Can the Church Embrace Climate Change Activism?

Photo by Li-An Lim on Unsplash

Today, I saw a tweet by Daily Wire writer, Meg Basham, who had a pretty good observation on why leftist and even moderate Evangelicals are jumping on board the "climate change" bandwagon. Basham's theory, in her words: "They're not lacking in critical thinking. They're just desperate to find issues where they can align with the Left that don't actively oppose the Bible." In other words, they want to find common ground with them, so they "throw themselves into climate change."

Her response was to a series of tweets from WokePreacherTV on social media demonstrating how many of these so-called "Christian" pastors have embraced the climate change movement. I would say that I fully agree with Basham's theory—the Evangelical landscape is desperate to unite with the left on something. And even those who can't bring themselves to embrace such movements as pro-choice activism, feminism, and homosexuality (which are becoming increasingly embraced by Evangelicals), it seems that "climate change" is a benign option.

But is it benign? To be clear, I don't think Basham was implying that she thought it was benign or that it didn't oppose the Bible. I think she was implying that that is what these pastors think, and I agree. That is what they think. But it really isn't true. First off, the kind of climate change activism that the left embraces is radically opposed to right biblical thinking. In fact, in their movement, some version of the pagan "mother Earth" replaces the God of the Bible and becomes the authority to which all must bow the knee. This is evidenced in various "creation care" movements such as the one from the Southern Baptist Convention's ERLC where Southern Baptist professor, Karen Swallow Prior, argued that factory farming must cease, "the economy be damned."

In reality, it has nothing to do with saving the climate or even being good stewards of what God gave us dominion over. It's simply virtue-signaling to the left that "hey, I'm on board with your movement, count me in." It's a form of do-good-ism that sets itself in opposition to the biblical command to do what's actually right.

Further, It is the most monumental of arrogance to believe that we can either destroy or save this planet. God promises that he will uncreate this present creation and create a new heaven and a new earth.

This is a perfect illustration too of why we cannot get along with the world. Of course, we shouldn't go out of our way to manufacture conflict where there is none, but Jesus and the Apostles promised us that the world would hate us because it hated him. All these so-called Christians running around trying to find things in common with unbelievers are woefully deceived.

No Bible-believing Christian, by definition, can believe that man can either destroy or save this planet. That puts us in a direct nose-to-nose conflict with these climate cultists. They will, and should, point to us and say "see? These nutcase Christians are going to get us all killed. Their stupid superstitious bronze-age religion tells them that climate change isn't real and that all of mankind will have to pay because of their religious superstitions"

Not to mention the fact that man was God's crowning achievement. Man is not out of place or a pestilence on the earth. The Earth was created for man and God gave us dominion over it. Sure, we should be good stewards. There is no reason to litter, pollute the oceans, or needlessly kill endangered whales. And recycling is probably good practice for the most part. But, even so, God gave us dominion over it all to be used to our benefit and to glorify God in all of it and the vast majority of what we see in the "climate change" movement is hypocritical virtue-signaling—do as your told, not as we do. And Evangelicals pastors should be preaching nothing more or less than what the Bible has to say about it.