How Evangelicals View the Future
May 1, 2008
A friend recently sent me an interesting study in which evangelicals identified three issues as their highest priorities for the immediate future: enhancing the health of Christian churches, upgrading the state of marriage and families, and improving the spiritual condition of the U.S. In each case, evangelicals were more than 30 percentage points more likely than other adults to view these issues as top priorities. The next highest priority for evangelicals was the moral content of mass entertainment.
At the other end of the survey, evangelicals stood out regarding their views on caring for the environment. Only 35 percent said that protecting the environment should be a top priority—the lowest score recorded among any of the 80 subgroups studied. Evangelicals were also 20 percent less likely to list improving the overall care and resources devoted to children as an absolute necessity.
Frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised that the environment was named as a high priority by even 35 percent of evangelicals. My hunch is that this is a significantly higher number than we would have found even three or four years ago, but we still have much work to do. And that is all God promises us: Good Work!
Here’s what these stats don’t reveal, and what I have witnessed first hand all around the country: When Christians hear the biblical call for caring for God’s creation, they are quick to repent and make significant lifestyle changes.
Caring for creation is not just about changing light bulbs—it affects every aspect of our material and spiritual lives. Loving our neighbor and living a more humble life, with joy and gratitude, brings seekers to the church and strengthens our church body. Bringing our lifestyles closer to the example set by Jesus focuses our families on spiritual needs rather than material desires. Not allowing possessions to own us and spending more time in the God-made world rather than the material world strengthens our community and family ties. Choosing not to watch TV or tune into pop culture does not just save energy; it keeps us from the lies that advertisers spend millions to sell us, not to mention their ubiquitous, morally bankrupt programming.
Quick story—last fall we were taking an Asbury College student to DC so she could help launch the student Evangelical Climate Initiative. Her family is deeply conservative. They have owned 1200 acres in North Carolina for 200 years. The student’s older sister recently had challenged Caroline for getting involved in all this “environmental stuff.” Shouldn’t she be more concerned about same sex marriages, or abortion?
Caroline responded that she was very concerned about those issues, but she was afraid there would be no planet for anyone to get married on, or for any babies to be born on, if Christians didn’t start taking a leadership role in caring for God’s creation. We are told to love all that God loves, and yet we are destroying the very trees, mountains, and rivers that we were charged to tend.
I see much hope, once the church heeds the biblical call to care for creation. Sir John Houghton, the world’s leading climatologist and an evangelical Christian, said that the world is waiting to see what America will do, I all this “environmental stuff.” Shouldn’t she be more concerned about same sex marriages, or abortion? Caroline responded that she was very concerned about those issues, but she was afraid there would be no planet for anyone to get married on, or for any babies to be born on, if Christians didn’t start taking a leadership role in caring for God’s creation. We are told to love all that God loves, and yet we are destroying the very trees, mountains, and rivers that we were charged to tend.
Next time this survey is conducted, I pray that the majority of evangelicals cite caring for creation as a top priority. With God, anything is possible!
Dr. Matthew Sleeth is a former emergency room director and chief of medical staff, who now writes, preaches, and teaches full-time about faith and the environment. In May, Dr. Sleeth was named the executive director of Christians in Conservation/A Rocha USA. He is the author of Serve God, Save the Planet (Zondervan).
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Hi, my name is Dustin and I work with a Christian environmental organization called Christians in Conservation: A Rocha USA. I saw this post by Dr. Matthew Sleeth, and I thought that the readers here might like to know that our organization sponsors him as a “creation care evangelist.” We would love for you to check us out at our website, en.arocha.org/usa. You might also be interested the website for Dr. Sleeth’s book “Serve God, Save the Planet,” which can be found at http://www.servegodsavetheplanet.org.