Opinion: How a misreading of the Bible fuels many Americans’ apathy about climate change

Christian theology and world politics could make unusual bedfellows. Think about the intimate relationship between fundamentalist expectations of Jesus’ return and market-driven disregard for the setting.

The affair turned public again in 1981, when Ronald Reagan’s newly minted Inside secretary, James Watt — as soon as recognized for suing the division he went on to steer — was testifying earlier than a Home committee. Watt was requested whether or not he was dedicated to “save a few of our assets … for our kids?”

“That’s the delicate steadiness the secretary of the Inside should have,” the secretary affirmed, “to be steward for the pure assets for this technology in addition to future generations.” However then he continued: “I have no idea what number of future generations we are able to rely on earlier than the Lord returns. No matter it’s, we now have to handle with a talent to go away the assets for future generations.”

Was Watt suggesting that his religion within the Second Coming ought to mood the federal government’s conservation efforts? In response to the following uproar, he maintained that his private Pentecostal perception in a probably imminent finish of the world would don’t have any bearing on official coverage.

However his critics had doubts. Why would anybody who severely imagined that only some extra generations would benefit from the planet skimp on consuming its assets?

The Watt listening to introduced public scrutiny to the connection between faith and environmental coverage, nevertheless it was not the tip of the affair. American evangelicals are nonetheless disproportionately bored with local weather change and different environmental points. Their apathy is pushed not solely by their well-documented mistrust of science but in addition by a particular eschatological perception that Jesus is coming quickly to convey historical past to a relatively climactic finish. Most evangelicals imagine that is merely what the Bible teaches, particularly within the E book of Revelation.

And it’s not simply evangelicals. Standard evangelical tradition — together with Hal Lindsey’s bestselling 1970 e book “The Late Nice Planet Earth” and, extra lately, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ blockbuster “Left Behind” novels (with film spinoffs) — has led many extra Individuals to imagine the Bible predicts our imminent finish. Though evangelicals emphatically imagine these predictions, and non-evangelicals decidedly don’t, it’s broadly assumed that that is certainly what the Bible predicts.

Actually, Scripture says no such factor, both in Revelation or in every other e book. That is extensively recognized amongst historic students of the Bible however scarcely in any respect outdoors our ranks.

It was not all the time that means. All through the lengthy historical past of Christianity — from at the least the 4th century to the early nineteenth — the overwhelming majority of those that learn and heard the tales within the Bible (together with the forerunners of recent evangelicals) believed Revelation was describing occasions that had already occurred or had been occurring in their very own time within the lifetime of the church. They weren’t thought to discuss with a close to or distant future.

Oddly sufficient, the French Revolution modified all that. The surrealities of the Reign of Terror satisfied horrified Christians in Britain that the world was coming to a crashing halt in success of the catastrophes described in Revelation. This futuristic studying of Scripture swept by England after which, with a vengeance, America: The world was going to hell, and it was all based on plan.

It is a non secular perception with clear social and political implications. Even in secular life, future expectations have an effect on the choices we make. We could also be keen to incur money owed for regulation faculty or a second mortgage if we predict it is going to repay in the long term; if we’re not so sure, we’re disinclined to take the danger. In the course of the Chilly Warfare, Individuals satisfied {that a} nuclear alternate was inevitable put much less cash into their financial savings accounts. What could be the purpose?

Within the non secular realm, just about each main disaster has been taken to point out that the prophesied indicators of the tip instances had been being fulfilled: the horrors of World Warfare I, the Nazi menace, the atomic bomb, the Chilly Warfare, the Gulf wars, the invasion of Ukraine — to not point out all types of pure disasters. So, too, has the Antichrist repeatedly risen amongst us: the Kaiser, Benito Mussolini, Mikhail Gorbachev (with the “mark of the beast” on his brow), Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin — decide your enemy of the human race. The tip is due to this fact perpetually upon us, because it was in 1959; 1988; 2000; 2011; 2021 — decide your date.

Many such predictions had been primarily based on assured readings of Revelation and had been demonstrably flawed — and never as a result of the doomsayers misunderstood a element right here or there or forgot about one verse or one other. They had been flawed due to a basic misreading of Revelation.

Biblical students have lengthy acknowledged that the e book was written for a 1st century viewers with 1st century issues in regards to the 1st century Roman Empire. However there’s nothing notably scintillating about that understanding for contemporary audiences. You imply our technology isn’t the climax of all human historical past? It isn’t all about us? How disappointing.

Whereas many people proceed to fret about how we’d certainly destroy ourselves and our planet, unimaginable numbers put their belief within the final deus ex machina. A 2006 Pew Analysis Ballot confirmed that 79% of Christians (not simply evangelicals) believed that Jesus would certainly return to Earth. Extra intriguing, a 2010 ballot indicated that over half of American Protestants believed he would return by 2050.

If a good portion of the voting public believes the tip of our civilization is simply 40 years off, why fear in regards to the setting? Why assist the Paris local weather settlement to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions to zero by 2050? It’s no shock that believers within the Second Coming are considerably extra more likely to oppose governmental makes an attempt to battle local weather change.

That this view relies on a misinterpretation of the Bible means that non secular experience has by no means been extra essential to humankind. Who would have thought that severe biblical scholarship may assist protect the ice caps and stem the rising seas? Might it thereby contribute to our collective salvation in spite of everything?

It could actually solely assist. Let’s unfold the phrase earlier than it’s too late.

Bart D. Ehrman is a professor of non secular research on the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the creator of “Armageddon: What the Bible Actually Says In regards to the Finish.”