Through the Flaming Sword

Climate change clearly poses an apocalyptic threat to human life and civilization, to all of God’s other creatures, and perhaps even to the entire biosphere of planet earth. In their responses to this challenge, Christian communities pose their own threat to our future as a species. Well, “Christian communities” is perhaps too general an indictment. But I have come across a study that describes the threat posed by two such communities in North America and I fear that they do in fact represent a much broader swath of Christendom that we might want to admit. I think—I hope—that Quakers have a role here.

In 2018, Bernard Daley Zaleha published “Dissertation—A Tale of Two Christianities: the Religiopolitical Clash Over Climate Change Within America’s Dominant Religion.” The two communities Zaleha studied were “a fundamentalist confederation of churches,” the Calvary Chapels in Arizona, and “liberal congregations affiliated with The Center of Progressive Christianity,” mostly United Church of Christ and Episcopalian, based in California.

Here’s his summary from the paper’s extract:

I found substantial indifference or outright hostility to environmental concerns and climate mitigation at all of my Calvary Chapel sites, due especially to intense apocalyptic expectation of imminent rapture. Other factors included belief in sovereignty of God (the idea that the Christian God causes and controls all events), a tendency toward collective narcissism, and a susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Progressive congregations were open to environmental concerns, talked about their importance, but ultimately were minimally involved. Social justice issues and the immediate needs of the homeless, immigrants, minority communities, and advocating for LGBTQ equality and against systemic injustice in most cases took precedence.

In the following posts, I want to explore this failure and a possible Quaker contribution in greater detail.