End times

This representation of global warming is a little different from most others. It stretches back 6000 years and forward 1000... ring any bells?

It's used by the climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who happens also to be an Evangelical Christian - and who knows how to talk to other Evangelicals, including young-earthers. When talking to these last, she recounts, "I only show ice core data and other proxy data going back 6,000 years, ... because I believe that you can make an even stronger case, for the massive way in which humans have interfered with the natural system, by only looking at a shorter period of time.” 

We learned about Hayhoe in "Religion and the Anthropocene" from an article recommended by a class visitor. The visitor was the National Director of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action - quite possibly the first young Evangelical invited to speak at the New School - and he helped us appreciate what's behind Hayhoe's words when she argues: “In terms of addressing the climate issue, we don’t have time for everybody to get on the same page regarding the age of the universe.” 

I don't have time for a full run-down of the presentation and ensuing conversation, but the line from Hayhoe illuminates one of our main discoveries. The presentation was a version of what YECA brings to Evangelical settings with some helpful framing, which was a double gift. A large part of it was scriptural, arguing that there is a thread of concern for the natural world through the Christian scriptures. (Genesis, Leviticus, Psalms, Job, John, Matthew, Colossians, Philippians, Revelation...!) YECA and Hayhoe find that most Evangelicals are turned off bu discussions of climate change because (for an assortment of reasons) it feels inimical to their values. YECA's work is to show that climate change should matter to other Evangelicals given their values. We do this work, our visitor said, not as Democrats or Republicans, not as environmentalists, but as Christians. 

The climate crisis is thus presented in theological terms. This is in one way not so different from Lakota people speaking about the black serpent, or references to the Kali Yuga, but these biblical terms were not something we'd yet encountered in this class - or, indeed, at all. The image especially of Evangelical Christians at the New School isn't exactly positive, so the very existence of bright engaging thoughtful people like this young man was a revelation. Go, religious studies! 

But the class were struck and moved also by the coalitional nature of YECA's work, the thinking also at work in Hayhoe's "no time to get on the same page regarding the age of the universe." Can we work together with people with dramatically different frames of reference, at least some of which strike us as patently false? Can we afford not to?