“The biggest plus in terms of where we are now is that there is an impatient, feisty, unstoppable grassroots movement,” Harper said.
Religious groups including the World Council of Churches also have joined the fossil fuel divestment movement. “This isn’t just a stunt,” said Harper, whose organization has backed such faith-based efforts since 2013. He said it evolved from a symbolic gesture to a key road map into the future.
Not all religious decision makers are on board with divestment nor is every member of a faith tradition of like mind. In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the general assembly voted in 2018 to continue engaging with fossil fuel companies it holds stock in.
The issue is expected to be raised again in the 2022 general assembly. “The concern with divestment was that there wasn’t anything in there for the transition of workers — to go into alternative energies,” Peterson said.
Not all the faithful believe in renewable energy or even accept the science behind global warming.
“White evangelical Christians are some of the most suspicious of climate science and the least accepting of solutions to address it,” said the Rev. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, vice president of the Evangelical Environmental Network. His ministry navigates that suspicion by connecting climate science to faith rather than politics, emphasizing authority of scripture and sanctity of human life.
“We don’t do this because we’re Democrats or Republicans. We don’t even do this some of us because we’re environmentalists,” Meyaard-Schapp said. “We’re doing this because we’re Christians and we think that this is just part of what it means to follow Jesus in the 21st century.”
That same belief guided volunteers from Churches of Christ who recently brought boxes of food to the tribal center in Pointe-aux-Chenes. A month after Ida, piles of debris, wrecked boats and destroyed homes lined the bayou that runs through the town. Many were living in cars and tents.
“The scripture tells us that we’re supposed to be good stewards of what God gave us,” said Jaime Green, a volunteer from New Orleans who often speaks about climate change at the Elysian Fields Church of Christ led by her husband.
“As a faith community, we have to be teaching our congregations and our children, generations to come that they need to take care of what we have, and preserve it as much as we can — and even work to undo some of the damage.”
AP journalists Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tennessee, Nicole Winfield in Rome, and Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans, contributed to this report. Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.
This article originally appeared here.
