Environ. Polit. 27, 269–291 (2018)

In light of a growing debate on whether Christianity is developing an environmental ethic, scholarly discussions on the subject have had to focus on isolated events (like the Pope’s encyclical on climate change) or single surveys, clouding the question of the role of religion in shaping attitudes towards the environment.

Credit: STOCKBYTE

Examination of time-series data spanning the past two decades suggests that Christians may be placing less emphasis on environmental concerns and further doubting climate change over this time. David Konisky at Indiana University, USA, carried out a regression analysis of repeated Gallup surveys of the American public between 1990 and 2015 to test the hypothesis of whether American Christianity is ‘greening’ in its attitudes towards environmental concerns. Such surveys asked about religious affiliation as well as belief in climate change, whether they prioritize development or environmental protection, and their involvement in the environmental movement. Konisky found that Christians have expressed less concern for the environment over time, with significant results crossing most of the variables and models tested. Furthermore, there seems to be no intra-Christian divergence on environmental issues, as Protestants, Catholics and Other Christians all have roughly the same negative trend lines on these questions.