Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Creation Care: Evangelicals Embrace Environmentalism
The Sundance Channel aired an interesting new documentary last night called "The Great Warming". What's interesting about it is that it examines how people are coping with forecasts and realities of global warming around the world - in London, in Bangladesh, etc. It's not about polar bears dying off or the Earth in pain... it's about real people suffering and being scared out of their wits. Powerful stuff.
What caught my attention the most, though, and really startled me given the frequency and volume of discussions around the Institute for the Future and our circle, was the part that looks at how evangelical Christians in the US are shifting views on global warming. The notion of "creation care" is being embraced in some large segments of the evangelical community. The central tenet of creation care is that it is very Christian to be a steward of the Earth, which is viewed as a creation of God. As some of the people interviewed pointed out, if evangelicals change their view of global warming's validity, what's causing it, and what needs to be done, the Republican party will have to change its stance pretty much overnight.
It deeply disturbed me that this concept hasn't made it into any of the workshops or maps conducted by IFTF on sustainability in the last year. This could be the trend that makes all the others insignificant. It's a lesson, that while often its valuable for us to be among the digerati, sometimes we need to get out of the bubble to see the whole picture. Furthermore, in times of such uncertainty, people more often turn to religion than science for guidance and we need to understand what religious dialogues are saying.