Could the Climate Crisis Make Religion Even Crazier?

After several weeks of heat waves all over the world, I’m finding that the first thing I end up talking with anyone about, no matter where the person is from, is the weather. And then, almost every time, —the conversation turns to how “crazy” and angry everything seems right now—whether in the world, the nation, or the church.

What if those two conversations turn out to be strangely related? That’s the argument of a new book, Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval, which has prompted me to ask some different questions about what’s next for the church.

The book caught my attention because it was written by Baylor University historian Philip Jenkins, whose insights have proven themselves repeatedly. When the consensus seemed to be that the world was headed toward an inevitable secularization, Jenkins pointed to the data to show us what was happening with the surge of Christianity in the Global South.