A lot of conservatives are saying,“liberals are wrong for saying that global warming is human-caused”. From this we might infer that they, unlike a lot of other conservatives, agree that GW is happening, but that it’s out of out hands.
So I’m wondering how many churches are directing their parishoners use prayer to stop it. After all, I understand that a lot of churches have been praying to stop abortion and to address other issues (have they been praying to stop gay marriage?). You’d think that this is just the kind of issue that would compel religious folks to beseech the Almighty for help.
So as not to conflate conservatism with Christianity, how are churches of various denominations addressing the issue of climate change, spirituality-wise?
In my area, the mainstream churches are conservative and Calvinist. And they basically are preaching from the pulpit that there is no problem, just a false crisis raised by the liberals to help continue the overthrow of God in this country.
You have to travel about 30 miles away to find any liberal faiths that consider global warming, man-made or not, to be a concern.
That’s anecdotal and very regional, but that’s what I see in my local community.
It hasn’t come up as a topic at our church. We always pray for the world as a whole and for the well being of all people, but haven’t directly addressed things like global warming, deforestatin, etc. FWIW, we are Catholic and our parish is fairly open and progressive.
Last year’s Earth Day sermon seemed like an infomercial for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. This year, it was a bit more subdued, but certainly plenty of mention of global warming as well as environmental issues.
The Christmas service I attended at St. Martin in the Fields in London had a strong environmental theme, and while I don’t recall if people were specifically asked to pray to stop global warming, the service ended by wishing the congregation a “safe, happy and eco-friendly Christmas” (emphasis as rendered).
One more anecdote; not sure how many you need before they become data.
I read a fairly recent newspaper article in which the born-again journalist averred that global warming was all a pinko con because in Genesis God promised Noah that there wouldn’t be no more big floods, nosirree Bob, ergo the poles couldn’t melt, sea-levels couldn’t rise and that it was practically our Christian duty to all drive giant-arse cars and pollute like motherfuckers as an affirmation of our faith in God’s covenant with Noah. Sometimes I weep for our species.
My parish Back Home is Capuchins, a branch of the Franciscans. So they’d be proud tree-huggers if they weren’t too busy quoting Star Wars and Princess Bride to waste time with pride.
Never seen one of them tell the congregation to “pray to stop global warming,” but I’ve seen them plenty of times telling the congregation to “ask yourself what you can do to stop global warming - and then do it!” Heck, one of the current priests finished his first Mass in town by wishing people “Godspeed and don’t overdo that air conditioning” after the final blessing. People were saying “got a live one this time!” as they left that Mass.
The Jesuits, which is the other “big” congregation in town, tend to be even more direct. They don’t tell people to wonder… they’ve been known to quote the DOT’s statistics on mileage at different speeds from the pulpit
Long before Global Warning was the TTTA (Thing To Talk About), the parish I attended prayed every week for the environment and our inclination to protect it. We also prayed for our politicians, so that they did the right thing. You can see that as praying against gay marriage if you want, I guess.
Good responses, everyone. Pretty much what I expected. It’s always interesting to see what various religious groups do and do not emphasize. (Another question might be if there are churches that are praying for American troops, but not world peace.)
But what I’m really getting at is, of those groups that deny that GW is human-caused but agree that it’s happening, how many of them are taking it seriously enough that they would call upon the power of prayer to fight it?
I don’t know that the Episcopal Church in America has an official take on global warming; if it did, it probably would be something along the lines of good stewardship directs us to be as green as possible, something like that. Our little mission is pretty pro-green; the vicar strongly urges recycling and we have some members who are very ecology-minded. The pastor of the local Baptist Church now drives a Prius, but my non-fact-based assumption, just knowing what I know about him, is that he’s more interested in saving dollars than saving the environment.
I have not been directed to do so by my Church but since you brought it up I think I will make room in my daily prayers to do so. Although many people seem to believe it is not happening I am seeing signs of it every where in the environment . Thanks for the heads up.
Changes to what I believe are part of the natural processes of the earth as created by God
Things which I can get myself. I don’t pray for more money, a healthier life, better relationships, or et cetera. I have a responsibility to do those things myself, and I’m capable of it.
I believe “global warming” as it were, is part natural and part human influenced, when it comes to the natural part I believe we have to learn to adapt, and for the human influenced part we have to learn how to change our societies in such a way as to minimize our contribution to the system. The earth is going to get warmer whether or not we produce any greenhouse gases, the earth is going to some day get colder regardless of that, too. I believe we should try our best to not get too heavily involved in the process either way, by limited emissions and slowly cutting them down.
That’s a total non sequitur from the journalist. There’s little evidence that the rise in sea levels will equate to anything like a biblical flood, it’ll be a gradual rising of the water line, not some crazy deluge as seen in Hollywood or the Old Testament.
BTW, the United Church of Canada is also fairly intense on the ecology front. A woman from my parents’ church gave me a pamphlet on it… when I met her tabling for LGBT Affirm United at Trans Pride Day.
I own some future seaside property near Bakersfield, so I’m for it. And just like my milk deliveries, I use e-mail for theologic entreaties. God@hotmail.com
