'We are convinced that Evangelicals must engage with climate change… Love of God, love of neighbour, and the demands of stewardship are more than enough reason for (us) to respond with moral passion and concrete action.’

So ran the statement signed by 86 prominent evangelical leaders in the US last month. It was good news. Candidly admitting that ‘many of us have required considerable convincing’, the statement showed that many (though by no means all) US evangelicals now see climate change as a major moral and spiritual issue.

The biggest problem remains, however. George Bush justified his country’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol by arguing that he would not risk destabilising the US economy. However, lest we in the UK leap on our moral high horse in response, let’s remember how environmentalism was a non-issue in last year’s general election. We British claim to be willing to pay higher green taxes but every canny politician knows it’s a vote-loser. Public support is broad but shallow.

Hence the need to play within the rules of the existing game, namely capitalism, as Jonathan Porritt argues in his recent book Capitalism As If the World Matters. Porritt contends that unrealistic expectations, hair-shirt alternatives and the treatment of environmentalism as a ‘special interest’ issue have not helped its cause. The failure to articulate an inspiring and positive vision that can then be linked to our everyday lives has simply ceded ground to the cynics and ideologues who deny there is a problem.

This is a gap into which the Christian understanding of creation speaks powerfully. The Bible sees humanity and the rest of creation as inextricably linked. If one suffers, the other will; if one blooms, so will the other. The vision of the rejuvenation of the desert in Isaiah 41, for example, is not simply for its own benefit, but rather partly so that the ‘poor and needy (who) search for water’ will be satisfied, and partly, ‘so that people may see and know…that the hand of the Lord has done this.’

Similarly, the biblical concept that comes closest to our modern concept of sustainability, fruitfulness, is an image resonant with joy, purpose and hope, in which the prosperity of creation today is not at tomorrow’s expense. Properly understood, these ideas can help us translate the moral passion of official statements into action, and so change the system – and the future – from within.

Nick Spencer

additional resources

The Statement of the Evangelical Climate Initiative can be found at www.christiansandclimate.org/statement.

Are we willing to pay more tax for environmental causes? A recent survey - at www.guardian.co.uk says yes, but I’m not so sure.

Jonathan Porritt is head of the Sustainable Development Commission: www.sd-commission.org.uk.

Capitalism As If the World Matters is reviewed here - observer.guardian.co.uk.