Being a voice for the wilderness often leaves Tri Robinson feeling like a biblical voice in the wilderness.
“How do you get evangelicals to understand that caring for creation is not a liberal agenda, but a Christian agenda?” the retired pastor asked before a series of presentations in Missoula. “I see it as a sanctity-of-life issue. With climate change, the first to suffer will be the poor.”
Robinson founded the Vineyard Boise Church in Idaho and considers himself a evangelical political conservative. He came to Missoula on Friday to talk about his efforts to reconnect Christian religion with young people, in part through environmental issues.
“Millennials are open to Christianity, and they value the things like civil rights, social justice and the environment,” Robinson said. “But they see evangelicals standing against all of that. We compromised those things we value when 83 percent of evangelicals voted for (President Donald) Trump. Caring for creation and the poor and the stranger are things Jesus commissioned us to do. And the millennial perception is we’re really missing it.”
Recent polling by Yale University and George Mason University found that conservative Republican support for the idea that climate change is real has fallen 13 points since 2008, to 37 percent. However, 63 percent of liberal-to-moderate Republicans agreed global warming is happening. In comparison, 67 percent of moderate-to-conservative Democrats felt that way, along with 97 percent of liberal Democrats.
Sarah Spence is a Republican through and through.
Her dad taught her how to shoot a gun when she was around 14.
As a teenager, she baby-sat for the children of conservative candidates for the Ohio House.
President Donald Trump won more than 75 percent of the vote where she’s from: Oak Hill, a southern Ohio coal- and brick-producing village with a population of 1,551.
“When I left, my parents said, ‘Please don’t become a tree-hugging liberal,’” Spence said. “Only part of that became true.”
After years working in Gov. John Kasich’s administration as a legislative liaison, Spence joined the Ohio Environmental Council as its government affairs director in March.
She’s part of a national percolation of concerned conservatives reclaiming conservation.
Farmers, hunters and anglers are witnessing the first rings of climate change’s ecological tolls. Christian evangelicals are confronting the moral problem of pollution. Local Republican politicians and state lawmakers are beginning to promote an “energy freedom” agenda.
Spence watched the trees behind her grandma’s house cleared for mining. And because her family was outside city limits, they relied on well water for most of her childhood.
In her new role, she advocates for policies that establish energy-efficiency standards, expand public lands and address harmful algae blooms. She lobbies for wind farms in northern Ohio and for strong protections for communities affected by fracking in the southeastern part of the state.
“I felt frustrated that Republicans can’t love the environment,” she said. “There’s this disconnect; you can’t be both.”
Great book on this subject:
“Caring for Creation: The Evangelical’s Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment”
by Paul Douglas and Mitch Hescox
https://www.amazon.com/Caring-Creation-Evangelicals-Climate-Environment-ebook/dp/B01M0RC2FK/
Looks like a terrific read. Click on and read the “free preview”—-some great thoughts there (and you’ll learn about “Amish Doppler” too).
You know what sold conservatives on wind in the western U.S?
Making money. Putting money in their own pockets instead of handing it to fossil fuel companies.
Just being faithful worshippers of their beloved God
“We compromised those things we value when 83 percent of evangelicals voted for (President Donald) Trump.”
Not really: On average, evangelical voters have always been hypocrites that let their authoritarian-informed loyalty to the Republican Party go before any ideological notions informed by their Bibles. You could put a perfect description of their Satan up on the ballot and they would vote for them as long as there was a ‘R’ beside their name. They practice unconditional forgiveness as long as there is an ‘R’ in place. Doesn’t matter how many abortions a Republican’s mistress has had, or how many divorces he’s been through, or how many young teenage women/men/prostitutes he’s tried to have sex with out of wedlock; they will vote for him, and they will agree with him when he talks ‘family values’. He can kill hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children in Iraq for no good reason, but as long has he hides behind the facade of ‘loving Jesus’ then it’s all good. He can say, ‘We have to take out [the terrorist’s] families,’ i.e. call for war crimes, and that will garner 83% of their vote. He can sell large amounts of weapons to Saudi Arabia and help them starve innocent people in Yemen to death in masses, and they will vote for him in 2020.
““How do you get evangelicals to understand that caring for creation is not a liberal agenda, but a Christian agenda?””
They’re authoritarian by nature. If Fox News, all evangelical leaders, and politicians dictated to their base that climate change is real and needs to be fixed, a very high percentage would parrot that out accordingly. You’d have to divorce money from politics to get that to happen. wolf-pac dot com.
Well said, Andrew! Whenever I see the term “the evangelicals”, I interpret it as “the hypocriticals”. They certainly aren’t true disciples of Christ.
And of that 83% that voted for Trump, I DO believe that the great majority actually would NOT have any problem if Trump stood in the middle of 5th. Avenue and shot someone (especially of the “someone” were black, brown, immigrant, LGBT, or poor)
Came across this:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/5-facts-about-u-s-evangelical-protestants/?
There’s an uptick on ‘non-affiliated’ now that the internet is up and running and dispelling 2000 year’s worth of fake news.
Very awesome!