroyers of the earth" (see Rev. 11:18) it was obvious--a true slam dunk.

I'd been reading my Bible for 35 years, listening to sermons and giving sermons for 30 of those 35 years, and I'd never heard or given a sermon on environmental stewardship or creation care. I think I tipped my hat to it a time or two, but that's about it.

Then Gus Speth got up. A soft spoken man with a hint of the South in his speech. Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and the Environment. First person to advise a U.S. President (Jimmy Carter) of the growing concerns in the scientific community regarding climate change.

Gus Speth said words to this effect: "Thirty years ago, I thought that with enough good science, we would be able to solve the environmental crisis. I was wrong. I used to think the greatest problems threatening the planet were pollution, bio-diversity loss and climate change. I was wrong there too. I now believe the greatest problems are pride, apathy and greed. Because that's what's keeping us from solving the environmental problem: pride, apathy and greed. For that, I now see that we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we in the scientific community don't know how to do that. But you evangelicals do. We need your help."

That's when it happened: the conviction of Holy Spirit. The tightening of the throat. The raising of the hair on my arms. The watering of the eyes. How could I have been so blind?

It's not that I was for ravaging the environment. In fact, I thought I cared about the environment. But I was doing next to nothing to equip my church to obey the first command to humanity. I wasn't implementing principles of environmental stewardship in my own life.

I suppose I was "environmentally neutral" or perhaps "neutered" would be the better term. I was for good stewardship of the earth's resources likeI was for mom, apple pie and Chevrolet, though I owned a Hundai.

Looking back I was neutered by something that runs rampant in the American evangelical cultural climate.

I had some vague, sub-conscious, but decidedly negative impressions of the environmental movement. I had the impression that environmentalists were people adept at straining out the gnat only to swallow the camel.

They were all worked up over the spotted owl, but unconcerned about the most libertarian, unrestricted abortion laws in the world. (The U.S. being among a group of eight nations providing the least protection for life in the womb, including North Korea, Vietnam, Canada, and Mainland China.)

What was I thinking? That if I less about the polar bears or other endangered species, I'd somehow care more about the vulnerable unborn? God's love being in such short supply, I guess?

In the car, I divided my radio time between NPR and Rush Limbaugh. NPR was the more informative of the two, but seemed nervous and unfamiliar with my faith. While Rush, for all his bombast, name-calling and failure to love his enemies, threw my faith plenty of bones. He waved the Christian flag as much as he did the American one. And he railed all the time against those "environmental whackos"

I didn't give it much thought, which means at least some of that perspective slipped undiscerned into my spirit.

Over the years many of my evangelical colleagues rolled their eyes at the self-righteous concern of the "organic-farming, concern-for-the-cooped-up-chickens, sky-is-falling environmentalists."

Not that we ever had a serious conversation with an environmentalist. We didn't need to, because we listened to AM talk radio.

But the scientists I met at this retreat weren't whackos. They were note-taking, data loving, careful-with-their-words scientists. They had little side debates among themselves about whether one of their colleagues was overstating the significance of a particular piece of data about global warming; I watched them self-policing toward caution to the point where I wondered if they were sometimes understating the case.

So I began to read some books. Not books on the environment by people in the news-entertainment industry. Not books by religious leaders with big mailing lists and hastily adopted opinions on the environment. But books by actual scientists. Like Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina. He bore witness to trash washed up on beaches of the most remote islands. To the garish spectacle of a baby albatross on Midway island, the most remote from humans place on earth, dead from a belly full of ingested cigarette lighters.

He bore witness to the king of the ocean, the shark. Celebrated in Psalm 104, "the sea teeming with creatures great and small…which you formed to frolic there." How their teeming is down 90%. Because fishermen haul them aboard, cut off their fins, and throw them back alive into the ocean where they drown. Yes, drown. How does a fish drown, I wondered, so I emailed Carl Safina, having met him at our retreat. It turns out that without fins to guide their movements, they swim chaotically, and are unable to pull enough water over their gills to get enough oxygen from the water. So they drown, gasping for oxygen. Created by God to explore the ocean depths, drowning because shark fin soup is a delicacy.

I became informed about climate change. Yes, I read the Complete Idiot's Guide, which was about my speed. Learned that we Americans are about 4% of world population, but consume 25% of the world's available fossil fuels--coal, oil & gas. I learned that the burning of fossil fuels releases carbon into the atmosphere which forms a heat trapping blanket, keeps warmth of the sun in, so average global temperature is rising.

How much is it rising? About a degree in the last century, with increases anywhere from 2.5-10 degrees over next century. No big deal, until you realize the earth is like the human body, a complex system fine-tuned by the creator for life, and when your baby's temperature goes up a few degrees, you pay attention, because something's out of whack.

I learned that the controversy isn't over whether the earth is warming but over whether human activity is main cause of the recent warming. Read Bible for 35 years; I know it can't resolve that controversy. But I also know Jesus is the Logos [reason-wisdom] of God. Science involves application of reason-wisdom to complex problems like this.

The scientific gold standard for climate change is the International Governmental Panel for Climate Change--involving hundreds of nations and their scientists reviewing all the available studies on this complex scientific problem.

In 1990 the International Governmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC)issued its first report. The report simply confirmed the warming trend and raised the possibility that human activity might be at least partly to blame.

Five years later the IPCC did another review of the available science and said that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate" which warranted further study.

In 2001, the IPCC report said, "There's a 65% probability the recent warming trend is caused by human activity." Our president asked our National Academy of Scientists to do an independent assessment of the report. They concurred with the findings of the IPCC report. As a result President Bush asked us all to begin conserving fossil fuels. We've ignored him this request and have increased our use.

Last year the IPCC gathered even more scientists from hundreds of nations to study the studies. They said, "There's a 90% chance that recent warming is caused by human activity." They debated whether to rate it at 95% but opted for the more cautious assessment. Our President said the science is in, we've got a problem and we're causing it. A majority in both parties agree with the scientific consensus. Major energy companies are now calling for carbon caps for heaven's sake. A majority of American evangelicals see climate change as a problem. They await our leadership.

I'm not a scientist so I look at it like this: the scientific consensus is clear; in any science tackling an issue as complex as climate change, some conflicting interpretation of the available data is expected. There is a small minority of scientists who dispute the consensus. This is to be expected given the fact that the IPCC itself rated the probability that the undisputed warming trend is human induced at 90% not 100%.

In the meantime, the sooner we act to reduce carbon emissions the better. The carbon we send into the atmosphere today remains for a long time, much of it for as long as 500 years. We should err on the side of caution for dealing with a problem like this. So far we are simply pumping more carbon into the atmosphere at an increasing rate with no end to the increase in sight. Are we willing to wager a bet that the minority view is correct when it's our children's future we're wagering? And when the odds have been set at 9 to 1 by the oddsmakers?

What are we being asked to do, based on the consensus view that human activity is causing the warming? To conserve, limit, reduce our use of fossil fuels.

We know, apart from global warming, burning of fossil fuels causes serious pollution. The worst damage is done by the burning of coal for electricity in power plants. This leads to increased asthma rates in urban centers. (Have you ever had a child suffer through a severe asthma attack?) This releases mercury into atmosphere which gets into fish we eat from the great Lakes. So that pregnant women are advised not to eat fish as it will increase birth defects, spontaneous abortion, etc. Our own Environmental Protection Agency says that one in six children in the United States have levels of mercury in their bodies that puts them at risk for memory loss and learning disabilities (mercury is a potent neurotoxin.)

We know fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource. The more we use, the sooner it runs out. What's the biblical response to this? Leave our kids to deal with it?

This would not please the author of the book of Proverbs.

Apart from global warming, I know thatt the more gas I guzzle, the more global demand there is for oil, raising the price of oil and sending more money into the coffers of countries with movements that hate Christianity. We support a mission in one of those countries. A dear brother I know was recently gunned down my militants funded by oil money.

For these reasons alone, why aren't we leading the movement to conserve fossil fuels?

Why, as evangelicals, would we want to bet against the scientific consensus about global warming, when the solution to global warming involves things we ought to be doing anyway?

So I did what we evangelicals are good at doing. I got crackin.' First, I cracked my bible and did a three part sermon series on creation care.

We talked about the command to care for creation, the basic principles of environmental stewardship. We talked about God's concern for all of his creatures as revealed in the bio-diversity psalm, psalm 104. And we talked about climate change. I said here's the case for climate change. You don't have to accept it to be a good Christian. But to be a good Christian you do have to obey God and implement principles of environmental stewardship. And that means reducing our use of fossil fuels for energy.

After the sermon we gave away 300 compact fluorescent light bulbs to homes that hadn't tried them. If every home replaced 5 regular light bulbs with energy saving compact fluorescents we could take 21 coal burning power plants off line. (People need something to do for starters.)

That was a start, but I'm trying to make up for lost time.Our board passed a resolution to implement environmental steward-ship throughout church. We've replaced our roof and increased the insulation. We're getting energy audit to learn how we can save more energy. We've begun to recycle. We're arranging to to partner with a community organization to make our church a recycle center for items that aren't easily recyclable already.

We've launched a "Green Vineyard" small group (our church is named "Vineyard".) These are people learning about environmental stewardship and taking the lead in our congregation to help us all. They are doing a "dumpster dive"--a trash survey to find out what we're throwing out that we could not use so much of or recycle. We'll share the results with the congregation and report on our progress, just like we report on our budget each year.

I partnered with Joel Hunter and others to prepare a booklet titled, Creation Care: An Introduction to Busy Pastors. We've also launched a website to distribute the booklet and provide resources for pastors: www.creationcareforpastors.com.

We're just beginning. We are not leaders in creation care. At best we are starters. You can catch up very fast.

Here's why it's a no-brainer for evangelicals. Obedience to God in implementing creation care principles making us better evangelicals. That it is, it helps us to demonstrate and share the gospel. During the creation care sermon series, two couples started coming, husbands grad students in ecology and evolutionary biology. You don't see a lot of evolutionary biology grad students in evangelical churches. Saturday night an older couple came with a 30 year old daughter. The daughter was not a Christian,but saw on our church website that we had a Green Vineyard small group and said, "I'd like to visit that church." We had a nice article in our local paper about the work we're doing. People were drawn to the church because of the article.

Have you noticed people are growing weary of culture wars? Some don't want to darken the door of the church because they have no desire to become culture warriors. Whatever happened to "blessed are the peacemakers"?

Carl Safina and I are supposed to be locked in a culture war with each other. He's a secular scientist and I'm an evangelical pastor. But I read his book, Song for the Blue Ocean and liked it. He read a book I'm getting published soon and he liked it. Or at least told me he did. I hope he wasn't just being polite. But I think it's safe to say we like each other.

We started something called The Friendship Project. We decided the culture war approach isn't advancing either the environment or the kingdom of God. So we're trying to bridge this cultural divide rather than inflame it. The biology department at the Akron University in Ohio asked us to come. So we gathered 13 biology and life science professors from secular universities in Ohio along with 11 evangelical pastors and Inter-Varsity leaders to talk about our shared concern for the creation.

Now the biology professors like the Inter-Varsity chapter directors and want to get to know them better. And vice versa. And they are committed to learning from each other--what faith and science can bring to the solution table of the environmental crisis. The pastors are committed to speaking out on the biblical call to environmental stewardship and the scientists are committed to not being so frightened of the faith people.

This is good for the gospel. The gospel is good for this.

This has all markings of an evangelical awakening to environmental concern. The tinder is dry. Conditions are right. All it takes is a spark here, a match there, and the evangelical giant is going to wake up and sneeze and bring grass roots activism, and prayer and bible study, and working together as peacemakers rather than culture warriors for the sake of God's good earth.

I'd like to close with an admonition to any evangelical pastors among us.

Depending on the surveys (which often vary in their definition of "evangelical") upwards of 70% of evangelicals think climate change is an important concern. They are waiting for thelr leaders to lead. What are you waiting for?

Don't be afraid of the noisy few who will resist you.

Sit down with them and study the bible with them.

Be gentle, be patient. But lead.

Read your bibles and read your science. Consider John Wesley's exhortation to read, especially science, in "An Address to Clergy": And as to acquired endowments, can he take one step aright, without first a competent share of knowledge?....Some knowledge of the sciences also, is, to say the least, equally expedient… Should not a Minister be acquainted too with at least the general grounds of natural philosophy? [reference to what are now called life sciences]

Your job is not to be become an expert, but to learn from the experts so you can educate your church on a matter of moral, biblical and global concern. The

AM talk show hosts who admit that they are in the "entertainment-news" business are not the best experts to learn your science from.

Learn enough to understand the basic problems and the "no-brainer" solutions so that you can discern where the gospel comes in as the good news that it is meant to be. And then take hold of that good news and lead.

Focus on the low hanging fruit first, then reach higher.

Start with a sermon, or better yet a sermon series.

Lay out the biblical case.

And then do something. Lead by example in your church facility.

Lead by example in your own life. Model the only kind of change most of us are capable of: one step at a time change.

Don't despise the day of small beginnings.

Do something rather than nothing.

Do what you can, not what you can't.

After you've done something, do another thing.

Empower and bless the people in your church who already get it, and have been waiting for you to lead. Form them into a task force, a small group, and let them put their money and time where there mouth is by helping you implement better stewardship.

Remember: this is a unique moment in history. Scientists are waking up the reality that science alone is not adequate to address the pressing problem of climate change. They recognize the need for "a spiritual and cultural transformation" to deal with this growing crisis. Many scientists, led by E.O. Wilson, perhaps the leading environmental scientist of our time, have agreed to refer to the earth as "the creation" once again.

The era of name calling is coming to an end. The era of cooperation is at hand and none too soon.

The question is, how will we responds to this moment? Will we respond to this cry for help from the scientific community with apathy or with humility? Will we listen and ask questions or simply echo the polemical reaction we hear on talk radio?

Will we follow in the footsteps of Jesus--matching the humility of the scientists asking for our help with the humility of Jesus, who in his first public appearance in the gospels, "sat among them, listening to them and asking questions?"

Given the scope of the challenge, we had better be prepared to do it all: to study our bibles, pray, and act in concert with others. For too long we've sacrificed the future for the sake of the present. We've used energy with no thought of tomorrow. It's time to lean in a new direction: to sacrifice in the present for the sake of the future.

Why? Because the gospel prepares us to face the future with hope. And hope is in even shorter supply than energy these days. Those who are in touch with the global environmental crisis--the rampant pollution, the millions of people without any access to clean water, the global poor who will be hit hard by the widespread effects of climate change--are hard pressed to be hopeful. We can join this effort and bring our hope with us, the hope of a gospel that is truly good news on a global scale.

But we have to earn the right to be heard. Bromides of hope uttered in the casual language of empty religion will not do. We must face the reality of this impending distress, roll up our sleeves to become part of the solution rather than being content to sit on the sidelines (or worse, carp at those seeking to respond to this crisis) and let our actions speak louder than our words.

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church address

The Evangelical Awakening to Environmental Concern