More than “thoughts & prayers”

90% of Christian leaders agree that the climate is changing… but most aren’t talking about it!

Two of my most recent talks were with faith communities— Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake (IPC) and Wayne Presbyterian Church (WPC) in Pennsylvania. These groups, along with hundreds of other churches and congregations, challenge the stereotype that people of faith—especially in the U.S.—don’t care about climate change.

IPC has mobilized hundreds of congregations to care for the Chesapeake Bay watershed, while WPC is a certified Earth Care congregation (more on that below). Spending time with them reminded me yet again how powerful faith can be in encouraging action for people and the planet—and how much is already happening in faith communities that we never hear about.

So with Easter Sunday coming up this weekend, what better time to talk about churches and climate action?

Wayne Presbyterian Church in Wayne, PA

Across the U.S., the Presbyterian Church has more than 362 certified “Earth Care congregations,“ including the one I visited in Wayne, PA, and Trinity Presbyterian in McKinney, TX, that I spoke at two years ago. To qualify, churches must take the Earth Care Pledge and complete projects in the areas of worship, education, facilities, and outreach.

It's not only the Presbyterians. The Nazarenes for Creation Care have an Eco-Church Program for churches that form a green team, sign an Eco-Church Covenant, and make at least three of the changes on this list of action items which includes switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, auditing the church’s energy use, planting a community garden, starting a church/community compost heap, offering a creation care Sunday Study, planting trees in the neighborhood, and many more.

It's not only in the US, either. In the UK, A Rocha UK’s Eco Church initiative equips churches to care for God’s creation. Congregations can earn a Bronze, Silver or Gold Eco Church award. In South Africa, the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute assists faith leaders and their congregations to work towards a sustainable and just future. SAFCEI holds regular workshops, called Faith Leader Environmental Advocacy Trainings, to enable faith leaders to fight for a clean energy transition.

At the global scale, there’s even more! The Laudato Si' Movement, named after Pope Francis' encyclical of the same name, aims to activate the planet’s 1.2 billion Catholics to join in the fight against climate change. In his more recent apostolic exhortation, Laudate Deum, he emphasizes how climate change is a “global social issue and one intimately related to the dignity of human life.” Then there's the Lausanne Congress and World Evangelical Alliance’s Creation Care network that seeks to mobilize 660 million evangelicals around the world. Last September, I was able to address 10,000 global evangelical leaders at the Fourth Lausanne Congress with a talk titled “Faith and the Future of Creation” that you can watch here.

Patriarch Bartholomew of the Eastern Orthodox Church is so well-known for speaking out about climate change and environmental issues that he’s known as the “Green Patriarch”. A few years ago, the Orthodox Church released a short film called “The Face of God” that is, in its own words, “about God and nature, faith and climate change, the experience of Orthodox communities around the world facing and experiencing changes in their lives now, and the radiant living icon of the face of God in creation.” Its website has a host of resources for Orthodox communities including content for study groups.

Finally, just last week, the Church of the Latter-day Saints added a brand-new “Caring for the Earth” page to the main church website. It features a quote from LDS President Nelson, stating that “As beneficiaries of the divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations. And we are to love and care for one another.” This is a really big deal, considering a study just two years ago found that only 10% of LDS members were concerned about climate change!

I believe that if people take the Bible seriously, they’ll be first in line demanding climate action. And it’s encouraging to see how many already are!

Plenty of churches are taking action on climate change, both in the U.S. where I live and around the world. So where do church leaders stand on the issue?

Just last week, a new study found that the vast majority of Christian leaders in the United States – nearly 90 percent, in fact – agree that humans are changing the climate. That’s good news! What’s not so good, however, is most of them are not talking about it. Only half of surveyed Christian leaders reported discussing climate change with their congregations, and only a quarter have brought up the topic more than once.

This silence has consequences. “Because of leadership’s silence on the matter, rank-and-file Christians think most of their leaders do not believe,” says author Gregg Sparkman from Boston College. The researchers also found that if churchgoers were informed about the consensus among religious leaders on the reality of climate change, they were more likely to agree with the statement that “taking action to reduce climate change” aligned with their church’s values.

“These findings highlight that religious leaders have a unique power to influence climate action – but only if they let their beliefs be known,” the researchers wrote. If religious leaders start talking about climate change, they have the “ability to correct widespread misperceptions, foster dialogue and encourage action in ways that secular authorities may struggle to achieve.”

As I always say – the first step to climate action is so simple we often overlook it. Talking about it affects how we see ourselves, what others around us think, whether we think there’s anything we can do about it.

If you’ve never watched my TED talk about the power of a simple conversation, click here!

If you are involved in a congregation or community of faith, or you know someone who is, invite them to become involved in climate action!

I’m asked how to do this all the time, so I’ve gathered a list of resources here. The list includes ways to spark conversations, find materials for classes, engage youth, be good stewards of our resources, and care for nature. You can figure the carbon footprint of your church with Climate Stewards in the UK and Netherlands or Climate Stewards USA and get tips on how to work together to reduce it.

In the U.S., sign up to be a Creation Care Champion through the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) or delve into the resources available on their website here. In the UK, Norway, Canada, Hungary and South Africa, check out the resources available from the Eco-Congregation portal. In Australia, there’s the Uniting Church that aims to be net zero by 2040. This free course I developed with Tearfund in Scotland is available to any church world-wide.

On my website I have a list of many other faith-based organizations including Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action; Green Muslims; One Earth Sangha’s list of Buddhist organizations; and interfaith organizations GreenFaith, the Loka Initiative, and Interfaith Power & Light. At their core, every major world religion teaches its adherents to be responsible for all the living things that share our home and to care for those less fortunate than ourselves. Those values give us everything we need to care about and advocate for climate action!

Wed April 30 at 8pm ET - Don’t Say Climate? Bridging Divides with Katharine Hayhoe a fundraiser for the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America - virtual, $35