Climate Caretakers launched this week, offering a new voice in the growing movement of Evangelical Christians acting for the climate. Founded by a coalition of creation care organizations and colleges, including Blessed Tomorrow's partner Sojourners, the group represents a shift in Evangelical opinions on climate change. Since 2009, the number of Evangelical Christians concerned over climate change has risen from 34 percent to 44 percent, due in large part to leaders such as Jim Wallis stressing the importance of morally guided climate talks.
Houghton's sustainability coordinator Brian Webb shared, "The time for silence on climate change within the church has passed," Webb continued, "No longer a simply political or even a scientific issue, climate change is now a moral imperative that the church must respond to." The website, filled with various ways to act for the climate, encourages readers to confront climate change both spiritually and practically, by signing a pledge to take action in local and global efforts, focusing on the role faith leaders play in the lead up to COP21 Paris.
Check out Climate Caretaker's commitment to climate action here.
A New Evangelical Band Bangs the Drum on Climate Change
Charles Redfern | Huffington Post Blog
Perhaps you heard the internet heave a grunt on August 11, the formal launch date of a new network of evangelical Christians alarmed about escalating temperatures, retreating ice, spreading droughts and rising sea levels.
Climate Caretakers -- whose founding members include Houghton College, the Lausanne Creation Care Network, Micah Challenge U.S.A., and Sojourners -- characterizes itself as a "campaign aimed at mobilizing Christians to prayer and action on climate change," according to Brian Webb, Houghton's sustainability coordinator.
"The time for silence on climate change within the church has passed," said Webb. "No longer a simply political or even a scientific issue, climate change is now a moral imperative that the church must respond to."
Evangelical Christians are often portrayed as the last monolithic bastion of climate-change denial -- and with some reason: polls repeatedly show that only 44 percentagree with the scientific consensus, down by 20 percent from the national average. But that's hardly unanimity, and the wall seems to be crumbling: Only 34 percent of evangelicals believed in human-induced global warming in 2008. What's more, evangelical leaders and intellectuals have been calling Americans to retreat from their consumerism and embrace their roles as God's environmental stewards for some time.
