The 28th annual meeting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as COP28, is drawing to a close in Dubai. I came here with the Christian Climate Observers Program (CCOP), which brings together 30 emerging leaders from around the world to bear witness to the events of the conference. COP28 includes both intense negotiations on climate action with officials from 200 countries and a sort of world’s fair, with pavilions from almost every country as well as many different interest groups.
The American Church is a significantly underrepresented group. There is a faith pavilion here for the first time and I saw presentations from Muslims, Jews and many Christians from other parts of the world. But other than the Americans involved through CCOP, I haven’t seen anyone representing Christians in the United States.
This is perhaps not surprising. the Christians are less likely than other Americans think climate change is a serious problem, and evangelicals care the least about the environment of any American religious group. Along with their fellow climate skeptics, they tend to assert that there are “bigger problems in the world” and that “God controls the climate” anyway.
These justifications for inaction may seem realistic, practical, even biblical. But they miss the deeper scriptural themes of love, justice, and responsibility for creation that God has shared with humanity on this side of eternity—and the next.
It is true that many people face more immediate problems than climate change, but once you measure the scale of the risk, it is difficult to imagine a greater threat to way of life and livelihoods of so many people, and even for life itself.
It is not for nothing that the Ministry of Defense recognize climate change as a threat multiplier, which amplifies the potential danger to American national security from wars, immigration and natural disasters. And when you hear directly from the people affected by climate change today, the severity of the problem is palpable.
I attended a COP28 session during which the representative of Tuvalu spoke. He spoke passionately about his small island nation in the South Pacific, where the highest point is just two meters above sea level. Families have already had to move away from the shore due to the rising seas. sea level, and storm surges are now flooding their fields and wells with salt water, rendering them unusable.
Tuvalu’s representative was dismayed by the lack of significant progress at COP28 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “How can I go home after this meeting and tell them that the future of our country is not secure and the world doesn’t seem to care? he pleaded with the assembly.
Our CCOP group met with Reverend James Bhagwan, General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches. He, too, bore witness to the impending catastrophe for the 15 million people of these island nations, 90 percent of whom are Christians. They wonder why America’s Christians seem so unwilling to hear their cries, he reported. “Aren’t we your neighbor?” » he asked, referring to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). “Are our lives worth less than your comfort?
If appeals to faith or justice don’t motivate us, Bhagwan added, perhaps we could consider a more pragmatic angle: “I’m not just fighting for Pacific Islanders; I fight for you too. It will happen to us first, but eventually it will happen to you, and by then it will be too late to do anything.
A common response to such arguments is the second line of reasoning put forward by those who do not think climate change is a serious concern: God is in controlthey say, so it doesn’t really matter what we do. I asked Bhagwan how he would react to this view. “They need rainbow theology,” he replied with a chuckle. “Our islands are destroyed by water, but after Noah’s flood, God placed a rainbow in the sky and promised never to destroy the earth with water again. So this must not be God’s work now. It’s us!”
I would like to point the American Church beyond Genesis to Revelation: we need a better eschatology. Too many Christians believe that because this world is our temporary home, it doesn’t matter what we do in it. We can extract and consume Earth’s resources and treat it like a dump, they think (or act and vote as if they think so), because they will be replaced by heaven for eternity.
I believe there is a better, more biblical way to view God’s intention for our world – what it means for Him to be in control and the role he wants us to play in his plan of redemption. The earth as we know it is not our ultimate home, but neither is it disconnected from our ultimate home. Theologian NT Wright reminds us that the New Testament does not say that the earth is destroyed and that we are all taken away to an immaterial paradise. We are resurrection people. And the resurrection is not a second creation ex nihilo; it is a transformation of what currently exists.
The earthly body of Jesus did not remain in the tomb or simply disappear. He was transformed into a resurrected body that was not limited by the same natural laws. Most importantly, his resurrected body still bore the scars of how his earthly body had been treated (John 20:24-29).
The heavens and the earth will be transformed and renewed at the consummation of the kingdom of God (Revelation 21:1). This redeemed creation will last for eternity, not subject to decay like our current universe. But will he also bear the scars of how we treated him? Does our behavior now define parameters for what the renewed Earth can be? In this Advent season, we might also wonder if God is waiting to fully usher in the kingdom (2 Peter 3:9), in part because we have not yet learned to care for his creation.
Our climate problems are complex and I do not offer simple solutions. But there is a path to care: start by learning about and praying for those on the front lines of climate impacts (maybe join us). Climate intercessors). SO take steps to reduce your own carbon footprint and suggest your church take steps in this direction as well. And consider getting involved with organizations like CCOPthe Environmental Evangelical Network (EEN), BioLogos (where I work), and In Rochaall of whom take the Christian faith and climate science seriously.
What we do here and now matters for eternity, not just for our soul. Bodies matter, land matters, water matters. Bhagwan suggested that we might learn something about this from indigenous Pacific Island culture, which recognizes that humans “are part of creation” and depend on the land and sea to thrive.
We Christians – of all people – should understand this aspect of our dependence on God. We should take an active interest in the present, in the flourishing and eternal future of the planet and its inhabitants. In the American Church we have been apathetic toward God’s world and it is time for us to care.
Jim Stump is vice president of programs at BioLogos, host of the podcast Language of Godand author of the next book The Sacred Chain: How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith (HarperOne, Spring 2024).
