Introduction

Final Project in Anthropology 313; Myth, Magic, and Mind
For Dr. Cortney Hughes Rinker
Megan Sorrel
12/8/2018

This year, as I watched Hurricanes Florence and Michael barrel first towards my Aunt’s town in North Carolina and then towards my parent’s home in Georgia, I felt concern for my family’s welfare but also exasperation. My extended family are members of the Church of Christ and are devout Evangelical Christians. And, despite the scientific consensus that extreme weather events such as hurricanes are exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change, they, like many Evangelicals, do not believe that climate change is caused or worsened by human behaviors.

Like many environmentalists and climate scientists, I am confounded that those who are the most likely to be impacted first by the effects of climate change are among the least likely to believe that it is caused by humans. In fact, a 2015 Pew survey shows that white Evangelical Christians, who are more likely to live in the southern states, are among the least likely US citizens to believe that global warming is increasing due to human activity. Further, the same Pew survey indicates that white Evangelicals are also the least likely to agree that there is a scientific consensus about the causes of climate change. But what it is about Evangelical Christianity that deters its adherents from believing science? Moreover, is a distrust of science an inevitable feature of this faith or is there something else going on?

While studying in Anthropology 313 this semester,  I noticed that many of the messages about climate change that I have heard from my family and picked up from Christian media reflected the same dynamics that we have read about in other cultures. While I am cautious about making comparisons between disparate groups I do think that the variety of perspectives we have learned about may help me to understand the connection between climate change denial and Evangelical Christianity.

At the outset, I should make it clear that while many US Christians self-identify as Evangelicals there are others who meet the criteria who do not use that moniker. Therefore, I want to define what I mean by “Evangelicals” and what beliefs they tend to share. The religious historian David Beddington has delineated four characteristics that distinguish Evangelical Christianity from other forms of Protestantism. The National Association of Evangelicals uses his four-part definition that includes:

• “Conversionism: the belief that lives need to be transformed through a “born-again” experience and a lifelong process of following Jesus.
• Activism: the expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts.
• Biblicism: a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority
• Crucicentrism: a stress on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as making possible the redemption of humanity”

Perhaps the most significant of these characteristics especially as it pertains to climate change is “activism.” The historian W.R. Ward has written extensively about the ways that modern Evangelical Christians engage with politics and social issues. In the first chapter of “Evangelicalism, Piety and Politics” (2014), which is a collection of his works edited by the religious historian Andrew Chandler, he traces Evangelical activism back to the Pietist movements of Protestant Europe, especially among Lutherans.

The Pietists saw even protestant church governance as corrupt and false. According to Ward, the Pietists believed that true Christianity should transcend any organized religious system and that religion should pervade every aspect of daily life. Further, the Pietists feared the secularization and disenchantment of life caused by the scientific progress of the Enlightenment.

Frequently persecuted and sometimes expelled from European countries, many Pietists moved to the American colonies and later to the United States as well as to England. In these locations, the Pietists influenced many religious movements including Pentecostalism and the Anabaptists. According to Ward, the common thread that ties Pietism to Evangelicalism and Evangelicals to one another is the shared sense that true Christianity pervades all aspects of life including politics. Further, this view is coupled with and a general distrust of organized, top-down systems of any kind whether religious, political, or academic.

Evangelical views on science are likely then to be an extension of their generalized distrust of academia as a hierarchical structure. This historical mistrust stands out when it is compared to the relative harmony between science and other forms of Christianity. For instance, the Pew study cited above shows that Hispanic Catholics are among the most likely US citizens to believe in human-caused climate change. One might speculate that the Catholic church’s acknowledgment of anthropogenic global warming along with a general willingness among Catholics to accept the hierarchical authority of the Church underlies their willingness to accept climate science.

This diversity of perspectives both between Christians and occasionally between Evangelicals is fascinating to me since it suggests that there is a possibility for the relationships to science among Evangelical Christians be renegotiated. While exploring the diversity in Christian responses to climate change I found the video below which was produced by The Guardian, a UK-based news outlet. This video gives an excellent overview of just how varied US Christian’s views are towards climate change.

As the video shows, there are a wide range of ways that Christians can and do engage with climate change and its impacts. Going forward, I will explore some of the specific ways that faith informs the responses of United States Evangelical Christians to climate change and its attendant severe weather patterns. I will also take a close look at how engagement with science is for some an expression of Christian principles and how others use the threat of climate change as a way to exert social control over others. Further, I will examine how some Christians attempt to use their faith as a supernatural protection against the threat of climate change, and how yet others transcend their fear through faith. Finally, I will look at how a study of Evangelical Christians in Scotland suggests that the impact of economic, political, and historical realities may shape the views of Evangelicals in the US.