By Dr. Debra Rienstra
Professor of English
Calvin University
For about six years now, I’ve been talking with all kinds of people about their frustration with the church’s sluggishness on climate action. I’ve talked with young people, clergy, activists, science colleagues, and regular layfolk who are bewildered and angry: Why aren’t Christians more concerned about the climate crisis—about environmental injustice, species extinction, food insecurity, damages from extreme weather and fire, threats to national security and so on and so on. Why don’t Christians seem to care?
Of course, those are big, general, impressionistic observations. What is “the church” we’re talking about here, and what do we mean by “addressing the climate crisis”? Depending on which corners of the church you hang around in, you might notice anything from heavy-duty activism to climate denial. So I’ve been wishing for a long time for hard data. What are the numbers on what actual church people are actually doing and thinking about climate?
Well, hooray for the Pew Research Center. They conducted a study in April of 2022 and released the results on November 17. The whole report is worth reading through carefully, but I will sum up a few things here. The findings, unfortunately, confirm the impressionistic frustrations I’ve been hearing—and feeling myself. Bottom line: In the US, religion overall actually seems to get in the way of taking climate change seriously or engaging in anything more than small, personal actions.
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