Young American evangelicals increasingly believe that the climate is changing, that humans have something to do with that, and that we need to take action. “They’re reading the Bible and they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, something is not jibing, and we need to rethink this,’ ” said Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Dartmouth College who studies evangelicals and spoke with Boston Globe reporter Laura Krantz.
About a quarter of all American adults identify as evangelical Protestants, according to a 2014 poll by the Pew Research Center. One in six of those is between the ages of 18 and 29. To capture the energies and attention of these people hungry for change within their faith community, Ben Lowe founded Young Evangelicals for Climate Action.
“More and more, we have younger evangelicals who are pretty disillusioned and disenfranchised with that traditional political alliance,” Lowe told Krantz. The organization educates young people on Christian college campuses and in churches, as well as political leaders through legislative meetings and advocacy.
Last fall, when Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania introduced the Market Choice Act to create a carbon tax, Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, the national organizer and spokesperson for YECA, said, “A price on carbon is long overdue, and needs to be one of the first steps we take to tackle the climate crisis at a national level. We’ve long advocated that durable climate policy must be bipartisan. We applaud Rep. Fitzpatrick and co-sponsors Reps. Rooney (R-FL), Carbajal (D-CA), and Peters (D-CA) for their courage and their commitment to rising above partisan acrimony and putting forward a common sense solution to help us move toward a 100% clean energy economy.”
YECA developed a Faithful Action Pledge: “We are young evangelicals striving to live out what Jesus said was most important: loving God fully and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Climate change is already impacting our neighbors and God’s creation here in the United States and around the world. For the sake of ‘the least of these,’ we believe God is calling us to faithful action and witness in the midst of the current climate crisis. Therefore, we commit ourselves to living faithfully as good stewards of creation, advocating on behalf of the poor and marginalized, supporting our faith and political leaders when they stand up for climate action, and mobilizing our generation to join in.”
Chelsey Geisz is a YECA member at Wheaton College, sometimes called “the Harvard of Christian colleges” and the alma mater of Billy Graham. "I'm not encountering anyone at Wheaton, even among my most conservative friends, who disagree with climate change," she told Meera Subramanian of InsideClimate News.
Katharine Wilkinson, author of Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change, believes that YECA is influential. “My sense is that they are probably doing some of the most promising and savvy work in this space, particularly because they are focused on the population where I think there’s actually an opening,” she told Grist’s Kate Yoder.
“The best messengers are sons and daughters, they’re grandkids, they’re young people who grew up in the church,” Meyaard-Schaap said. “They see someone like them who they love and respect, who’s involved in the story and can invite them into it in a way that resonates with them.”
Lindsay Mouw, 25, is working with YECA in her native Iowa and told The Boston Globe, “I think it’s important for us as evangelicals who care about climate to really be involved in the political scene and make sure we are electing people who promote the sustainability of the Earth.”
She is doing her utmost to persuade older evangelicals to press lawmakers to act. “You’re right to say that younger evangelicals are probably particularly more attuned to the issue and probably give it a higher priority than maybe some of our older members,” said Galen Carey, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a group that considers climate change a problem but does not lobby lawmakers on the issue. “But we’re not giving up on our older members either. We want everyone to recognize what a concern it is.”
We urge evangelicals--young, old, and in between--to join us in building support for pricing carbon emissions, whether via Congressman Fitzpatrick’s bill or some other measure.
To hear young evangelicals explain why they are committed to helping fend off climate change, go to: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd5UiteryKHLFq9GDdmB-Og