Rev Relig Res (2014) 56:373–397

DOI 10.1007/s13644-014-0153-6

ORIGINAL PAPER

How Evangelicals from Two Churches in the American

Southwest Frame Their Relationship
with the Environment

Jared L. Peifer • Elaine Howard Ecklund •

Cara Fullerton

Received: 29 May 2013 / Accepted: 6 February 2014 / Published online: 28 February 2014
 Religious Research Association, Inc. 2014

Abstract In this article, we analyze the ways in which Evangelicals frame a

rhetoric of environmental concern and environmental apathy, with a larger focus on
the latter. Heeding calls to further explore within-Evangelical differences, we
compare environmental narratives of 20 leaders and laity of a predominantly white
Southern Baptist congregation and 20 leaders and laity from an African American
Baptist church, both located in a Southwestern American city. We find, especially
on the topic of climate change, that most Evangelicals in our study readily evince
environmental apathy, which we explore in depth. In particular, we find a belief in a
rigid hierarchy of God, humans, and then the environment; a belief in the sover-
eignty of God; and evangelical eschatological beliefs help generate narratives of
environmental apathy. There are different environmental narratives, between the
two congregations, that are framed in terms of political affiliation and socioeco-
nomic status. But we find little evidence to suggest that religious beliefs foster
different environmental attitudes across the two congregations. We conclude with
future research directions and implications for those who wish to foster environ-
mental concern among Evangelicals.

Keywords Environmentalism
Evangelicals
Religion
Race
Stewardship

Introduction

A haze of environmental distress looms over our modern world. A 2007

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Gupta et al. 2007) and a similar

J. L. Peifer (&)
Baruch College, One Bernard Baruch Way, New York, NY 10010, USA
e-mail: jpeifer@baruch.cuny.edu

E. H. Ecklund
C. Fullerton
Department of Sociology, Rice University, 6100 Main MS-28, Houston, TX 77005, USA

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report on climate change authored by the Royal Society (2010) synthesize where
consensus does and does not exist among scientists about the presence and extent of
climate change. Both documents stress that the state of the natural environment is a
pressing public concern, which demands immediate attention. There is a strident
debate swirling around these claims, however, among the American public.
With most scientists sounding the alarm of environmental degradation, it is
important to consider how individuals outside the scientific community respond.
While religion may be viewed as a force that conserves the status quo, it can also
spur societal change (Nepstad and Williams 2007) and indeed, there is a growing
body of research that links religion both to environmental apathy and concern (Boyd
1999; Djupe and Hunt 2009; Eckberg and Blocker 1996; Ellingson et al. 2012; Hand
and Van Liere 1984; Kanagy and Nelsen 1995; Sherkat and Ellison 2007; Truelove
and Joireman 2009).
Evangelicals are an important case for examining the relationship between
religious identity and environmental concern. They comprise a substantial portion
of the American public (Hackett and Lindsay 2008) and have frequently expressed
attitudes of environmental apathy (Boyd 1999; Eckberg and Blocker 1996; Hand
and Van Liere 1984; Sherkat and Ellison 2007). If meaningful strides are to be made
in the struggle to save the environment, it is important to focus on this sizable
segment of American society. We therefore analyze qualitative interview data to
answer the following research question: What narratives do Evangelicals from two
different congregations use to frame their relationship with the natural environ-
ment? There is growing evidence that progressive evangelical leaders are becoming
interested in issues of environmental concern (Danielsen 2013; Djupe and Gwiasda
2010; Kintisch 2006; Wilkinson 2012). But on the whole, and especially when
prompted to think about climate change, we find that evangelical leaders and laity
from the two congregations in our study readily expound a rhetoric of environ-
mental apathy, which we explore in depth.
Heeding calls to further explore within Evangelical differences (Danielsen 2013;
Farrell 2011; Smith and Johnson 2010), we analyze twenty interviews from
respondents who attend a predominately white Southern Baptist congregation and
twenty interviews from members of an African American Baptist congregation.
Through this qualitative analysis, we gain insight into how Evangelicals frame their
environmental concern and their environmental apathy. Our qualitative approach to
Evangelicalism and the environment advances existing sociological research, which
tends to rely on standardized ways of measuring religious beliefs (e.g., biblical
inerrancy). Through speaking with evangelical leaders and laity, we uncover richer
detail regarding the various evangelical beliefs that tend to foster environmental
apathy. It is important to note that our findings are not intended to generalize to all
American Evangelicals; rather we focus on two strategically chosen congregations
in order to better understand the various ways Evangelicals might frame their
relationship with the environment and to make comparisons across racial, political
and class dimensions within Evangelicalism. This approach helps structure a
research agenda examining the relationship between religious identities and
environmental care. We find a belief in a rigid hierarchy of God, then humans,
and then the environment; a belief in the sovereignty of God; and evangelical

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eschatology (beliefs about the end of the world) help generate narratives of
environmental apathy. There are differences between the two congregations in
environmental attitudes that appear to stem from political affiliation and socioeco-
nomic status (SES). But we find little evidence to suggest that religious beliefs
foster different environmental attitudes across the two congregations. We conclude
with implications that will aid policy makers and thought leaders in more effectively
encouraging Evangelicals to embrace environmental concern.

Literature Review

Religion and the Environmental

A substantial portion of research among environmental sociologists focuses on

individual attitudes regarding the natural environment (Buttel 1987). Here we use
Dunlap and Jones’s (2002) definition of environmental concern as ‘‘the degree to
which people are aware of problems regarding the environment and support efforts
to solve them and/or indicate a willingness to contribute personally to their
solution’’ (p. 485). We will refer to low levels or a lack of environmental concern as
environmental apathy. There are between 700–800 published studies (mostly
quantitative) that address environmental concern (Dunlap and Jones 2002). This
research tends to focus on the impact of familiar demographic factors, such as race,
SES and political orientation on attitudes towards the environment. There is
growing interest, however, in religious identity, beliefs and practices as important
predictors of environmental concern.
In his seminal article, historian Lynn White (1967) suggests, ‘‘What people do
about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to
things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our
nature and destiny—that is, by religion’’ (p. 1205). More specifically, White argues,
Western Christianity’s theological beliefs in human dominion over nature and the
distinction Christianity makes between humans (made in God’s image) and the rest
of creation are partially responsible for fostering an ecological crisis.
Some sociologists have argued that religious beliefs shape environmental care.
Early studies emphasize White’s proposed ‘‘dominion over nature’’ or ‘‘mastery
over nature’’ beliefs. Some studies find such beliefs are predictive of environmental
apathy (Hand and Van Liere 1984) while others generate more mixed evidence
(Woodrum and Hoban 1994). Greeley (1993) finds Christians with ‘‘rigid morality,’’
such as a belief that ‘‘those who violate God’s rules must be punished’’ (p. 25) tend
to resist environmental concern. With strong assumptions that religious beliefs lead
to predictable behavioral outcomes, Curry-Roper (1990) analyzes ‘‘Christian views
of the future in terms of their own inner consistency’’ (p. 158) by outlining the
implications of dispensationalism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism for
environmental concern. Pointing away from environmental apathy and toward
environmental concern, other studies emphasize the theological importance of
stewardship (Boyd 1999; Kanagy and Nelsen 1995; Kanagy and Willits 1993;
Kearns 1996; Shaiko 1987; Shibley and Wiggins 1997). A religious version of

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stewardship can be defined as the belief that everything, (including the earth),
belongs to God and humans must take good care of things (Payton and Moody
2004). Similarly, Tarakeshwar et al. (2001) find that the theological belief that
nature itself is a transcendent, holy object is predictive of greater environmentally
supportive behaviors among Presbyterian U.S.A. elders and clergy.
While the majority of our forthcoming analysis follows the existing literature’s
focus on religious beliefs, we will also consider the importance of political
affiliation, race and SES. Our selection of congregations for analysis, one
predominantly white Southern Baptist (predominantly Republican and of higher
SES) and one African American Baptist (predominantly Democrat and of lower
SES), provides useful fodder for comparative analysis on these important
dimensions.

Evangelicals and the Environment

Evangelicals are a particularly important group to study if we want to know how

religion frames narratives of and attitudes towards environmental care. As we will
discuss below, existing research suggests that Evangelicals tend to be environmen-
tally apathetic. And because Evangelicals make up a substantial portion of the
American population, shifting their opinions regarding the environment from apathy
to concern has the potential to make a big difference. Indeed, Evangelicals
frequently demonstrate their ability to coalesce around other social issues they deem
important, such as abortion (Hoover and den Dulk 2004; Shields 2009), AIDS in
Africa (Burkhalter 2004; Hearn 2002), sex trafficking (Bernstein 2007; Fitzgerald
2011) and the protection of traditional (i.e., heterosexual) marriage (Campbell and
Monson 2008).
It is important to clearly define the religious tradition this article focuses on.
Among sociologists of religion, Evangelicalism is defined in roughly three ways:
membership in a denomination that is considered Evangelical, self-identification as
an Evangelical, or by certain religious beliefs that characterize Evangelicalism.
Depending on which measurement (or combination of measurements) is used, the
proportion of Americans who are Evangelicals ranges from 5 to 50 % (Hackett and
Lindsay 2008). Due to the critical importance of beliefs in the literature on religion
and the environment (as exemplified by the Lynn White thesis), we define
Evangelicalism as belief in the following: ‘‘(1) that the Bible is the supreme
authority for religious belief and practice, (2) that he or she has a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ, and (3) that one should take a transforming, activist
approach to faith’’ (Lindsay 2007:4). Because both congregations in our study share
these evangelical beliefs in common, we consider members of the Southern Baptist
congregation and the African American Baptist church to be Evangelicals.
Therefore, subsequent mention of ‘‘African American Baptist’’ in this article
should be interpreted as members of a congregation that espouses Evangelical
beliefs and the same goes for Southern Baptist. It is acknowledged that, were we to
take Steensland et al.’s (2000) denominational approach to measuring religious
affiliation, respondents from the African American Baptist church would be
considered ‘‘Black Protestant’’ instead of Evangelical. Therefore, our approach

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accents the theological and denominational similarities between the two congre-
gations we study.
Recent research has emphasized that Evangelicals are not a homogenous group.
Farrell (2011) finds younger evangelicals are becoming more liberal than older
evangelicals across a variety of attitudes. More specifically, Smith and Johnson
(2010) find evangelical youth are more concerned about the environment. Recent
research on Evangelical elites highlights within-tradition differences in regards to
environmental attitudes (Wilkinson 2012; Danielsen 2013). Without exposing a
specific demographic fault line, these studies call for increased scholarly attention to
variance on important social attitudes within the evangelical tradition.
Acknowledging that we cannot capture each and every dimension of American
Evangelicalism, this article is the first that we know of that focuses on the role of
religion in shaping narratives about environmental concern across the important
social fault lines within Evangelicalism of race and SES. To help interpret our
findings on race and SES, we will borrow Mohai and Bryant’s (1998) varied
explanations for how race and SES relate to environmentalism. We also consider
political affiliation differences within Evangelicalism. Namely, numerous studies
find the more ‘‘liberal’’ an individual’s political ideology, the more environmental
concern (Coan and Holman 2008; Dietz et al. 2007; Jacques et al. 2008; Konisky
et al. 2008; Mohai and Bryant 1998). This is important, because we know that White
Southern Baptists are typically aligned with Republican politics (Green 2010).
Borrowing the three ways Evangelicals are typically defined (i.e., denominational
affiliation, identification and beliefs) we survey how existing literature relates
Evangelicalism with the environment, keeping in mind that this literature does not
use a consistent operationalization of the Evangelical category. For instance, some
studies focus on membership in conservative (Hand and Van Liere 1984) or
fundamentalist (Boyd 1999; Eckberg and Blocker 1996) denominations, generally
finding greater environmental apathy. For example, Boyd (1999) borrows the
National Opinion Research Center’s classification scheme of fundamentalist
denominations and finds those members ‘‘were significantly less likely to perceive
pollutants as posing danger to the environment than were members of moderate or
liberal traditions. The same was true of frequency of environmental behaviors;
fundamentalists participated in green behaviors less frequently than did moderates
and liberals’’ (p. 42).
In their survey analysis, Kanagy and Nelsen (1995) allow individuals to self-
identify as Evangelical. By this measure, they find Evangelicals are less likely to
support federal spending to protect the environment. Evangelical identity is
unassociated, however, with support for relaxation of environmental controls and
self-identification as an ‘‘environmentalist.’’ Smith and Leiserowitz (2013) find
those who self-identify as Evangelical are less likely to believe Global Warming is
happening, is caused by human activity, and are less worried about Global Warming
than those who do not identify as Evangelical. For instance, they find 61 % of
Evangelicals think Global Warming is happening, while 78 % of Non-Evangelicals
think so.
Many studies that focus on particular religious beliefs (e.g., biblical literalism)
are germane to our focus on Evangelicals. In their study on Tulsa, Oklahoma

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residents, Eckberg and Blocker (1989) find a belief in biblical literalism is

negatively correlated with multiple environmental concern outcomes. Sherkat and
Ellison (2007) find that biblical inerrantists are ‘‘less likely to involve themselves
with this-worldly political concerns over environmental issues’’ (p. 82). Truelove
and Joireman (2009) measure Christian orthodoxy from a 24-item measure that
assesses the extent to which people accept the central tenets of the Christian
religion. They find orthodox beliefs are negatively correlated with three different
measures of proenvironmental behavior. Guth et al. (1995) find conservative
eschatology (i.e., ‘‘Biblical literalism and End Times thinking’’) to be the strongest
religious predictor of environmental apathy. In contrast to these studies that tend to
find biblical literalism leads to environmental apathy, Schultz et al. (2000) find
beliefs in Biblical literalism are positively associated with anthropocentric concerns
about the environment (i.e., environmental damage will decrease the quality of life
for all humans). Boyd (1999) finds no association between beliefs in biblical
literalism and environmental concern, after controlling for common demographic
measures.
In sum, we interpret the preceding literature on various instantiations of
Evangelicalism and the environment to tip the balance in favor of environmental
apathy. The bulk of the sociological research, however, has relied on survey data,
which are effective at demonstrating statistical associations, but less effective in
understanding how Evangelicals meaningfully perceive and interact with the natural
environment. In this article, we elucidate existing survey findings through in-depth
interviews with evangelical leaders and laity. Additionally, our inclusion of
evangelical congregations that differ in terms of race, political affiliation and class
status provides a unique opportunity to explore how individuals from two different
evangelical congregations might use such social location differences to frame their
interaction with the environment.

Data and Methodology

Selection of Congregations

Two Evangelical congregations in a major Southwestern city were selected for this
analysis; one predominantly white, middle-class Southern Baptist church and one
lower SES African American Baptist church. These congregations were deliberately
selected to enable a comparison of Evangelical congregations that vary by political
preference, race and SES. Both congregations fall under the Baptist family
umbrella, which accounts for 41 % of all Evangelical Protestants in the United
States (Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008). By focusing on a Southern
Baptist and African American Baptist congregation for this study, we favor a
‘‘religious belief’’ approach to operationalizing Evangelicalism. To be clear, this
means not every interview respondent would necessarily self-identify as an
Evangelical and not everyone would agree that their denomination should be labeled
Evangelical. But since both congregations place similar theological emphasis on the
Bible as the Word of God, a personal relationship with Jesus, and evangelism, both

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qualify as evangelical congregations (Hackett and Lindsay 2008; Smith et al. 1998).
Despite these important similar religious beliefs, it is acknowledged that the African
American Baptist congregation is Pentecostal and therefore places heightened
theological importance on the outward manifestation of the Holy Spirit. In other
words, we acknowledge that there are important theological differences between the
two congregations but also acknowledge that such differences exist amongst
Evangelicals more generally.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest evangelical denomination,
accounting for more than a quarter of membership in Evangelical Protestant
churches and nearly 7 % of the overall adult American population (Pew U.S.
Religious Landscape Survey 2008). We selected a large Southern Baptist
congregation, with about 5,000 people attending three services each Sunday. This
mega church is located in a middle-class, commercial region of the Southwestern
city and its congregants are primarily white. Such demographics make this
congregation typical of Southern Baptist congregations in the south.
The African American Baptist congregation is located in an impoverished area
(not far away) of the same city. With about 175 in attendance on an average Sunday,
the church shoulders an impressive array of outreach programs that provides social
services to their local community. Most respondents from this congregation are
African American and tend to be lower income and less educated than Southern
Baptist respondents. We stress that the lower SES context of this congregation
means this case study does not represent all African Americans, but is indicative of
many (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990).

Qualitative Interviews with Congregation Leaders and Laity

Data analyzed in this article derive from semi-structured qualitative interviews

(Strauss and Corbin 1990). After choosing these two congregations for the study, the
study’s Principal Investigator received permission from the congregational leaders
to study their churches. Participant observations were completed by six trained
researchers who, over the course of a year, attended a total of 59 services and church
events, which includes 12 services with sermons at the African American Baptist
church and 10 at the Southern Baptist church. These observations provide important
insight into the theological and social orientations of the respective congregations
and enabled researchers to more easily gain entrée into congregational life and make
contacts for interviews. Soon after each observation, a written report was produced
with a deliberate focus on the ways that science-related content was observed. Over
600 pages of participant observation notes were searched for any mention of the
environment, global warming or environment/human interaction more generally,
but nothing of importance was discovered. Therefore, we analyze our qualitative
interviews to address the research question at hand.
Four carefully trained interviewers conducted face-to-face interviews, normally
with one interviewer and one interviewee. All participant observations and
interviews took place between May 2011 and June 2012. The average interview
lasted 74 min. All interviews were recorded with informed consent from the
interviewee. Interviewers followed a formal interview script, but were free to

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deviate from the script as they saw fit. This allowed a certain degree of flexibility to
fully leverage the more open-ended nature of this qualitative research. The
following interview prompts generated the bulk of data we analyze in this article:
Does your faith tradition say anything about the environment? For example, the
kind of responsibilities Christians have to care for the earth? Does this affect how
you live?
What do you think about climate change? Do you think it is occurring? Why or
why not? In particular, do you think humans have a role in climate change? Why or
why not? How does your faith play into your thoughts on climate change, if at all?

Selection of Interviewees

In order to capture the full range of congregational life, researchers interviewed

leaders and laity in both congregations. While many interview respondents were
recommended by an existing interviewee, researchers intentionally sought out
respondents who were not acquainted with existing interviewees in order to enhance
the representative quality of our samples. Individual permission was received and
human subjects’ procedures reviewed for each respondent. Twenty interviews were
completed at the Southern Baptist Church and twenty at the African American
Baptist congregation, for a total of forty respondents. Of the Southern Baptist
respondents, there were seven women and thirteen men. Four of the thirteen men
were in leadership positions. The average age of the Southern Baptist congregation
respondents is thirty-three, and the age range was 19–76 years. The African
American congregation respondents included nine men and eleven women. Four
leaders (three men and one woman) were interviewed. The average age of the
African American Baptist respondents is fifty-four, with a range 22–79 years. The
disparity between the average age of respondents (thirty-three for the Southern
Baptist and fifty-four for African American Baptist) is roughly representative of
their respective congregational age demographics.

Analysis of Interview Data

All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and edited in preparation for analysis we
conducted to answer our central research question, which to reiterate is, what
narratives do Evangelicals from two different congregations use to frame their
relationship with the natural environment? One author culled all interview
transcriptions for data germane to our research question. Our research team
(including all authors on this paper) then systematically searched those data for
inductive patterns to emerge. Emergent themes were then discussed as a team to
ensure consistency, especially with team members that were participant observers.
We then decided to present these themes under the categories of environmental
concern or environmental apathy. To be clear, however, one respondent could utter
rhetoric of concern in one instance, and apathy in another.
In this study, we are fundamentally interested in the rhetoric or language
Evangelicals use when they are thinking about their relationship to the environment.
This type of analysis is appropriate, both theoretically and methodologically.

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Theoretically, using a cultural analysis means that we are particularly interested in

the way in which social actors make sense of their place in the world (Wuthnow
2011) and we are attentive to understanding the ways in which Evangelicals
articulate environmental concern and/or apathy. In addition, existing survey
research on determinants of environmental concern frequently analyzes individual
attitudes toward the environment, which may or may not perfectly correlate with an
individual’s behavior. We too focus on individual attitudes, but this study’s
qualitative design is well suited to glean more nuanced details than surveys are able
to.

Findings

A Rhetoric of Environmental Concern

Stewardship

Our research on Evangelicals and the environment warrant particular focus on a

concept that is important to both Christianity and Environmentalists: stewardship.
Stewardship has been recognized in the literature as an important theological belief
that is likely to generate environmental concern. Payton and Moody (2004) provide
a rich discussion of this important cultural concept, considering both its
etymological origins and its common usage. They define the Christian notion of
stewardship as the notion that ‘‘everything we have—and even the earth we
inhabit—belongs to God, and while we are permitted to use it we must take care to
use it well, and perhaps even to improve it’’ (p. 457). Despite its religious origins,
Payton and Moody (2004) suggest ‘‘the most prominent contemporary use of the
idea of stewardship…is in the modern environmental movement’’ (p. 459). Many
environmentalists have adopted a secular version of the concept of stewardship,
which ‘‘involves the recognition of our responsibility to maintain, and perhaps
improve, the natural world which we have inherited and which we will bequeath to
future generations’’ (p. 459).
Evangelicals freely used the concept of stewardship as they talked about caring
for the earth, creating rhetoric of environmental concern. A 42-year old African
American woman1 from the African American Baptist congregation said,
I feel obligated that it’s His creation, and He sent us here as stewards of His
creation. And so I believe that definitely, we should be caring for what He
created.
A single white man2 in his 30s that worked for a large oil company and attends
the Southern Baptist congregation quipped, ‘‘God created this world and made us
stewards of it, so we’re not supposed to screw it up. We’re stewards. Stewards take
care of things.’’

1
AAB_Int2, administrative assistant, conducted 6/12/11.
2
SBC_Int9, oil company employee, conducted 07/29/11.

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Evangelical respondents clearly emphasize that humans are responsible to God to

care for the natural environment. This accountability partner (i.e., God) led to a
theologically induced rhetoric of environmental concern. Notably, only one
respondent mentioned taking care of the earth for the sake of ‘‘future generations,’’
the accountability partner emphasized by a secular version of stewardship (Payton
and Moody 2004). An African American woman3 both alluded to her descendants
and acknowledged her responsibility to God. ‘‘I want my kids to understand, that …
we were made originally in the garden of Adam and Eve, that we were told to be
stewards of the earth. So He wants us to take care of the earth. It makes it better for
us, our children, our grandchildren, when we take care of it.’’
In sum, it is helpful to divide the concept of stewardship into two components,
how one should exercise individual responsibility to care for the earth and to whom
one is responsible. Evangelicals are finely attuned to the second component and
vividly perceive God as the entity to whom they are accountable. This allows them
to easily link their religious lives to the concept of stewardship, and environmental
concern more broadly.
‘‘I recycle’’ and ‘‘I don’t litter.’’ When it comes to emphasizing the component of
stewardship that deals with how one should exercise their responsibility, most
respondents offered concrete examples of recycling and ‘‘not littering.’’ The white
Southern Baptist oil company employee4 noted,
I like a plastic bottle to drink my Coke out of; that’s fine. I shouldn’t go throw
that plastic bottle in a river, because that’s irresponsible of me- I’m not being a
good steward of my environment. For me there’s nothing wrong with that
plastic bottle, because I can actually recycle it, and they can actually make
more plastic bottles out of it. So it’s a balance.
A 60-year old black man5 from the African American Baptist church and
employed by a printing company explained,
Oh yeah. Like plastic, we make sure that we recycle… Back in the day, I used
to dump oil in the backyard when I changed my oil in my car, but now I collect
it and I take it somewhere where they actually collect the oil instead of
dumping it out on the ground.
A white pre-med undergraduate6 from the Southern Baptist congregation stated:
But I do believe that it is our responsibility to take care of the earth, maybe not
to the extreme that some people take it, but I do feel like it’s important to
recycle, and it’s important to not throw things around and to take care of
pollution and things like that, because honestly, if God has created this earth,
then it’s not right for us to destroy it.

3
SBC_Int17, college lecturer, conducted 12/13/11.
4
SBC_Int9, oil company employee, conducted 07/29/11.
5
AAB_Int11, printing company employee, conducted 07/24/11.
6
SBC_Int12, undergraduate student, conducted 10/14/11.

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This woman sees recycling and not polluting as reasonable measures one ought to
take, but believes others take environmental concern to ‘‘the extreme.’’ This
represents a theme of moderation that came up in many interviews. In thinking
about environmental care, Evangelicals frequently found it important to avoid
extremism.
It is apparent that environmental campaigns to encourage recycling and
discourage littering have been effective among Evangelicals. They have accepted
both as legitimate, fostering a rhetoric of environmental concern. However,
extensive participant observations confirm that neither church had a formal
recycling program in their church building. A white pastor7 at the Southern Baptist
congregation acknowledged, ‘‘We as a church don’t even recycle. We as a staff do,
in our business office, but we don’t have recycling bins.’’ In these two
congregations, evangelical interest in recycling does not translate into an
organizational-level recycling program.

A Rhetoric of Environmental Apathy

Theological versions of stewardship and the importance of recycling and not

littering represent the two dominant ways that Evangelicals in our study are
amenable to environmental concern. We now consider a variety of ways that
evangelical theology leads to environmental apathy. Following the White (1967)
thesis, existing literature on religion and the environment has focused on belief in
Biblical literalism (an important tenant among Evangelicals) as especially important
in predicting attitudes toward the environment. It is possible that researchers have
overemphasized a belief in Biblical literalism at the expense of other theological
beliefs. Our qualitative analysis provides more nuanced understanding of how
Evangelicals connect a variety of theological beliefs with environmental apathy.

The Evangelical Hierarchy of God, Humankind and then Nature

In analyzing evangelical views on the environment, a rigid hierarchy clearly

emerged; God above humans and humans above the natural environment.
Respondents were particularly sensitive to two perceived breaches to this hierarchy.
One type of breach is the perceived elevation of the environment to an equal plane
with God and a second is the elevation of the environment above or on par with
humans.
A white 25-year old male8 from the Southern Baptist congregation cautioned that
the Earth must never be put above God.
I can take it too far and respect the earth more than it’s due. Kind of cease to
see it as God’s property and more of as God itself, which it’s not. Put it on a
pedestal too high.

7
SBC_Int1, church leader, conducted 05/14/11.
8
SBC_Int11, student in medical field, conducted 10/06/11.

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A white school teacher from the Southern Baptist congregation9 summed up his
notion of stewardship with,
…don’t worship the creation. Bob Dylan said it, ‘‘you’re gonna serve
something. You’re gonna serve somebody. It may be the devil and it may be
the Lord but you’re gonna serve somebody.’’ I think that worship is service
with affection attached. And I’ve seen people with so much affection and
emotion over environmental issues on both sides of it and I’m like, ‘‘You’ve
now fallen into the prophecy of Romans 1 that says that you will worship the
creation instead of the creator.’’
The perceived sin in elevating the natural environment to God-like status
dampens excitement for environmentalism among Evangelicals.
Further emphasizing the low status of the natural environmental, Evangelicals
also explained that humans should take precedence over the environment. A 31-year
old white Southern Baptist10 succinctly explained, ‘‘We should be stewards of this
earth, but I will also say that our love for fellow humans should be greater than our
love for the earth, because God cares more about them than this place that we live.’’
A white Southern Baptist church leader11 in his 20s was a newly minted father at
the time of his interview.
I…believe that the value of human life is higher than the value of a whale or a
species of monkey or something like that. It really makes me kind of upset
when you have those commercials for people to donate to… some sort of
environmental thing when somebody could be donating to give money
towards a starving child, or children with AIDS… So, I feel like there is a
higher value on human life than there is on the planet… once again, you get
those extremes. You get some people who are way out here, and they’re like,
‘‘I’m doing Earth Day, and I’m going to go plant trees,’’ and all this stuff.
Though to the other extreme where they’re like, ‘‘Hey, let’s go hunting and
kill everything that we can see.’’… So you have those extremes. But I’d say
the majority fall into that middle.
When pressed to give a practical example of his middle of the road approach, this
same respondent stumbled a bit.
Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, I really don’t. I guess it means taking
care of the things that we’ve been given. Like I said earlier, we talked about
stewardship. So, everything from the things that God has given us… As a
Christian, I’m not going to finish my food and throw the bag of trash out the
window of my car while I’m driving down the street… But for me it doesn’t
mean that I’m out raising money… to stop whaling, or something like that.
This respondent has a well-developed conception of how one might take
environmentalism to an extreme position, providing the examples of raising money
9
SBC_Int15, teacher, conducted 12/10/11.
10
SBC_Int9, oil company employee, conducted 07/28/11.
11
SBC_Int4, church leader, 06/22/11.

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to stop whaling, celebrating Earth Day and planting trees. In addition to clarifying
how the environment ought not to be prioritized, he provides a couple examples of
how humans ought to be prioritized (donate money to help starving children and
children with AIDS). Both examples demonstrate the importance of the evangelical
hierarchy. In contrast, the above exchange demonstrates the respondent has a harder
time coming up with a positive example of environmental stewardship. He
eventually falls back on the ‘‘do not litter’’ leitmotif. This exchange exemplifies how
a well-articulated version of an evangelical hierarchy (God, humans and then
nature) is easily accompanied by a rhetoric of environmental apathy, as the
environment is at the bottom of the totem pole. It seems one reason Evangelicals are
wary of environmentalism is that it is perceived to easily upend this sacred
hierarchy.
Many scholars have borrowed the language of dominion from Lynn White’s
seminal thesis (Hand and Van Liere 1984; Sherkat and Ellison 2007; Woodrum and
Hoban 1994). This evokes destructive images of environmental degradation. When
Evangelicals reference humans’ superior position over nature, however, they tend to
speak in terms of needy children taking priority over ‘‘Earth Day’’ or ‘‘planting
trees.’’ In other words, helpless humans should be first in line. This creates a
different image than ‘‘dominion’’ language tends to evoke.
Thus far in this article, we have reported responses that mainly stem from our
first interview question prompt about whether the respondent’s faith tradition says
anything about the environment. If our inquiry had stopped there, we would have
gleaned a mixed bag of environmental concern (via stewardship and recycling) and
environmental apathy (via the hierarchy of God, humans and then the environment).
Our questions about climate change, however, elicited additional theologically
motivated avenues leading toward environmental apathy. We now turn to responses
that tended to stem from the interview prompt on climate change.

God’s Sovereignty

In analyzing interview transcripts, evangelical belief in God’s sovereignty was

frequently raised. Sovereignty refers to a theological belief that God is in control of
earthly events and the everyday events of individuals. When prompted to think
about climate change, many Evangelicals articulated their theological belief in
God’s sovereignty.
A white 31 year-old member12 of the Southern Baptist church demonstrated his
ultimate trust in God’s control and command over the Earth.
God will take care of it. The other thing is, I believe God created all this, and
somehow, in 4,500 years…we haven’t destroyed this place yet. So God made
this pretty resilient; it bounces back pretty quickly. So that’d be my thinking,
just knowing that God’s there. He’s got this global warming thing under
control, so I don’t really need to- it doesn’t make me lose sleep, because God’s
got it.

12
SBC_Int9, oil company employee, conducted 07/29/11.

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The black printing company employee13 from the African American Baptist
church said,
The Earth has been here a long [respondent emphasis, drawn out] time. It’s
gone through a whole [respondent emphasis, drawn out] lot of change. There’s
going to be changes whether or not we affect the climate change by our
pollution and everything. I’m not a scientist or nothing to know if that’s really
true, but I just know that the Earth has gone through a lot of changes over the
years. Biblically… I don’t think that He will allow us to destroy the Earth. All
those type of things are in His hands and in His control.
A white dentistry student14 from the Southern Baptist church added, ‘‘I don’t
worry about it [climate change] too much because ultimately I think God’s in
control… Jesus calmed the wind and the waves; I think He can handle a few
degrees. So I’m not too worried about it.’’
Unlike Wilkinson (2012), who observed a distinct lack of attention on
eschatology among her evangelical focus groups, our discussions of climate change
frequently drew Evangelical attention to the apocalypse. Some Evangelicals
interpreted environmentalists and scientists to be espousing a secular version of End
Times, or more specifically, a doomsday scenario brought on by catastrophic
weather events caused by climate change. This raises an interesting question. How
do Evangelicals respond to these two apocalyptic scenarios; the theological version
centered on Christ’s return to earth and the environmentalist version of human-
caused catastrophe? Are they at odds or complementary? How does their
combination affect evangelical rhetoric about the environment? A white 25 year-
old congregant15 from the Southern Baptist church noted,
Do I think we need to go, ‘Oh my Lord, the world’s going to end tomorrow?’
No.
Interviewer: Does your faith or the Bible affect how you think about that?
Yeah, I think definitely when you’ve got people up there claiming it’s the end
of the world because of the climate change; I definitely look at my faith and
say, ‘‘No.’’ The Bible clearly says that we don’t know the hour nor the time,
referencing scripture, when Christ is going to return.
This respondent seemed to assume that climate change could not be a cause of
catastrophic earthly damage because environmentalists and scientists slapped on
predicted dates of its occurrence. Because the Bible ‘‘clearly says that we don’t
know the hour nor the time,’’ this respondent insinuates that predictions of
catastrophe must be wrong.
Others Evangelicals, however, took a more complementary view of this
doomsday scenario and their own version of it. A black 57-year old mother16 of
two from the African American Baptist church wondered aloud,
13
AAB_Int11, printing company employee, conducted 07/24/11.
14
SBC_Int11, student in medical field, conducted 10/06/11.
15
SBC_Int7, marketing, conducted 07/27/11.
16
AAB_Int3, retired, conducted 06,24/11.

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What’s happening that we’re having- like yesterday I heard on the news it’s
snowing in Denver in June. I mean why is that happening? I mean, you know
what I’m saying? Science plays a big role in that to me. You know, the
tornadoes and all of the stuff that’s happening, again it is Biblical that it was
going to happen but I mean to me it’s interesting to find out why is this
happening like this.
A 50-year old white woman17 from the Southern Baptist church said,
Christ coming back and the world ending as we know it, it’s all part of it, it’s
gonna get hotter… the natural disasters, the tsunamis, the tornados, the
earthquakes, I mean stop and think about things that are ramping up, that are
changing the earth. It’s exactly what is supposed to… happen.
By viewing secular and evangelical doomsday scenarios as complementary,
some respondents seemed to assent that human activity could cause climate change
and that climate change could lead to serious environmental repercussions.
Nonetheless, belief in God’s sovereignty over the End meant some respondents
did not think their behavior could change the inevitable. A white member18 of the
leadership team at the Southern Baptist congregation said, ‘‘And in the end, I truly
believe that God is sovereign over that and we’re not gonna do anything to our
planet that He doesn’t allow to happen. And so, in the end, He’ll still rule and reign
over it. We can’t do any damage He wouldn’t allow us to do.’’
Whether or not an environmental doomsday scenario was in conflict with or
complementary to Evangelicals’ view on End Times, many Evangelicals told us
they were not fearful of the End. A white high school teacher19 in her 20’s (from the
Southern Baptist church) finds a sense of peace in God’s sovereignty.
I think that having faith and knowing the Lord gives me a… sense of peace,
where I don’t have to worry… I don’t know much about the climate change
and all of those theories. Like, if we can change it, you know? Like, so then if
I worried and then I wanted to try to change it, I feel like it could become
consuming to the fact that I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, we could die soon, or the
earth could just not be…’ But I don’t have to worry about that, because God is
in control, ultimately.
This refusal to be worried or fearful about the End Times tempers an ostensibly
effective impetus for environmental concern. Respondents interpret the doomsday
scenarios uttered by environmentalists and scientists as fear-based persuasive
tactics, and felt theologically compelled to quell that fear. An African American
lecturer20 at a local college and attendee of the Southern Baptist church adds,
It all still comes back to this point of just believe in God and the Bible, we
believe that there’s a period of time which- we don’t know- that God has
17
SBC_Int16, administrative assistant, conducted 12/08/11.
18
SBC_Int3, church leader, conducted 06/08/11.
19
SBC_Int6, teacher, conducted 07/14/11.
20
SBC_Int17, teacher, conducted 12/13/11.

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ordained that the earth is going to be here, and then He says that when all
comes to end it’s going to all burn up anyway. So it is going to burn up
[laughs]… If I weren’t a Christian, there are a lot of things that I would be
really concerned about… because I don’t know the end. And as a Christian, I
feel like I already know how it ends, and if I know how the story ends, there’s
a lot of things I don’t worry about.
In a nutshell, Evangelicals tend to believe it’s not a matter of if the world will
end, but when and how. This means evangelical interpretation of secular doomsday
scenarios induced by human-caused climate change set off the following pathways
that lead to environmental apathy. Predicted dates of catastrophic events might
offend evangelical belief that no one knows the hour of Christ’s return, leading to
wholesale dismissal of the notion that humans have agency over climate change.
Secondly, even when accepting that human caused climate change might play a part
in evangelical versions of End Times, respondents held firm in their belief that God
is sovereign over the timing of the End, meaning human activity could not change
God’s mind about when the End will come. And to the extent that secular doomsday
scenarios lead to environmental concern via fear-based mechanisms, Evangelicals
may be more apathetic about the environment than non-Evangelicals, because they
find theological reasons not to be fearful.

The Al Gore Effect

In addition to religious beliefs helping foster Evangelical attitudes toward the

environment, political affiliation was also important. During our interviews, many
Southern Baptist respondents, in particular, displayed a sense of cynicism toward an
Al Gore ‘‘bandwagon’’ that formed when the former Democratic Vice President
starred in the documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth (2006). In this award
winning documentary, Gore (formerly a Southern Baptist) solemnly warns that if
the ice in Greenland falls into the sea and melts, it could raise the sea level by 20
feet and create 100 million refugees from populated areas such as Shanghai, Beijing,
Calcutta and New York City. The ice could also cool down the Gulf Stream and
send Europe into an ice age in as little as 10 years. In addition to dire environmental
warnings, Gore tends to politicize the documentary by showing clips of Ronald
Reagan, George HW Bush, and Republican Senator James Inhofe making claims
that dispute the claims of environmentalists and scientists. Based on Southern
Baptist’s interview responses, the political tenor of Gore’s documentary did not
escape their notice.
In responding to whether or not climate change is occurring, a white male21 in his
20, s from the Southern Baptist congregation explains,
Overall I guess science has had a hard time proving this, because the climate is
constantly changing I believe. I think a lot of things like global warming and
stuff like that- Al Gore was leader, I think, in that revolution, as I call it… And
I think we go through phases as a country, getting on the bandwagon with one

21
SBC_Int7, marketing, conducted 07/27/11.

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person for a little while, because it sounds cool and it makes us feel good
about ourselves and we go for it. Do I think that overall it’s as bad as they say
it is? No, I really don’t. I think a lot of it is hyped up. I think it’s magnified,
maybe a politician influences it.
A white Southern Baptist church leader22 echoes, ‘‘I think Al Gore got on his
little soapbox and wanted to become popular and, you know, his Inconvenient Truth
was just ridiculous.’’
It is not a stretch to link this evident disdain for Gore and/or his environmental
message to the conservative political preferences of most Southern Baptists. As one
leader23 in his 30’s from that congregation confirms, ‘‘Southern Baptists generally
are very Republican and so they view environmentalism as a Democratic issue and
they are very opposed to it.’’
Unlike these Southern Baptist respondents, a black American24 attending the
African American Baptist congregation alludes to Gore in rather neutral terms.
When you think about Al Gore years ago, he started talking about global
warming. But no one wanted to believe him. President Bush said he was crazy.
And, uh, Cheney-well he didn’t believe in it. But now we see with these
storms. They come up so quickly now. You know it’s amazing.
Aligning with existing literature that finds Southern Baptists to be closely aligned
with Republican politics (Green 2010), we find Southern Baptists unwilling to heed
calls for environmental concern because they are perceived to come from the liberal
side of the aisle. Counterfactually, consider the Evangelical response to Inconve-
nient Truth had a retired (and apolitical) sports hero relay the documentary’s vital
information instead of Gore. The neutral response from African American Baptists
helps us envision this counterfactual scenario. Namely, their relative comfort with
liberal politics mitigates this considerable obstacle, leaving more room for a rhetoric
of environmental concern.

Race and Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic status is another salient factor to consider in our comparative study,

which includes an African American Baptist church that is located in an
impoverished part of the city and a Southern Baptist congregation of higher SES.
Acknowledging a general correlation between race and SES in the United States, a
hierarchy of needs viewpoint proposes African Americans are more environmen-
tally apathetic because they demand more basic material needs before environ-
mental concerns become salient (Hershey and Hill 1977–1978; Mohai 1990; Taylor
1989). Conversely, the environmental deprivation thesis suggests direct exposure to
environmental pollution (because of low SES) might lead to greater environmental

22
SBC_Int4, church leader, 06/22/11.
23
SBC_Int1, church leader, conducted 05/14/11.
24
AAB_Int20, retired, conducted 02/16/12.

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concern (Mohai and Bryant 1998) of the not-in-my-backyard variety. We consider

how our qualitative data align which each theoretical perspective.
A pastor25 of the African American Baptist church noted the priority of basic
needs for his congregants. He explains,
If you’ve ever found yourself in a survival moment, what you thought about
was survival…And so I don’t want to say that environmental thinking is
luxury box thinking, that it is really not on the ground of the world. I mean it’s
hugely important, but just I know when my world is falling apart I’m not
worried about drinking from a water bottle, even though I probably should
be…
A black African American Baptist religious leader26 also indicates that
environmental concern is not a pressing concern for his congregants. ‘‘If you could
ask another congregation that has a different kind of population pool to pull from,
and those conversations would probably be more germane to what they’re dealing
with.’’
From the more reflexive musings of these two clergymen, they deem the SES of
their laity leads to environmental apathy because thinking about the environment is
a ‘‘luxury’’ that their congregants could not indulge in due to their difficult material
circumstances. In sum, clergy responses sound similar to the hierarchy of needs
argument.
While analysis of laity responses did not support the notion that more pressing
material needs take precedence over environmental concern, neither did their
responses support the environmental deprivation hypothesis. Instead, we find
evidence of a different ‘‘hierarchy of needs’’ explanation in operation for a subset of
African American Baptists, a version that emphasizes low levels of scientific
knowledge.
When asked if climate change is occurring and whether humans are making it
worse, an African American woman27 in her 70’s responds, ‘‘I’m not sure about that
yet. I’ve heard about it. I really don’t know enough about it really to get into where I
stand on it.’’ In another example, an African American woman28 who is also in her
late 70’s struggles to answer a question about climate change.
Interviewer: Okay. And then all the talk about global warming and climate
change, I don’t know if you have heard a lot about it-
Respondent: I’ve heard a lot about it… it’s just the early stuff, I really don’t
know what they are talking about.
Interviewer: It’s alright if you haven’t thought about it- but have you ever
thought about if you believe that it is actually occurring or not?
Respondent: [shakes head no]

25
AAB_Int19, church leader, conducted 08/11/11.
26
AAB_Int17, church leader, 08/09/11.
27
AAB_Int5, nurse, conducted 07/6/11.
28
AAB_Int6, medical field, conducted 07/8/11.

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In addressing ways in which evangelical respondents frame a rhetoric of

environmental apathy, a lack of scientific education limits the ability of some
African American Baptists to articulate a particular kind of concern for the
environment, i.e., concerns over complex scientific issues like climate change. This
interpretation is supported by the greater amount of qualitative data available from
Southern Baptists’ interviews than from the African American Baptists’ interviews,
reflected in the imbalance of selected quotes presented in this article. In other words,
Southern Baptist respondents were more prepared to have a verbose response to the
issue of climate change. This is likely because those in the Southern Baptist
congregation we studied tend to be more educated.

Participant Observation

In our Data and Methodology section, we describe extensive participant observation

at both congregations by six research team members for over a year. This included
attending worship services and other formal and informal congregational events
(such as Bible studies, Sunday School classes and congregational volunteering
events). This involvement was critical to gaining entrée necessary for securing the
interviewees that provided the qualitative data for the study. After each observation,
extensive notes were drafted and these notes were analyzed in hopes of finding data
that helped us address our research question. We were surprised to learn that little
useful participant observation data was unearthed about the environment. For
instance, there were no formal recycling program in either congregation and out of
the 59 events observed, there was no direct mention of the environment. We feel
confident this dearth of useful participant observation data for this study is not
indicative of poor data quality. Instead, we interpret this dearth of relevant
participant observation data to reflect the peripheral status of environmental issues
in these congregations. In other words, instead of finding deliberate congregational
efforts to combat (or support) the environmental movement, there was a lack of
institutional support propping up the environmental apathy or concern we analyze in
this article. We do not mean to infer that neither congregation ever formally
addressed the issue of environmental concern. But the fact that none of our
interviewees mentioned such instances, combined with our failure to observe them,
increases our confidence that environmental concerns were institutionally
peripheral.

Dicussion

In this article, we add to the growing literature on religion and environmentalism by

focusing on two different types of evangelical congregations. Our focus on the
specific environmental issue of climate change tips the thrust of our analysis in the
direction of evangelical apathy, and we outline various ways this apathy is
articulated. Our qualitative approach provides particular depth on evangelical views
on the environment. Like all qualitative studies, we cannot generalize to all
Evangelicals nor is that our intent. Instead, we are interested in better understanding

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how Evangelicals might frame their relationship with the natural environment. In
order to accomplish this, we focus on two congregations in the Southern United
States that espouse Evangelical beliefs.
Heeding calls to further examine within-Evangelical differences in attitudes
toward important societal issues (Danielsen 2013), this article focuses on two
evangelical congregations that vary by race, political leaning, and SES. In doing so,
we were able to compare how respondents with similar theological beliefs might
come to different positions on the environment. Our focus on evangelical beliefs of
stewardship, hierarchy, God’s sovereignty and eschatology did not result in any
identifiably congregational differences in terms of environmental attitudes. Instead,
respondents from both congregations articulated similar religious beliefs and
connected them to environmental attitudes in similar ways. This lack of difference is
a noteworthy finding.
We do not take issue with the general finding in existing literature that
Evangelicals tend to be more apathetic about the environment than non-Evangel-
icals. This is not to suggest, however, that Evangelicals are in no way concerned
about the environment. We find the concept of stewardship offers an adequate
framing that leads toward environmental concern. When our respondents make use
of this concept, they tend to emphasize that they feel responsible to God to use the
earth in a responsible fashion. When it comes to giving concrete examples of how
one ought to care for the earth, many respondents reported that they recycle and do
not litter. Through our analysis, it also became apparent that recycling and ‘‘not
littering’’ are safely confined to individual level choices, but evangelical rhetoric
steers clear of more system-level activity. Put another way, none of the respondents
were pressuring the city or even their church to adopt more comprehensive
recycling programs. This highlights how recycling and littering tend to be
interpreted by Evangelicals in individualistic terms which may be part of a broader
and particularly a white evangelical approach to not becoming involved in structural
societal change (Emerson and Smith 2001; Smith et al. 1998; Wilkinson 2012).
In contrast to the rather limited number of ways Evangelicals in our study frame
environmental concern, we outline a variety of ways our respondents leverage their
evangelical beliefs to evince environmental apathy. We elucidate a vivid
evangelical hierarchy of God, humankind and then nature. Whenever the natural
environment is given equal or greater status than humankind, Evangelicals in our
study cry foul. Of course, any hint of ‘‘worshipping’’ nature upends this hierarchy.
But this also means that when it comes to expending their time and resources,
Evangelicals think helpless humans must be first in line. As one respondent puts
this, ‘‘our love for fellow humans should be greater than our love for the earth,
because God cares more about them than this place that we live.’’ This ‘‘humans
first’’ mentality paints a different portrait than Lynn White’s ‘‘dominion over
nature’’ depiction. More practically, this implies that linking environmentalism with
the plight of helpless humans may be an effective way to garner more evangelical
support. This supports Schultz et al.’s (2000) finding that beliefs in Biblical
literalism are positively associated with anthropocentric concerns about the
environment (i.e., the concern that environmental damage will decrease the quality
of life for all humans).

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Ever since White’s thesis, sociologists found a comfortable entry into this
interdisciplinary debate on environmental concern. Convinced that beliefs matter,
sociologists tend to focus on beliefs of Biblical literalism, ‘‘dominion over nature,’’
and a dispensationalist view of End Times. Left out of this short list is a belief in the
sovereignty of God. The importance of this belief was elucidated when Evangelicals
confronted the notion that human induced climate change might result in
catastrophic damage to the earth. An eschatological belief that God alone
determines the Earth’s end means secular versions of doomsday scenarios are
likely to fall upon deaf Evangelical ears. More specifically, forecasting when the
earth will convulse made it too easy for Evangelicals in our study to reject the
message, and perhaps the messenger, due to theological beliefs regarding the
biblical passage that reads ‘‘about that day or hour no one knows…’’ (Matthew
24:36). More generally, our study suggests Evangelicals already saw doomsday
scenarios on the earth’s horizon, well before climate change became an issue of
public concern. Evangelicals in our study also find theological reasons to not be
fearful of the end of the World. This suggests that, ironically, if using religion as an
agent of social change for evangelicals is desirable then finding less dramatic ways
to talk about climate change might lead to more dramatic involvement among
Evangelicals. Additionally, future research should consider whether this belief in
God’s sovereignty and its link to environmental apathy is unique to Evangelicals.
In addition to our analysis of Evangelical beliefs and environmental concern, we
find differences in environmental attitudes when we consider political and SES.
Namely, conflating environmentalism with politically liberal agendas was an
obstacle to environmental concern for Southern Baptists, but not for African
American Baptists. The implications are obvious, and expand well beyond
politically conservative Evangelicals. For the sake of nudging Republicans to more
environmental concern, it would be good to depoliticize the environmental debate.
Finding some support for the ‘‘hierarchy of needs’’ thesis, we find some African
American Baptists in our study had low levels of scientific knowledge. This stunted
their expression of environmental concern, particularly when it comes to climate
change. This ‘‘stunted expression’’ is also reflected in the imbalance of fewer quotes
available for analysis stemming from African American Baptists interview data. It is
important to note however, that simply exposing Evangelicals to environmental
science knowledge does not necessarily lead to increased environmental concern.
This article has outlined various other factors that can work against this simple
causal story.

Limitations and Future Research

It is important to clarify that we have focused on two particular evangelical

congregations. The Southern Baptist congregation is likely to be representative of a
large number of American Evangelicals, due to the large size of the Southern
Baptist Convention and the large number of evangelicals in the southern states. And
our inclusion of a lower SES African American Baptist church sheds light on an oft-
ignored corner of American Evangelicalism. We also acknowledge, however, that
we do not analyze more ‘‘progressive’’ or higher SES African American corners of

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Evangelicalism that are potentially quite distinct from our case study’s respondents.
In this vein, we welcome future research that more fully addresses variance within
the evangelical community and the religious landscape more broadly.
Much of the content analyzed in this article was in response to a question about
climate change. Given the societal prominence of this environmental issue, we feel
justified in focusing on it. We recognize, however, that it is not the only
manifestation of environmental concern. Future research should address how
Evangelicals react to other environmental issues, such as genetically modified food,
overpopulation, pollution, energy policy and land conservation. These specific
environmental issues might evoke different Evangelical examples of environmental
concern or unleash different forms of apathy. Better understanding of how particular
issues resonate with different audiences will allow for more effective environmental
outreach.

Conclusion

For those who wish to foster more environmental concern among Evangelicals, our
findings are instructive. While there are multiple avenues forward on this front, our
qualitative data enable us to address the importance of evangelical beliefs. We have
confirmed existing research that suggests stewardship is an important Evangelical
belief that lends itself to environmental concern (Boyd 1999; Kanagy and Nelsen
1995; Kanagy and Willits 1993; Kearns 1996; Shaiko 1987; Shibley and Wiggins
1997). We also find the following religious beliefs solidify a posture of
environmental apathy; rigid hierarchy of God, humans, and then the environment;
a belief in the sovereignty of God; and evangelical eschatological beliefs. Current
Evangelical interpretations of how these beliefs relate to the environment seem to
mount formidable obstacles in the way of enhanced environmental concern.
However, our observed lack of institutional support that could be ‘‘propping up’’
this evangelical apathy suggests Evangelicals might be at a critical tipping point, of
sorts, making a change of environmental attitudes more possible than previously
thought.

Acknowledgments We thank Henry Hancock, Sally Huang and Virginia White for providing valuable
feedback on early versions of the manuscript. We also thank Rice University Religion and Public Life
Program (RPLP) research fellows for their indispensable care and careful attention to the study. This
research was supported by the Jack Shand fund of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion as well
as the Rice University Shell Center for Sustainability.

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