Climate change is not yet an issue in evangelical churches – 02/21/2024 – Environment

It is not that pastors ignore apocalyptic damage to the environment. Significant leaders, such as Silas Malafaia and Edir Macedo, have already been categorical: there is, indeed, climate change underway, and it is not possible to exempt man from the series of catastrophes we see out there.

The problem is that taking this agenda into evangelical churches can be counterproductive, undermining alliances seen as more pragmatic — with agribusiness, for example. Hence an environmental engagement among believers that leaves something to be desired, they say Sheet segment leaders.

A view corroborated by sociologist Renan William dos Santos, author of a doctoral thesis at USP on Christian guidelines for ecological conduct.

Many pastors, he says, “do not fail to institutionally incorporate the environmental agenda because they are denialists, but because they do not see relevant incentives to embrace the agenda in a robust and systematic way.”

“Even transnational organizations like A Rocha, with expertise in producing ecological materials aimed at the evangelical public, have not managed to prosper in Brazil”, says Santos.

Malafaia has already preached that “tornadoes, tsunamis, storms and landslides” are just a sample of what’s to come. And there is no point in putting them in the spiritual account. “Why does everything have to be considered divine punishment or diabolical action?”

“Of course, God is sovereign and has control over all things, but this does not mean that it is He who produces disasters in order to punish humanity, as He did by sending the flood [da arca de Noé]”, he said.

“Pollution of rivers and seas, deforestation, irregular construction on slopes, garbage thrown into the forest and increased gas emissions generating the greenhouse effect” are “actions caused by man, the main agents of so much sadness”.

Mário de Oliveira, head of the Quadrangular Church, spoke in Congress in 2009, when he was a deputy, against neglect with natural resources. “Now, the only development that matters is sustainable development and not the type we have had up until now, which leaves behind deserts and pollution. For those who can afford it, there are still pleasant neighborhoods and pure water. But, for the poorest, It’s increasingly difficult to access greenery.”

Augustus Nicodemus Lopes, a Presbyterian reverend, has already demanded more commitment from man, who would not be “the sovereign lord, owner and despot, but the one responsible before God […] for the preservation of other living beings”.

Hints like these, however, are sparse and do not dominate significant chunks of standard religious discourse.

Even though the evangelical base is not in denial about the danger that the planet suffers, as shown by a Datafolha survey carried out in December 2023. According to 78% of this population stratum, human activities contribute to global warming, and for 2 in 3 evangelicals climate events extremes will become more and more frequent. These are proportions equivalent to the general average.

For apostle Cesar Augusto, from the Fonte da Vida Church, the green agenda has a conservative DNA, because “we, evangelicals, see ourselves as stewards of the nature created by God”. But ideological contamination would repel believers. Since the subject is so dear to what he defines as “radical progressives”, it’s best to let it go. “Many evangelicals have moved away [do tema].”

That’s why you don’t see a great pastor condemning mining, deforestation and other issues that, by the way, found refuge in the Presidency of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), to which the majority of the national leadership aligned itself.

The ideological fingerprints are more evident in this speech by Augusto about one of the most recognized Brazilian environmentalists around the world: “The government has a rhetoric of protecting nature. Despite this, minister Marina Silva, claiming to be evangelical, is in practice much more of a defender left-wing ideologies than environmental conservation”.

Estevam Hernandes, leader of the Renascer em Cristo Church and creator of the March for Jesus, recognizes that churches could act more on this front. “There is no concern. We talk about the topic, but not with the emphasis we should.”

For him, too, progressive involvement can scare away evangelicals. It’s common to hear that environmentalism is “ongueiro” talk, a pejorative reference to NGOs in the area, seen as pure left-wing juice.

“Unfortunately, the issue of the environmental agenda has become too much of a rhetoric”, says Hernandes, who has already composed a song, “Terra”, about the “brutal man” who, in mockery of “Your Supreme Creator”, hurts the planet “with deadly blows.”

The Vatican was more agile in turning the key. Pope Francis did not invent the environmentalist wheel in the Catholic Church, but he helped it spin faster.

John Paul II had already declared, in 1990, that the ecological tribulation reflects a “profound moral crisis”. It was Francisco, however, who most enthusiastically adhered to this agenda.

In 2019, the Amazon Synod was scheduled, a meeting with almost two hundred bishops to discuss issues related to the environment. Apart from repeated speeches on the subject, he planned to participate, in 2023, in COP28, the UN climate conference, in the United Arab Emirates, but the trip was canceled due to health reasons.

Not that the environment as a whole has been environmentalist since childhood. “Climate denialism in the country has historically been influenced by Catholic actors, much more than by evangelicals,” says Renan dos Santos. “Just remember that, during Eco-92, the group that organized an international coalition to contest environmental issues was the TFP.”

TFP is Tradition, Family and Property, a civil organization that navigates the ultra-conservative seas of Catholicism.

“The expression ‘environmentalist psychosis’, cited several times by Bolsonaro, came from ‘Prince’ Bertrand”, says the researcher. Great-great-grandson of Pedro 2º, Bertrand de Orleans e Bragança is the author of “Environmentalist Psychosis – The Behind the Scenes of Ecoterrorism to Implement an Ecological, Egalitarian and Anti-Christian Religion” and linked to IPCO (Instituto Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira), another branch of the national Catholic right .

President of Repam (Rede Ecclesial Panamazonica) and bishop of Roraima, Dom Evaristo Spengler says that the majority current, in the Catholic Church, is to look at nature as “a gift from God to be taken care of”.

“We all feel the effects of environmental catastrophes that are no longer so natural. That’s why dialogue with science is essential.”