Blessed Tomorrow Leader, Joel Hunter, Uses an ‘Alter Call’ to Motivate Climate Action
As sea levels rise, so do global religious populations, according to PEW Research Center's latest report. Causing many climate motivators to reorient their approach to the conveyance of climate change. In George Marshall's recent article for the Guardian, he asked Blessed Tomorrow leader, Joel Hunter, for advice on motivating climate action in the world's growing religious population.
Pastor Hunter leads a congregation of 15,000 at Florida's Northland Church, where the charismatic preacher is using a Billy Graham style 'alter call' to help Christians find their 'road to Damascus conversion to climate change.'
In doing so, climate leaders are changing the objective from a 'belief' in climate change to a 'conviction' of climate action; begging the question: what may the climate movement learn from religion?
What the Climate Movement Must Learn from Religion
By George Marshall for The Guradian
Last September 40,000 people attended London’s largest ever climate march. This was a big achievement for an issue that struggles to catch people’s attention. After all, as psychologists point out, it is notoriously hard to mobilise people around issues that are invisible, uncertain, set in the future and require them to make sacrifices.
Or is it? This Easter, more than 2 million people will attend church in Britain to celebrate the Christian resurrection. They will agree to constrain their most primal drives in return for long-term rewards that are not just uncertain but fundamentally unknowable.