These days, you can’t find a religious institution that isn’t weighing in on climate change. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but there have been quite a few religious leaders using the Sunday pulpit and the Saturday beemah to talk about climate change. And it is threatening the unity of some organizations, like the current debate within the Southern Baptist Church on how bold a position this evangelical church with 16 million congregants should take on climate change. To be honest, the Southern Baptists were already having some issues of unity, but recently, 45 church leaders, led by the 25 year old son of a former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, denounced the denomination as “too timid” on environmental issues. This is causing other Southern Baptist leaders to come out and question the reality of climate change. Last I checked, the church doesn’t believe the science of evolution, so props to those 45 leaders for their incredibly bold position on both the environment and science.
And other religious institutions are getting in on the action. There is the Evangelical Environmental Network that provides information on climate change “as a Christian challenge and opportunity”. The Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals is a self-identified environmentalist. Even several mega churches that formerly focused solely on gay marriage, abortion and conservative politics are taking a much less politically dogmatic stand on the climate and asking their parishioners to take action. And let’s not forget, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life has been around since 1993 and has organized a number of campaigns around climate change.
The Vatican, not to be outdone by those pesky heretics, went ahead and made pollution a sin, along with drugs, genetic manipulation and social injustice. The Pontiff’s engineers are even looking into using solar energy for buildings in the Holy See, including the auditorium of pilgrim’s audiences with the Pope (I just like putting the words solar energy and Holy See in the same sentence!). It is interesting to note that for many decades, Jesuit priests that talked about social justice issues were reprimanded by the papacy; in fact, this was part of Benedict’s job before he became pope. Amazing how things change.
And in more from the not to be outdone files, on Monday, indigenous leaders from the U.S., Canada and Mexico met near the Mayan pyramids for a pre-dawn ceremony to cleanse and ask forgiveness from the earth. The mission, in part, was to demonstrate how some of the indigenous culture can help restore balance to the world and teach people about conservation. Take that you Christians and Jews!
But the grand daddy of them all, the first to take a bold position on the environment, was the church of reason, also known as science. Those of us that are ambivalent or down right skeptical about religion have often looked to science to make sense of the world. And the science on our treatment of the environment and its repercussions has been clear for a while, as has our knowledge that we have an obligation to do something about it. But rather than gloat, we welcome these new comers into the fold. Environmentalism is a big tent. Amen for that.
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