Questioning the value and importance of religion is as old as religion itself. In modern America, this introspection took a leap forward in 1966 following the April 8 Time magazine cover asking “Is God Dead?” Since then, there have been innumerable surveys and studies on participation in organized religion and the trend lines show a steady decrease in corporate worship. This decline since 2000 was reflected in Gallup’s March survey on church attendance, showing declines across most faiths. The exceptions are Muslims and Jews, whose participation in regular worship has increased since the turn of the century.
The reasons for this vary but there are some standard tropes used to try and explain this, all of which are promoted in the secular culture. Of late is the May 5 article “18 Reasons Why Millions of Americans Are Abandoning Their Faith.” This listicle by Marisa Bolivar includes many of the reasons we’ve heard in the past.
Among the top four reasons cited by Bolivar are teachings that don’t make sense; too many unanswered questions; logic and critical thinking; and a lack of evidence of the existence of God. The author’s premise isn’t terribly insightful but she’s not wrong; many people have forsaken attending church for these reasons.
But the interesting thing about these findings is how the culture applies them to society. While corporate media routinely report these data on shrinking church attendance, they are less apt to apply them to other faiths including what some call the religion of climate. People may disagree with Tucker Carlson’s 2023 assessment of climate as religion but given the evangelical fervor with which some revere the environment, it’s hard to argue against the former Fox News host.
Examining Bolivar’s article as it applies to the religion of climate is entirely reasonable. Do the teachings of climate change make sense? Not really. We’re told that climate religion makes sense because the ‘scientific consensus’ preaches that humans cause climate change and will wreck the planet. But you may recall an earlier consensus that Earth was at the center of our solar system. The scientific consensus isn’t always right and believing it as the chief article of faith makes no sense.
There’s no shortage of unanswered questions either. Arguments that human activity is responsible for climate change mostly ignore other things that affect our atmosphere. How do sunspots and other solar activity impact the climate? Do volcanoes from Iceland to Indonesia play a role? Climate acolytes who demand we believe that humans cause climate change mostly ignore these and other factors, leaving many unanswered questions.
Applying logic and critical thinking to the gospel of climate is similarly problematic. If human activity is responsible for global warming today, how might we account for the Medieval Warm Period? If the car you drive and other activities are harming the planet, logic dictates the activities of our ancestors from 1,000 years ago had a similar result. Perhaps the cooking fires of Scottish Picts prior to the 10th century brought about this climate change but that seems unlikely.
Most troubling to the climate clergy is the lack of evidence proving the existence and “existential threat” of climate change caused by human behavior. Prophets of climate doom have a perfect record of being wrong. Demonstrably wrong. Emphatically wrong. The only 100% reliable evidence on the climate is that every single prediction of climate catastrophe, bar none, was wrong.
Taken in this context, it appears Bolivar’s reasons for declining church attendance also apply to the religion of climate. A survey by the Monmouth University Polling Institute released this week shows that among people ages 18 - 34, the number of respondents who believe climate change is a “very serious problem,” has plummeted 17 percentage points in just three years. Among all respondents, the number of those who believe it’s a very serious problem has dropped 10 percent since 2021. It sounds a lot like a false religion, and no mainstream church in America is losing parishioners at anything close to this rate.
People are leaving the church of climate in droves because of the very reasons cited by Marisa Bolivar, which also include things like climate activists behaving hypocritically, using climate to bully and intimidate people, and prioritizing climate over being a good human being, among others.
Neither I nor any person I know believes the climate is supposed to be static. We all know and believe that climate changes. It always has. It always will. But the reasons for it cannot be authoritatively chalked up to how we live our lives. Bible believing people know we’re obliged to be good stewards of God’s creation and Americans, for all our flaws, are the best stewards among the nations of the world. We’re doing a good job protecting the environment and it’s driving millions of people from the pews in the church of climate.