Is God green? : emerging environmentalism in the evangelical community

Abstract

In recent months, evangelical environmentalism has been the subject of much media coverage and debate. The central questions are whether evangelical environmentalists could be potential allies for the mainstream environmental movement, and what impact pro-environment evangelicals might have on politics. I argue that evangelical environmentalists do not seek alliances with the mainstream environmental movement because the perception in the wider evangelical community is that environmentalism is liberal and un-Christian. This perception is the result of a confluence of theological, political, and cultural developments that have taken place over the past 30 years. As a result, the leaders of evangelical environmentalism do not want to risk forming coalitions with civic or political groups that would alienate members of their own political and religious communities. Instead, they work from within their own religious community to reframe environmentalism as a Christian duty, and they seek to change the Republican Party's stance towards environmentalism to align with their own.