christianity’s role in environmental concern not simple

ch.2, ec-p.27 – the relationship of religion, protestant, evangelical, or otherwise is complicated by theoretical and methodological issues arising from how researcher’s empirically examine it, and by non-religious influences such as political, economic, pragmatic, and other factors that become especially relevant when the object or focus of “environmental concern” is an environmental problem that some argue must be addressed with public/environmental policy. for various reasons, this especially is the case for conservative protestants and evangelical christians…

“Conflating “Christian” with conservative Protestant or fundamentalist maintains both an illusory homogenous negative association between religion and environmentalism and continues yielding findings showing little to no effect of religiosity on environmental concern. The cultural foundations of conservative Christians’ views about environmental issues and problems may really rest on their “fundamentalist Biblical orientation”, but it quickly mixes with their political commitments and economic values (Hand and Van Liere 1984). Religiously conservative social activists’ “views on environmental policy are part of much more comprehensive religious and political worldviews” (Guth, Kellstedt, Smidt, and Green 1993). Individuals’ adherence to a wider, complex, but “rigid political and religious ‘story’”—rather than simple “biblical literalism”—better accounts for the contradictory expressions of environmental views with some behaviors (Greeley 1993). This likely includes the variation observed between highly religious people’s willingness to perform individualistic private actions such as recycling compared to supporting public policy solutions to environmental problems intended to address their more structural societal causes as seen with climate change policy.”

 

 

Related articles

• Green and Evergreen: The Secular Environmental Movement and Biblical Care for Creation (michaelmilton.org)
• General Authority Speaks on Caring for the Earth (bycommonconsent.com)
• Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism – Chapter 2, Religion (fluxofthought.wordpress.com)
• Are Atheists More Green-Friendly Than Christians? (patheos.com)
• In observance of the ‘green holy day’ Earth Day: The science of economics versus the religion of environmentalism (landandlivestock.wordpress.com)

clarifying religion’s role in environmentalism

ch.2, ec-p.20 – how the relationship between religion and environmental concern appears when the influence of social-demographic variables is controlled and individual environmental behaviors (recycling) are distinguished from willingness to support environmental policy when compared with measures of religiosity (beliefs, attitudes, behaviors)…

“Others caution against unmerited confirmations of Lynn White’s assertions of the anti-environmentalist tendencies of western Christianity and its believers (REF). The strength of association between Judeo-Christian and religious conservative identity and their opposition to environmental regulations remains “very low” once analysts account for age, education, sex, and geography (Kanagy and Nelsen 1995). Distinguishing policy-related measures of environmental concern from its other expressions brings more clarity to religion’s role in environmentalism. Evangelical Protestants “are no less likely to exhibit [attitudinal expressions of] concern about climate change” than Roman Catholics, but they are more inclined to oppose environmental policy and government regulation addressing it (Swartz 2008).”

 

 

chapter 2 outline : ch.2, p.3

the hopefully, final structure, of the literature review chapter. in other matters, can anyone tell me if “analytical” is not a grammatically correct word? auto-spell checks keep flagging it!

“In this chapter, I first examine the literature on the social constructionist perspective, as the theory and empirical work developed on the social construction of meaning. I then review the literature on the association between religion and environmental concern to identify possible deficiencies leading to unclear results. Finally I present the analytical framework adopted for my study of evangelicals’ perceptions of global climate change.”

dissertation titles

here’s a good question and something i think about sometimes… what’s the title of your dissertation? what do you think of these possibilities? got any suggestions?

1. The Religious Perceptions and Social Construction of Global Climate Change by U.S. Evangelical Christians
2.a. Hearing the Matrix: Evangelical Christians’ Religious, Political, and Economic Talk of Global Climate Change
2.b. Hearing the Matrix: Evangelical Christians’ Religious, Political, and Economic Talk in their Social Constructions of Global Climate Change
2.c. Hearing the Matrix: Evangelical Christians’ Religious, Political, and Economic Talk in their Perceptions and Understandings of Global Climate Change
3. Religion, Environmental Concern & Evangelical Christians’ Views On Global Climate Change
4. Evangelicals’ Environmental Concern For Global Climate Change

Related articles

• Evangelical Environmentalists (theecologist.org)