Evangelical Clergy Largely Reject Human-Caused Climate Change
NEW YORK — Nearly 80 percent of evangelical Protestant pastors reject the scientific consensus that the climate is changing and human actions are a major cause, according to a new report.
By contrast, only about one-quarter of clergy from other Christian traditions, such as Catholic and mainline Protestants, share this same skepticism, the report, released on Wednesday from the National Survey of Religious Leaders, said.
The findings, published in the report “Clergy in America,” highlights significant divides in how U.S. Christian leaders view climate change and its causes. The NSRL, a nationally representative survey conducted between 2019 and 2020, included responses from 1,600 clergy members serving U.S. congregations. The wide-ranging report focused on the 890 respondents who served as primary leaders of their congregations.
While the majority of evangelical clergy (87%) acknowledge that the climate is changing, they are far more likely than clergy from other Christian denominations to dispute the role of human activity in this change.
“The real religious difference among clergy concerns the importance of human actions in causing climate change, not the fact of climate change itself,” said Mark Chaves, a sociologist at Duke University who oversaw the study.
Most Americans say the Earth is getting warmer, including a narrow majority (53%) who say it is mostly because of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, according to a separate study conducted by the pew Research Center released in 2022.
The same Pew study found that there has been “a consistent pattern” by religious groups on questions about climate change. In general, evangelical Protestants tend to be the most likely of all major U.S. religious groups to express skeptical views. For instance, only 32% of evangelical Protestants, Pew noted, said the planet is getting warmer mostly due to human activity.
Other scientific and health issues
In addition to climate change views, the “Clergy in America” study provided an in-depth look at the demographic makeup, health, well-being, politics and religious beliefs of clergy in the U.S.
“You can’t understand American religion without understanding its leaders,” Chaves said.
One notable finding is that 53 percent of mainline Protestant clergy consider themselves more liberal than their congregants, with 20 percent describing themselves as much more liberal than those sitting in the pews.
The study also explored how Christian leaders view other scientific and medical issues. For example, it found that clergy from Catholic and mainline Protestant denominations were more likely to encourage a hypothetical cancer patient to seek palliative care rather than hope for a miraculous cure — unlike their Black and evangelical Protestant counterparts, who leaned toward a belief in miracles over medical interventions.
When it comes to mental health, however, a majority of clergy across the denominational spectrum endorsed medical approaches to treating depressive symptoms — signaling that religious leaders may be more open to collaborating with healthcare professionals in addressing mental health concerns.
The report also examined the overall satisfaction and well-being of clergy members. Despite the challenges they face, religious leaders appear to be a remarkably fulfilled group, with mainline Protestant clergy expressing lower levels of job satisfaction compared to their peers in other Christian groups.
“There is something of a mainline malaise afoot," Chaves said.
Evangelical clergy’s views on climate change set them apart from other groups. On various other scientific topics, evangelical and Black Protestant clergy showed similar patterns of belief, differing sharply from mainline Protestant and Catholic clergy. For example, a majority of evangelical and Black clergy (68% and 79%, respectively) report that scientific findings sometimes conflict with religious doctrine. This compares with a minority of mainline Protestant and Catholic clergy (36% and 39%, respectively).
Furthermore, a significant majority of evangelical and Black Protestant clergy (75% and 73%, respectively) said they believe God created the world in six days, a view held by only 17 percent of mainline Protestant and Catholic clergy. Similarly, very few evangelical (4%) and Black Protestant (16%) clergy accept the theory of evolution. Meanwhile, half of mainline Protestant clergy (53%) and Catholic clergy (47%) do.
"Religious differences in accepting scientific consensus about the Earth’s creation or human evolution are nothing new,” Chaves said. “But differences among clergy about the more recent issue of climate change suggest a connection to partisan politics more than to theology.”
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged.