While some evangelicals perceive a conflict between faith and science, a growing number are starting to rally for climate solutions, according to a recent article in The Huffington Post. Many evangelical Christians are especially motivated by the fact that climate change will disproportionately affect the world’s most poor and vulnerable, or “the least of these,” a common Christian term.
Undoubtedly, politics still play a role in dictating support for action on climate change among religious communities. Yet by emphasizing the impacts that climate change will have on the poor and the vulnerable that Christians are called to care for, evangelicals across the country are slowly transforming the climate conversation from a political one to a moral one.
Climate Change Threats To ‘The Least Of These’ Compel Evangelical Christians To Act
Lynne Peeples, Contributor to The Huffington Post
“Climate change is a really bad reason to get divorced.”
Katharine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist, recalled the trial she and her husband Andrew, an evangelical Christian pastor, faced when they discovered they weren’t on the same page about global warming.
After a number of intense discussions, mediated by shared values and beliefs, their marriage persevered. Andrew accepted the overwhelming scientific evidence, and they even went on to co-write a book for Christians on climate change. But in evangelical churches across the U.S., a faith community to which Hayhoe herself belongs, many pastors and parishioners continue to perceive an incompatibility between their faith and the climate science.
Read More
