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.

One way that some people respond to Climate Change is by trying to locate its cause. In this sense environmentalists and some of the radical fundamentalist subsets of Evangelical Christianity agree. Both believe that global warming is caused by human actions. However, as Avi Selk pointed out in an article for the Washington Post, they disagree about which human behaviors cause climate change and severe weather. One prominent Evangelical activist mentioned in Selk’s article is Randall Terry. The author of a rather fascinating e-book entitled The Judgment of God, Terry asserts that God is provoked to punish the United States through severe weather due to our country’s collective sins.

What initially struck me about Terry’s claims is that they did not seem to primarily be explanations for severe weather. Rather, his accusations seemed focused around efforts to alter the behavior of others. For example, his assertions about God’s punishments do not seem to express concern with the impact of hurricanes and wildfires so much as delight with God’s awesome and justified wrath. While he clearly views abortion as something that is immoral, it is not clear whether he is more interested in actually preventing abortions or ostracizing those who provide or undergo them. Based on this I believed that his motivations might be somewhat similar to those observed by Evans Pritchard among the Azande in regards to witchcraft accusations.

Pritchard found that witchcraft accusations were typically levied against those who were seen to be breaking some taboo or social norm. Further, the noted that witches did not know that they were witches until an accusation was leveled against them and their witchcraft was confirmed by an oracle. In this way accusations of witchcraft primarily functioned as a way to maintain social norms. One clear difference between the Azande and Terry’s accusations is that those who were found to be witches among the Azande were likely to accept their guilt and change their behavior. In the case of Terry and his co-believers perhaps it is enough to simply have someone to blame for catastrophes. It must be a kind of comfort to know that whatever wrath God brings down on the country, it is not their own fault.

In addition to social control, I was struck by another feature of Terry’s message that might appeal to Evangelicals. This is the demand he makes for tangible changes in the real world. Like the Pietists, he denies the boundary between religious practice and everyday life.  And, while it easy to scientifically debunk a direct link between abortion or homosexuality and climate change, the connection between global warming and capitalism might actually have some merit. For example, a case could be made that an ethos of ever-increasing consumption and global trade are linked to excess carbon emissions. While Terry seems more concerned with capitalism’s spiritual effect than its carbon footprint I must admit that if more people shared this particular aspect of his magical thinking then it might be politically easier to prevent further anthropogenic global warming.

 

One of the more surprising things that I found in reading about how Evangelical Christians view climate change is that not only do not all Evangelicals deny anthropogenic climate change but some actually see environmental stewardship as a moral Christian duty. The Guardian video, for instance, shows that while some scientists might decry religious faith as an impediment to scientific progress, there are Christians who view climate-action as an imperative of their faith. This is certainly true for Katherine Hayhoe, who is a notable Evangelical Christian and climate scientist.

The author of A Climate for Change: Global Facts For Faith-Based Decisions,  Dr. Hayhoe has made climate change outreach to Evangelical Christians a personal mission. She does this by connecting her faith with her role as a scientist. In a 2017 interview with Sonia Smith of the Colombia Journalism Review, she stated that “Climate change is simply an opportunity for Christians to express God’s love to other people, exactly as we’re told to in verses throughout the New Testament,”. This is an especially important message for Evangelicals who by definition tend to view active engagement with the world as a central part of their faith. By viewing climate science not only as something that is not in conflict with but is actually a part of her faith-in-action she moves the argument away from the common opposition of science-versus-religion and allows for a union of the two.

Dr. Hayhoe’s statement is reminiscent of the views described by Lara Deeb in her study of Shi’i Lebanese Muslim women as they re-imagined a pious ideology of modernity and progress. In her book An Enchanted Modern, Deeb points out that the women with whom she spoke did not view material and spiritual progress as inherently separate but rather viewed them as complementary (2006 p18). By making science a tool of religious action these women were able to weave together modern aspirations within the framework of their social and religious environments.

Both Deeb and Hayhoe open one to the sense that religion and science could be allies rather than enemies. Further, there is a small but active subset of Evangelicals who explicitly tie their faith to environmental stewardship, a view that is embodied in a group called the Evangelical Environmental Network. Yet, surveys suggest that such a perspective is not yet common among US Evangelicals. Further, it is worth noting that while Katherine Hayhoe is a lifelong Evangelical and is currently a US citizen she was born and raised in Canada. This raises the question of whether there is something specifically about Evangelical Christianity in the US that propagates a division between science and faith.

Having observed the sharp contrast between how Katherine Hayhoe and Randall Terry view the causes of climate change and their responses, it is clear that there is no single unified view among Evangelicals on the matter. However, I think that there is a second and connected aspect to climate change and Evangelicalism that is worth exploring. How do Evangelicals relate to the immediate threat of severe weather that is caused or worsened by climate change? In response to this question, I found one theme frequently repeated. This was the idea that through faithful prayer, Christians could induce God to protect people and places that lay in the path of hurricanes or other climate-related threats.

One example of this sort of prayer for intercession featured prominently in Christian media as hurricane Florence barreled towards the Carolinas. Televangelist Pat Roberston used cable television and Facebook to call for Evangelical Christians to aid him in “declar(ing) a shield of protection over those innocent people in the path of this hurricane,”.  Additionally, a non-profit group called Intercessors for America (IFA) rallied Christians via social media to pray together for those in the path of hurricane Florence.

The IFA was perhaps more pragmatic than Robertson as they focused their prayers not only on requests for God’s protection but also on hopes that people in the hurricane’s path would  “…take the appropriate safety precautions.” Still, what both of these responses had in common was the desire to decrease people’s fear and uncertainty around events over which they have no immediate earthly control. By calling on God’s direct intervention, surely the stress and anxiety of an impending natural disaster would seem more bearable to believers. Further, such petitioners might have felt that they could at least do something useful in an otherwise overwhelming situation.

It struck me that this sort of response might even seem more attractive if one does not believe that climate change is caused by human actions. If one believes that hurricanes are completely random natural occurrences or perhaps caused by the devil or some evil force then the only control one could exert over the situation would be through supernatural aid. Further, such a response would seem in keeping with Malinowski’s observations regarding the use of magic by Trobriand Islanders.

Malinowski viewed magic as a means for people to ease their anxiety in situations of great uncertainty. Where the Trobriand Islanders were concerned with the vicissitudes of a life based on sea-travel, Pat Robertson’s followers and other prayer-groups sought a sense of control in the face of an unpredictable hurricane. Again, it is inaccurate to say simplistically that these responses are identical, but I think that it is fair to assert that the same dynamics of uncertainty and comfort are at play in both cases.

Another thing that struck me while reading through posts by these prayer groups is that there is a difference between having an explanation for something and actually being able to predict or control it. If humans were satisfied with logical explanations then people might be satisfied with science. Hurricanes and tornadoes, however, are perfectly explainable yet they behave unpredictably and are uncontrollable by earthly forces. This may be, in part, why the explanations that have been put forth by climate scientists are unsatisfactory to so many.

As I struggled to better understand the links between Evangelical faith and climate science I stumbled across yet another response to climate change that does not fall neatly under the rubric of magic or science. I found this to be one of the most perplexing faith-based responses to a climactic crisis because it struck me as both deeply inspiring and seriously problematic.

As I skimmed Christian news outlets looking for pieces on climate change I found an article about a North Carolina pastor and his family who chose to remain in their church as hurricane Florence approached. They believed that by doing this they would be able to more quickly render aid to people in the area once the hurricane had passed. While this might sound ill-advised in light of evacuation orders for their area, according to the article their building was actually constructed to withstand hurricanes and was situated at a high enough elevation to make flooding unlikely. What makes this particular story compelling is the reasoning behind why this family chose to stay. The pastor, Mike Ashcroft, was quoted to say that “Whether the hurricane’s a 4 and it knocks our house down, or it’s a 1 and I just have to clean up debris, my own internal world is theoretically the same,”. I found this statement enlightening in the context of this larger story of faith and responses to crises.

Pastor Ashcroft’s belief that he could transcend whatever earthly trials he faced through his faith in God is deeply appealing. It expresses both an acceptance of the reality of the threat while reflecting a worldview that makes external threats essentially inconsequential. Further, it demonstrates the ways in which religion can bring out selfless behavior in people. Yet, it also presents a difficult question for Evangelical Christianity. If a person’s role is simply to accept whatever occurs and know that it cannot harm one’s soul then how can one cultivate a sense of duty sufficient to make the kinds of earthly changes that might prevent catastrophes?

This tension brings to mind the view of religion put forth by the economist Karl Marx. Marx famously referred to religion as the “opiate of the masses.” By that, he meant that religion makes the hardships of the working poor more bearable. Yet the soothing effects of religion, according to Marx, can be problematic when they result in a lack of motivation for revolutionary change.

The Ashcroft’s serene faith in the face of uncertainty is admirable. Yet, could the kind of faith that they embody prevent Evangelicals from insisting on the kinds of policy changes that could reverse the human causes of climate change? Or, can faithful acceptance coexist with pious environmental stewardship of the kind that Dr. Hayhoe espouses?

 

As I considered the many ways that Evangelical Christians engage with climate change I found myself returning to the question of why so many in the United States are opposed to climate science. In fact, even Katherine Hayhoe is originally from Canada. Is nationality a larger determinant in climate science denial than religion? If so, then what is it about the United States Evangelical community specifically that finds itself threatened by climate science?

As I searched for studies that might shed light on this issue I found a fascinating ethnography of Scottish fisherman in a remote Scottish village called Gamrie. This article by Joseph Webster is entitled “The Eschatology of Global Warming in a Scottish Fishing Village” and explores the widespread denial of climate science in the town. The villagers of Gamrie deny climate science despite the disproportionate impact of climate change on their economic livelihood due to their reliance on marine ecosystems as well as their village’s vulnerability to severe weather. Webster’s article details the religious, cultural, and economic factors that feed into local beliefs and notes the local belief that while the end times are near that they are not being brought about by anthropogenic climate change but rather are signs of Christ’s imminent return.

Webster found that a general religiosity permeated the village, especially Evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity. Yet, he believed that their faith was not the sole cause of their denial of climate science or their beliefs about the coming apocalypse. Rather, their religious beliefs were essentially the language through which they expressed and interpreted the daily struggles and uncertainties that they faced which sprang from economic and bureaucratic burdens. Further, while some of these hardships were inherent to fishing, many of their struggles were caused or exacerbated by EU regulations.

The laws imposed by EU bureaucrats in Belgium were felt to be not only out-of-touch or annoying but were literally seen as tools of the devil. As a brief example of how they came to this conclusion consider the impact of EU regulations related to fish quotas. The fishermen were sometimes forced to throw back already dead fish when one of their nets accidentally exceeded EU regulations for a certain kind of catch. Further, the fishermen were sometimes required to allow EU regulators to dye their fish red as an indicator that it should be sold below the standard price in keeping with trade regulations. The combination of wasted fish, lost income, and the cultural association of the color red with Satan led many of the fishermen to quite literally associate EU bureaucracy with the devil.

Further, according to Webster, the fishermen of Gamrie viewed the more hyperbolic rhetoric from environmentalists as a threat for deeper theological reasons. They viewed the dire warnings from climate scientists as a counter-narrative of the apocalypse that threatened their own beliefs about the end-times. Climate scientists, according to the fishermen, want to replace God’s will as the causative force in nature with an explanation based on human behavior. Indeed, a feature story in The Guardian entitled “Hellfire” that connects climate change to the forest fires in California shows that the fishermen’s view of environmentalism as a form of eschatology is not far-fetched. Additionally, the Gamrie fishermen felt that climate science attempts to replace God’s salvation with science-based solutions. Thus both causation and salvation, which should be seen as divine, are replaced by environmentalists with a human-centric worldview.

While Webster’s account certainly held a resonance for me with the kinds of anti-climate-science rhetoric that I have heard from family and friends, I was unsure how much it could apply to the Evangelical community in the US. Do economic and bureaucratic forces impact the Evangelical community here as in Gamrie? One study does hint at a possible similarity.

In an article published in 2018 and entitled “Insights on Environmental Attitudes Could Help Lessen Urban-Rural Divide“, Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment investigated the causes of climate science denial among rural US citizens. A prime issue that they identified was that rural Americans believed they were disproportionately and negatively impacted by environmental regulations while they were simultaneously underrepresented in legislatures. This is a very similar dynamic to what Webster described in Gamrie and surely points to a source of distrust between outside authorities and rural US citizens.

Nonetheless, the study from Duke is far from conclusive. While Evangelicals are more likely to be from Southern and Midwestern states which have larger rural populations the Duke study did not look directly at religious beliefs and environmental views. Further, while the Duke study uncovered a similar political dynamic to the one described in Gamrie it did not directly address religious ideology at all. In short, the Duke study taken together with Webster’s work suggests that a deep dive into the complex interconnections between religious views, geographic distribution, economic forces, and political pressures among Christian Evangelicals and climate science skeptics more broadly is called for. Additionally, the Duke study’s failure to investigate a link between people’s religious views and their views on climate change may indicate a general discomfort in the US with seeing religious and secular issues as intertwined. This suggests an area for improvement in future studies.

In Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, Mircea Eliade noted the “multivalent” aspects of religious symbols. By “multivalent”  he meant that such symbols can have different, even opposing meanings not only for different people at different times but also for the same person at the same time. Similarly, the variety of ways in which Christian Evangelicals engage with the threat of climate change points to the ways in which an apparently homogeneous worldview actually allows for a wide variety of responses.

Although often portrayed as homogeneous by the media and politicians, Evangelical Christians interpret and express their shared beliefs in a variety of ways. Additionally, the expressions of faith seem to vary in response to a variety of sometimes “secular” factors. Further, rather than being irrational, their beliefs tend to have an internal logic and often some practical utility. And it is possible for Evangelical Christians to express their faith through environmental action that is informed by science.

As Katherine Hayhoe’s work demonstrates, it is not helpful or necessary to argue against Evangelical Christianity in order to make progress on climate change. Rather than leaving faith out of environmental messages, an appeal to certain aspects of people’s religious beliefs about stewardship and benevolence may be a more effective way to engage with religious communities. And, it is clear that dismissing religious practices as superstitious is misguided since such assertions will only push Christians away. However, Evangelical Christians frequently express doubts about climate science even though such doubts are not an inevitable result of their religiosity. We should look for what does motivate their doubt outside of their faith.

While I have found some roots of climate science denial among US Evangelicals in historical, economic, and psycho-social dynamics there is much more I have not had the opportunity to fully explore. For instance, I have not touched on the ways that messaging from the petroleum industry through political ads and social media has targeted Evangelicals or what impact this may have had. Further, information about the geographical distribution of Evangelicals in the US would be helpful in better understanding the connections between political, economic, and social factors. Finally, the greatest limitation is that, while I was raised as an Evangelical and therefore have many relatives in that community, I have not had the chance to interview or spend time in the broader community of Evangelical Christians to understand how they relate climate change to their faith and vice versa.

Despite these constraints, this project has helped me to understand one of the core paradoxes of religion in general. This is that while religious faith deeply shapes the ways that we interpret the world, our experiences and expressions of faith are constantly renegotiated and re-imagined. Further, through this project, I have found that historic, economic, and social factors influence the ways that individuals and groups experience and express their faith. Finally, it has shown me that any meaningful study of religion must acknowledge that science, religion, politics, and economics are inextricably intertwined.