Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Welcome to That Makes Total Sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis bti, a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice. But the how sometimes eludes us that makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another, to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
Speaker 2 00:00:41 Hey everybody. I'm feeling like, Kyle, I'm like, this is like a, a chilly day here in Houston, but my guest is joining me from Michigan. Yes. So I'm not gonna be such a whiny one about that. Don't
Speaker 3 00:00:53 Do that. <laugh> <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:00:56 I can't. We used to live in northern Indiana for a couple years when I was growing up. My dad did his graduate work at Purdue, but we were there for, I think I remember them saying the two coldest winters that they had had on record in like the previous 50 years Wow. Was in the early nineties. Okay. And, um, I was like, that was when I began to hate snow <laugh> and like everything about it. Yeah. I mean, I just, I hated it. So before we get too far, I do wanna say why I hated it, Kyle. Okay. Okay. Okay. So this is Kyle Meyer Scott. We're not gonna talk about snow the whole time, but we are gonna talk about climate <laugh>. Spoiler alert. Um, Kyle's written a great book that I had the opportunity to receive and read yesterday. And it was a great day well spent in this, in this Chile, Houston. I stayed and drank coffee all day in red <laugh> following Jesus in a warming world, a Christian call to climate action. So when we lived in northern Indiana, I hated snow because, and I know you can relate to this being a Michigan, I hated it because April.
Speaker 3 00:01:59 Sure. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 00:02:00 Because in April, snow is no longer white
Speaker 3 00:02:06 <laugh>, right?
Speaker 2 00:02:07 Yep. It is gray brown. Yeah. It is piled up. I mean, you know, 6, 8, 10 feet sometimes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like on the side of the roads. Yep. And I, I remember my mom going like, I can't even see to turn this corner. There's snow is just piled up. It's ugly, it's sloshing around and you're like walking to the bus stop. It's nasty. And this is in like, in, in the Great Plains where I grew up and snow happened every once in a while when I was a kid. Like it was beautiful and, and, and white. And it lasted for like half a day. Yeah. So you could enjoy it. You made a couple of snowballs and that's it. And then we moved to Northern Indiana. I was like, I hate Yes. Snow, and I never wanna see it
Speaker 3 00:02:47 Again. That's fair. I, I understand that completely. Yes. Snow's beautiful in December, in January. Yes. And then it's disgusting for a long, long time. I mean, it doesn't even stop snowing, uh, in April. Like, my son was born almost five years ago now on April 17th, the day he was born, we had a blizzard. Stop it. We had, we had an ice storm the day before and we went into the hospital. He was born and it was snowing when we got to our room. Um, yeah, it's nuts. I mean, you can't count on no snow until like mid-May in Michigan.
Speaker 2 00:03:18 I can't, I can't do that. Yeah. I just, I just can't. Now we, when we, we moved to Houston like 13 years ago and our first April in Houston was beautiful. Hmm. And I just said, this is the month, this is the one acceptable month to live in Houston. <laugh>. So I told my husband, you need to tell the recruiters at your work. Like every, they need to bring everyone here. If they want to hire anyone, they need to bring them here in April and don't let them, they can't see July. Right. <laugh>. Yeah. And generally they can't see even like, cuz January, February, it tends to get, um, they can get chilly in kind of, you know, a little bit more brisk than what's comfortable for sure. For some of us outside. But April, it was beautiful. I can't imagine snow in April.
Speaker 3 00:04:02 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:03 <laugh>. Anyway. Um, goodness, Kyle, um, I feel like you don't talk about weather probably all the time, but what you do for a living, you talk about this is I feel like I'm, I, should I even say this? I'm like, you talk about climate change, I almost wanna, you can say that
Speaker 3 00:04:20 It's not a dirty word. You can say it <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:04:23 You talk about, you talk about climate change. I
Speaker 3 00:04:26 Do.
Speaker 2 00:04:26 Yeah. For like your whole job and
Speaker 3 00:04:28 Everything. Yeah. Yeah. Climate change in Jesus
Speaker 2 00:04:30 Climate, <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:04:32 <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:04:32 And I wanna talk about how those two, at least concern for climate change in Jesus go together. Yes.
Speaker 3 00:04:39 Let's do it. I wrote a whole book about that.
Speaker 2 00:04:41 You did? Yeah. And it was great. And it was great. Thank you. But I do love the way that you started the book, which is to say that, okay, so you're, I'm, I'm not gonna ask you for your age, but I'll say you name yourself as a millennial. I am as Twitter likes to call me and geriatric millennials. So I just like barely fit. I don't have my like walker or anything out, but I'm a geriatric millennial. And I would say I grew up, um, uh, the culture in which I grew up in Bible belts America mm-hmm. <affirmative> not directly in my home, but the culture is very pervasive. Right. It was very similar. Yeah. And, um, and you begin the book with an admission <laugh> that you didn't necessarily, I'm, I'm putting words in your mouth now, but please correct me. Yeah. That you didn't necessarily think that like this, this Christianity Jesus thing and like caring about climate change went together.
Speaker 2 00:05:37 Right. This, this wasn't something like we, we know what kinds of things go together. And you name those in the book, like Republicanism, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, conservatism and <laugh>. Yeah. Some of these things do go with Jesus in this, in this kind of culture we grew up in. Yeah. But caring about climate change in Jesus are things that did not go together. So what were some of, of the things that started to get your wheels turning that maybe as a believer, this creation care was going to be something that, that you felt called to, and maybe not just you Yeah. But that maybe we ought to think about how we're called to this.
Speaker 3 00:06:12 Yeah. Beautiful question. Yeah. I, I wanted to start there for a reason. Um, I, I think it's really important when we start having these conversations for all of us to acknowledge that we're all on a journey, right? And, and all of us are at different places on that journey. And, and that for someone like me who's made a career out of, um, talking about how Jesus and climate change connect, um, I also have not always been at a place where that was obvious to me or where I, I, I always understood that that connection existed. Um, I grew up in a pretty conservative Christian community that was so beautiful in so many ways. It, it gave me so many gifts and I'm so grateful for it. Um, and, uh, one of the profound memories I have of growing up, um, when it came to climate change was not even jokes or derision.
Speaker 3 00:07:12 There was some of that, right? But I think more than anything, it was just silence. We, we didn't even talk about it at all. Um, it, it's like, it was so obvious that it had so little to do with our faith that we wouldn't even bother to take the time to, to say it out loud, right? To, to say that it was just assumed. Um, and that started to change for me through relationship. I I share this throughout the book, that relationships are so powerful and stories are so powerful. I try to tell some stories in the book that have shaped me, um, and empower readers to, to get good at telling their own stories too. But a story, uh, started to change that for me. And it was my older brother's story. So my older brother's, three years older than me, have always admired him like crazy.
Speaker 3 00:08:00 Um, he continues to be a role model for me and someone I love and respect. And when I was in high school, he was a sophomore in college, went to a, a small Christian liberal arts school up here in Michigan. And he went on a study abroad program to New Zealand, uh, where he studied at the intersection of ecology and the Bible. He was learning in this beautifully, uh, diverse ecosystem about the incredible design of God's creation. And at the same time, uh, he, he was putting general and special revelation next to each other, right? He was reading scripture and he was reading the words of God's creation at the same time. Uh, and he came back totally transformed. Um, and again, like this, this was not some sort of secular program to bring Christians to like a deconstruction camp where they get brainwashed into secular humanism.
Speaker 3 00:08:53 Like this was a deeply Christian program. It was called the Creation Care Study Program led by Christians. Um, and he came back totally transformed. A and the, like, the climax that stands out in my mind as this big moment in upon his return was a, uh, shortly after he got home, he announced to the family that he was now a vegetarian because of the things he had learned. Um, and for me it was as if he, it's as if he had come home and said, I'm a dog now. Like, that's, that's who I am. I'm a dog <laugh>. Please, please rest me as a dog.
Speaker 2 00:09:22 I mean, I live in Texas. I get that. Right, right. Like, you're not eating me. I don't understand. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 3 00:09:27 I knew nobody like me who had ever made that choice. I couldn't conceive of anyone who would like me, who would ever make that choice, um, unless they com were completely rejecting me and my community and, and what we were raised in. But, um, and, and that kind of forced a choice on me. I was forced to either, you know, place my brother in this caricatured camp of people who didn't really exist, but who I thought existed and I thought were crazy, or I could be patient and suspend my assumptions and hear him out. And he was profoundly gracious with me in, in sharing his journey with me. And I began to understand pretty quickly that this choice of his was not a judgment on me or my family. Um, and even more so, he was not rejecting the values that we had been given in this Christian community that we grew up in, in order to make this choice.
Speaker 3 00:10:21 In fact, it was his attempt to live more deeply into the values we had been given the values to love God and to love our neighbor, uh, the values, to, um, seek God's justice in God's will in the world. And, um, to be messages of God, messengers of God's kingdom in the world. So that, for me, was the spark. And then it, it got fanned into flame when I myself went off to college and I had my own experiences. Um, I went to West Virginia and I saw the effects of mountaintop removal, coal mining on communities there. Um, I went to Kenya and, and I talked to farmers who couldn't grow food anymore because the weather patterns were changing so much. Um, I, I talked to a father and a grandfather in New Orleans who lost a granddaughter and a mother, uh, to Hurricane Katrina. A really harrowing experience.
Speaker 3 00:11:11 And for me, it, it just all started accumulating and adding up to this kind of, this holy formula, um, that creation care equals people care. That this isn't just about trees and polar bears, even though God cares about those things too, and we should care about them. This is also about my neighbor. And, and when I hear Jesus tell me that the most important thing that we can do to follow after him is to love God. Who, by the way, created all this, called it good and loves it, and wants us to care for it and to love our neighbors. Well, I, I just met neighbors. I met Margaret in Kenya. I met Larry in West Virginia. I met Robert in New Orleans. And, and these neighbors are telling me that climate change is doing something really serious to them and their ability to flourish and thrive. And I kept coming back to, um, this idea that I, I don't know how to follow Jesus. I don't know how to follow Jesus in this world. We find ourselves in without doing something about climate change as way to love God and to love my neighbor better. And that's partly where the title of the book came from. How do We Follow Jesus in a warming World?
Speaker 2 00:12:15 Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think, I think that's really important for a lot of reasons. And I'll just say personally, part of the reason that resonates for me is, you know, I think there are, I think we, we can see in, um, American Christian culture, us uh, Christian culture specifically that, um, that a lot of us are beginning to ask more questions. And that's, that's, that's leading to a lot of different places for different people, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, what that looked like for me several years ago was saying, I kind of had this, like, it, it, it now feels like a duh moment, but at the time, it like wrecked my whole life. And it was basically like, what if this whole faith situation isn't actually about having the right answers, but what if it's largely about trying to ask better questions? Mm.
Speaker 2 00:13:11 You know? And, and, and so I can resonate with some of the the ways that you just express that happening in your life. Cuz you're like, I, I know that A, this doesn't have anything to do with this, and b I don't know anyone like you unless they're crazy. Right? Right. But these are, you know, for me, I would frame that in Yeah. Because I know the right answer. Right? <laugh>. So the right answer is that we don't have to care about this is, doesn't have anything to do with our faith, you know, X, Y, Z, and, um, you know, we go, you go into some of those things, um, in the book, and I'll name a couple of 'em right now, even though it's not necessarily where I wanna camp. Um, but, you know, one of one of those things is like, uh, one of the right answers that, you know, I was kind of taught, um, in my culture growing up.
Speaker 2 00:13:50 And, and by that I kind of mean this Bible belt culture was that all of this is gonna burn anyway. Yeah. So kind of what's the point? Yeah. Um, and I, um, this isn't a, this isn't gonna be foreign to anyone who's listening to that, who's spent like a minute in, in, you know, these, these kinds of churches in the, in the US And I think even still these kinds of things, um, are being taught. But I just, I just wanna say, I really appreciate how you theologically address this problem. So, um, people can read your, can, can read your bio, but one of the things that I appreciate is you're an Orion pastor. You also have a, a theological education, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so these, these things, even as you shared it with your brother, like these things are going hand in hand, not as, as these things are, we're trying to make them mash up, but things that really, um, beautifully are designed to go together.
Speaker 2 00:14:46 And so you're not proof texting or trying to find, you know, something like, you know, scouring scripture. Like, you know, trying to find something where this is, it's like really even from Genesis, literally through Revelation, we can see how God, our creator, I, I would, I would say, and I think you argue, doesn't actually have that perspective of who cares because it all burns up <laugh>, right? Um, God's perspective is, is one of love and care mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, um, and an expressed goodness mm-hmm. <affirmative> for, um, for us and for the creation that surrounds us. And, and I want, I would love for you to talk a little bit about as humans, um, our privilege and responsibility inside of that, um, kind of theological ecosystem.
Speaker 3 00:15:38 Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man, I love this. Um, because I, I am a, a trained theologian, and this is, this is where my heart races and like, I, I get really excited, um, when, when I get to spend time in scripture and see exactly what you just said. Like not, I, I'm self-aware enough to recognize that I'm sure I bring my own stuff to the text, right? We all do. Um, however, <laugh>, when I approach scripture, um, like you said, it, it feels like it leaps off the page. Like when, when we approach scripture on its own terms and we read it slowly, um, th this, this, I call it the big story in, in chapter three of my book, this big story, um, leaps off the page for us. And, and it's a story about a God who is profoundly in love with God's creation, all of it, not just humans, all of creation.
Speaker 3 00:16:35 Um, you know, there's evidence of that all the way in Genesis one, when, when God calls creation goods seven times. Um, we know that in the Hebrew imagination, seven was a number with significance that carried connotations of, uh, wholeness and completion and even perfection like that. That alone is telling us something that there's, there's something particular about the nature of this goodness that God is speaking over creation. That it's, it is maximally good, this creation is as good as it gets in God's eyes. And then God creates creatures that can recognize and share in, in, in the delight of that. Um, and, and in Genesis one and two, he gives us commands. So in Genesis one, the command is to rule over creation, rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. And the church loves to, to take that and say, well, we must have a blank check to do whatever we want with creation.
Speaker 3 00:17:23 Right? And the Hebrew is strong, like the Hebrew word for rule there is stronger than I wish it was <laugh>. I will admit that, um, the Hebrew word there is strong. However, um, I, I think that the command in Genesis two is supposed to be taken with the command. In Genesis one, I think they belong together. Genesis one says, rule over the fish in the, the sea and the birds in the air and everything moves along the ground. And Genesis two, when God gets down in the dirt and he creates humans and he breathes his breath into them, he says, <unk> and shamar the garden. These are the two Hebrew words. And we know what these words mean cuz they show up all over the Old Testament. And a VAD is almost always in the context of service servanthood, even slavery. Um, and shamar, uh, means to guard against harm, to proactively protect.
Speaker 3 00:18:19 Uh, and, um, when we, when we translate these words this way, then the, the couplet of instruction in Genesis one and two becomes rule through service and protection rule by serving and protecting. And this to me fits because when we think about ruling, God doesn't make us the ultimate rulers of creation, right? We confess that there is one true king of creation and it is Christ. How does Christ exercise his authority when he's here on earth? He becomes a helpless baby. He washes feet, he climbs up on a cross. Jesus doesn't exploit or dominate Jesus exercises his authority through sacrifice and service and humility. So when we are called to rule any authority we might have over creation is always a derivative of the true king. So we have to rule like Christ rules rule as I rule. How does Christ rule through service and sacrifice and, and protection.
Speaker 3 00:19:16 So that like at the very beginning we see that the shape of our calling in the midst of creation is a particular one that the church hasn't always emphasized in my opinion. Um, and then we, we see that, you know, this, this heart that God has for all of creation, um, is all over the place. One of the places I go in the book that I love to go to is in Job. And I know people don't like, think of Job right away as this great creation care, uh, book. But Job 38 through 41, if you haven't read it recently and encourage you to go back and read it, it is, it's, it's a love letter from God to the rest of creation. I mean, he's, God, God talks about how he notices the, the joy of the ostrich and the pride of the horse.
Speaker 3 00:19:58 Like in the same way that a parent recognizes the unique characteristics of their own kids. And he says that he counts the days until the dough bears her faw. I think that's just like such a irresistibly beautiful image, right? God checking off boxes on a calendar, eagerly anticipating the arrival of this baby deer ready to midwife it into this wild, wondrous world that God loves so much. Uh, he spends half of Job 40 on the strength of this creature called behemoth that we think might have been a hippopotamus. Um, and all of chapter 41 on Leviathan, which is apparently like some mythical sea monster that God seems to have created just for the sheer joy of watching its sport in the waves <laugh> like it is. It's amazing. And all of the language here, like it's so clearly, this is so clearly not the distant God of the deists, the watchmaker, God of the Deists who winds up creation and walks away, right?
Speaker 3 00:20:55 This is a God who midwives Fs and who sends the rain and the snow across the earth and, and the God who watches leviathan sport in the waves and laughs and takes joy in it. Um, this is a God who's intimately involved with creation, who has affection for creation. Um, and it's a God who enters into creation, right? When, when we look at the incarnation, this idea that God sees creation with so much inherent dignity and respect, that he would see fit to take creation into himself in into his, very, into the Godhead, um, forever. Cuz the Orthodox Church affirms that Christ has a resurrected body even now. And that resurrected body is different in important ways, but it's continuous in important ways too. Cuz the disciples recognized him. So what does it mean that matter and molecules and tendons and cartilage are in heaven right now in, in God's presence?
Speaker 3 00:22:00 Um, to me it says that matter matters to God, um, that, that God didn't choose to accomplish his saving purposes in some way that was divorced from creation, but, uh, was, was deeply involved with, with creation to accomplish his saving purposes. And then Paul, even like this blew my mind when I started thinking about this, Paul even says, maybe those saving purposes are even bigger than we often give them credit for. Um, in Colossians one 15 through 20, he says, Christ is reconciling all things to himself. And I think it's easy for us to assume that that's some sort of like flashy metaphor who's true parameters don't actually extend beyond the individual human heart. But what if we're wrong about that? Like, what if Paul actually means human hearts and redwood forests and diving dolphins and soaring seagulls, right? And, um, what if, what if he means what he says?
Speaker 3 00:22:57 Because th this, this is echoed in other places. Ephesians one versus nine through 10, talk about how God's will is to gather up everything, uh, in, in Christ and bring unity to all things, all things in heaven and earth. And Romans eight talks about how creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay. And second Corinthians talks about two Corinthians five talks about how the rec, the, the ministry of reconciliation, which is from Christ is both for us and for the entire cosmos. And if after all, God so loved the cosmos that he sent his only son, John three 16, why wouldn't all of the cosmos be included in God's saving purposes? Because God loves all of it so much. And I, I think Revelation gives us a picture of that too. I I talk about this a bit in my, my book, but Revelation 21 gives us a peak at the end of the story.
Speaker 3 00:23:49 And it, it's not disembodied souls being sucked up out of bodies into heaven. It's not us going to God. It's the opposite. It's God coming to be with us. Um, John sees a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, and a voice from the throne says, I'm making everything new. Uh, and and so there's a lot of new there, and sometimes we can think, well, is it all just gonna be brand new? But in fact, again, the Greek is important. Uh, the Greek word here for a new is not brand new. It's renewed taking that which isn't bringing it to its fullest intended purpose. Um, so God, God, uh, intends to to renew his masterpiece, not make all not make all new things, but to make all things new. Um, so, uh, yeah, that, that was like a really lightning quick sprint from Genesis to Revelation.
Speaker 3 00:24:37 But, um, uh, I think when, when we catch a, a vision of this big story of God's overflowing heart for creation, how it breaks when sin separates him from it, how in Genesis, uh, six, uh, Genesis nine, sorry. In Genesis nine, when he makes a covenant with Noah and the earth and all living things on the earth, it's because he, he doesn't wanna give up on any of it. Uh, and how we, we can trace that all the way through the Psalms and Joe, we see God's heart continuing to be there for creation. We see it in the incarnation that he, he loves creation so much that he takes it into himself, uh, a and that he wants to rescue all of it and reconcile all of it. And, and I think Revelation confirms that for us, with the vision of God joining heaven and earth, a renewed heaven and a renewed earth once and for all, not in some far off, uh, space where we sprout wings and play harps, but here, right here in this place.
Speaker 2 00:25:40 Yeah. I mean, I just, Kyle, it's, I just got cheery again. I I I I, I shared with Kyle before we started recording that I'm reading the, the job section in the chapter yesterday, and I can, and I can just feel myself tearing up thinking about the calendar with the dough, you know? I mean, it's, it's crazy. Um, but, you know, I I I feel like a little, I feel like a little footnote here, and you can mm-hmm. <affirmative> and you can stop me. I, I think you, you footnoted, um, NT writes surprised by hope, possibly mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I recognize your phrase, the life after death after death. Yeah. Um, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna put that in the show, like, for people who really wanna kind of take a deep theological dive, this is not a creation car book. This is actually a book on the resurrection mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 2 00:26:23 And the, the traditional Christian perspective on the resurrection, um, uh, and kind of what Paul really is saying in first Corinthians 15 and this kind of thing. But, um, it addresses some of these things that you're talking about, um, in a different way, um, because the, the, the matter matters, right? Yeah. And I think that this is something that, um, that I picked up on, you know, growing up. It's not just that creation for creation care matter doesn't matter mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but we've also kind of in ways been discipled to believe that the same thing applies to us, oh, these bodies are just shells, right? Or these things don't matter, you know, um, everything's gonna be, you know, kind of, everything's gonna, you know, burn in the end. But, but really I think that, um, a shift, right? Like kind of a theological shift for those of us who may have been discipled in that way to kind of rethink, you know, um, that God really did create, he created a material world, but also the incarnation, what a testimony and a witness the incarnation is to God's connection to the material world, right?
Speaker 2 00:27:27 Yeah. Like, as you said in the, in, in the heavenlys, whatever this means, sitting on the right hand of the throne of God praying on our, you know, behalf is a Jesus who is matter Yeah. In some way that we can't fully understand. Um, and so I think that it's just kind of a little side note, just a little footnote, but for those people who are kind of going, I think I'm tracking, but I'm not really sure. Like this might be another maybe resource, um, for people who kind of wanna take that deeper theological dive. But I think that that matters too, because what, what I hear you saying, and, and, and I agree with is that the creation that we're surrounded by matters to God. But I think sometimes we might even have to take a step back and say, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, even my material person matters Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:28:12 To God, it's, he's not only concerned with my, with my soul, or, you know, how we might frame that in kind of western theological mindset. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he's not only concerned with the part that I consider the eternal part of me, but that God created this and that our hope is that all of this will be renewed and redeemed and, and resurrected. And, and so, I don't know, for me, I, um, kind of thinking if I didn't, if I hadn't kind of made that shift before reading your book, I think I might have had to go maybe back a little. Sure. So,
Speaker 3 00:28:42 Yeah. That's okay. That's a great, uh, book Top five all time books on my list. I love it. And I, that's a great point about creation, uh, and humans both having dignity. What, when I say for what it's worth, when I say creation, and this isn't obvious when I say creation, I include human beings because the Bible includes human beings in creation. Right. Human are we not also creation. That's right. Um, we, we are creatures. That's right. And, um, so yes, absolutely. And, and what do we actually believe when we say in the apostles creed, I believe in the resurrection of the body. Um, that means we believe that we will be resurrected in bodies because Jesus was, uh, and they'll be different in some way, but continuous as well. So, yes. That, that's a great, great point. A great suggestion.
Speaker 2 00:29:28 Um, yeah. But I think, I think maybe we can kind of, we can kind of hang there and, and, and, and continue with that thread a little bit because you, you in the book, you do a beautiful job as you, as you just kind of summarized, but, um, of this relationship that we have to creation, the relationship that God has to creation. But included in that, as you just pointed out, our relationship to creation includes our relationship to each other. And you mentioned that earlier, and I wanna, I wanna kinda live there for a minute because kind of in this, um, mindset of, yes, God cares about creation, it's not just in the future, but he cares about it now and he cares about us now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that our perspective on, um, how we feel about creation care, including climate change, and, and all of this is, is related to our relationships to one another.
Speaker 2 00:30:24 Yeah. So, you know, you, you mentioned some of the individuals that have been affected by climate change. Who are your neighbors from New Orleans and, and Virginia and, and Kenya. Um, hang out there for a second if you would, and help us kind of take this to the, the way you frame it in the book is kind of how creation care, it should be included in a pro whole life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> ethic. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Um, which I think we've seen in conversations like with, um, with immigration Yeah. With, um, labor practices, with, um, you know, some of these things that are, um, you know, different conversations kind of in the same space, but there may be some of us who are kind of going, I get it in those veins, but how is a pro-life ethic related to creation care? Yeah. It seems like maybe it's not there. It's not the same. I'm not tracking.
Speaker 3 00:31:14 Yeah. Great. Yeah. So, um, something I have come to realize over the course of my work is that I believe climate change is one of the greatest threats to life on earth. Um, so when, when we think about, uh, a holistic ethic of human life and more than human life, um, we have to reckon with climate change, um, right now, uh, more than a million species are threatened with extinction today. Like as we talk right now, we've lost more than 60% of the biodiversity on earth since before the industrial Revolution. Um, that's just, that's just the more than human creation, right? So, so clearly, like we are, we are living through a profound extinction event. And that's happened before on Earth, right? Like, that's part of goods, god's good design. Um, this is the first time that a, a mass extinction event has been triggered by a species.
Speaker 3 00:32:16 Um, and that's us <laugh>. Um, so that, that's, you know, one, one example of, um, how it's affecting the more than human creation and, and non-human life. But it, it's also, uh, harming human beings right now. Um, w we talk about how climate change loads the dice for extreme weather, for instance. Um, it, it makes more extreme weather, more and more likely, um, for a few reasons. One is because a warmer atmosphere, warmer air, can hold more moisture. So, talking to you, Alexis, in Houston, I mean, hurricane Harvey was, uh, uh, just a deluge, <laugh>, um, of water. And, uh, you know, we know that climate change doesn't cause more hurricanes, but we do know that it makes hurricanes wetter because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water, warmer water that hurricanes travel over, particularly in the Gulf also supercharge, uh, hurricanes warmer water equals more power for a hurricane.
Speaker 3 00:33:23 Um, and because of the ways that climate change is affecting the jet stream, when hurricanes get over land, they stall, they sit there. So Hurricane Har Harvey sat down on top of Houston, and it just dumped and dumped and dumped all that extra water that the warmer air could hold. I was gonna say, you just described everything we experienced that is <laugh>. Yeah. <laugh>, right? Every single thing that's just, yep. That's just one example, right? Hurricanes. Um, another example, uh, this, this really cool area of study called attribution science is now getting really good at telling us exactly how hard the human thumb is pressing on the climate scale. So, before we always knew that human actions were somehow affecting weather events, but we couldn't ever say with any certainty exactly how much attribution science is getting really good at saying, this weather event was X percent wetter or hotter, or more likely to occur because of human interference in the climate system.
Speaker 3 00:34:15 So one example is, in 2021, you might remember the heat dome that sat on top of the Pacific Northwest in Seattle and Washington and Oregon in July. Um, it, it killed hundreds of people temperatures topped out over 121 degrees in parts of Canada, Canada, <laugh>, um, and attribution science. They, they studied this, and they said an event like that in that area of the world would've been virtually impossible without human interference in the climate system. And that climate change made that event 150 times more likely to occur. So what we know, we know that climate change is making weather more severe, more life threatening, and more expensive. We've had more billion dollar disasters, um, every year, year over year, uh, and we continue to have more and more. So we, we know that climate change is doing this, and that has real impacts for people's life and livelihoods.
Speaker 3 00:35:12 Um, we, we, we know that one of the, uh, not one of the biggest killer, uh, the, the biggest killer of people when it comes to weather events is not tornadoes or hurricanes or wildfires. It's heat. Heat kills more people than anything else. And we're seeing extreme heat, um, pop up more and more often. Um, and when you think about places that are poured, might not have access to air conditioning, to cool off, um, there aren't any options or a lot of options. So this is kind of the fundamental injustice of climate change too, and how it connects to a holistic ethic of human life, which is that right now we're living in a world that is fundamentally warmer. Uh, it's getting more dangerous, more expensive to live in and survive. There's always gonna be people who are gonna be able to insulate themselves from the worst of climate change, right?
Speaker 3 00:36:04 There's always gonna be people who are going to be able to adapt more readily than others. And we know that, uh, it's, it's the people who have the least resources to adapt who are being hit the hardest already right now. Um, and these just happen to be the people who have contributed the least to the problem, right? These are people who, uh, are responsible for very little emissions, people in poorer countries. Um, but these are the people who are feeling the impacts of this extreme weather already and have the fewest resources to adapt. So that's a justice issue as well. One more point I'll make about the pro-life piece. Uh, we know that climate change is driven by the emissions of greenhouse gases, which, which are largely from setting fossil fuels on fire. But we know that things like carbon dioxide and methane, those, those heat trapping gases aren't emitted in a vacuum, right?
Speaker 3 00:36:55 When we burn coal, when we burn natural gas, uh, we emit more than greenhouse gases. We emit all kinds of other toxins and pollutants. One of them is PM 2.5. This is soot. Uh, essentially, um, it gets its name because it is particulate p that whose width is 2.5 microns. So essentially the width of a human hair, very hard to see, but ubiquitous. Um, it spews out of tailpipes, it spews out of smokestacks, um, along with things like mercury and benzene and selenium. Um, and this soot lodges in people's lungs. Um, and it leads to all kinds of things from, um, cardiovascular disease to dementia and Alzheimer's. Um, we know that this is a particular impact on fetal development, um, that it leads to low birth weight babies and preterm births, um, all kinds of complications with the spinal tube development as well. So, uh, when, when we talk about air pollution, um, we know that 9 million people worldwide die from air pollution every single year.
Speaker 3 00:38:08 One out of six deaths around the world are caused by air pollution, and that's more than malaria aids, tuberculosis combined. Um, and it's 15 times more than all forms of violence and war. Um, and in the US here, that's 200,000, 200,000 of those 9 million die here in the US every single year from air pollution, and that's largely from burning fossil fuels. So, uh, it's, it's a layered issue, right? It's not just stop burning fossil fuels or fine, fine cleaner ways to generate energy because of climate change, but also because of the pollution that's emitted along with those greenhouse gases. Um, so yeah, for me, I, I can't think of being pro-life without, without including climate change as well.
Speaker 2 00:38:50 Yeah. Um, thanks Kyle. And, you know, as you mentioned, I'm, I'm coming to you from Houston and, um, and you're coming to me from Michigan, and it's been a while since I've been in that part of the country, but, um, I did have some friends who lived in another cold part, which is in the Northeast mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and, and so I wanna bring in a little bit of the complexity before, you know, we, we, we get to kind of the, the, so what do I do? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because, because when we say it's a justice issue, our hearts with good reason and filled with compassion, go to the, so what do I do? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> questions, right? Especially with something like this, because it feels so large and it is so large. Um, but, you know, even thinking about some of the, the, the things that I mentioned earlier, I, I, I'm thinking about even last night, I was at a small group and I had on a, a sweatshirt from Cotopaxi and it said, do good on the front, right?
Speaker 2 00:39:48 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and, and, uh, a friend asked me, well, does it, does it say something about justice on the back? And, and, and I said, no, it, no it doesn't, but it's from a B Corp. And then I had to kind of explain, you know, what that was. And I, I, I say that to raise this point to say, not everything I own I bought from a B Corp. Yep. Right? <laugh>. Yep. That's, that's just the truth, right? Yeah. Um, we have vacationed at one of the, the, there is a, there is a ski resort in our part of the country that is a B Corp, right? But it's the only one, right? <laugh>. Um, so, so I say this to say, even in something like that, when I'm concerned with fair labor practices, for example, I want to do what I can in, um, this complex world to do my best to look at things like this, right?
Speaker 2 00:40:33 I have an app for that, right. You know, to look at these kinds of things. And yet, not every, you know, I still have teachers from Target, right? Yeah. Yeah. And this is just kind of where I live, right? Yeah. Um, but this, for some reason, for me, it feels even more complicated. <laugh> Mm. Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, you know, because I'm like, I have a big family. Like I'm, I'm not, I'm not driving in like a little hybrid Toyota that could fit me, right? You know, like, um, we're not all riding our bikes. We don't live in a bikeable city, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, you know, they're, I mean, they're, they're trying, right? But it's getting better. Um, but, you know, there's lots of, um, lots of com lots of complexities here. Yes. And so if people's heads are starting to spin, like mine sometimes does Yep. In this space, um, can you talk to us about some of those complexities? Because we want to do good right? <laugh> and we want to do well at these things. Um, and it also feels really big and complicated.
Speaker 3 00:41:34 Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for naming that. Um, yes, I feel the same way. I, I do this for a living, and I feel that way a lot of the time. That it's, it's really, really hard to get your arms around it and to know how to respond. So the first thing I would say, which isn't always easy, but I try, I try to practice myself, is just have lots of grace for yourself. Um, have lots of grace for yourself because you weren't born, I mean, well, you were sorry you were born into this world without much say, right? You, you didn't have a lot of control over the structures of the society that you were going to participate in. And of course, as voting citizens, we all have a responsibility now, and I'll say a a bit about that in a minute. We all have a responsibility now to do what we can to shape that society in, in ways that are, um, more conducive to bringing the global temperature down and loving our neighbors well.
Speaker 3 00:42:31 Um, but we, we, we didn't create these systems and structures that put clothes on our back or bring food to our table. Um, or, or that, you know, uh, transport us and our kids to and from school and soccer practice, cuz that's just, that's the day-to-day, right? And we have to live our lives, so have, have lots of grace for yourself first. Um, the second thing I would say is I kind of structure the, the last third of the book around three big, um, what next answers. Um, one is tell your story about why you care about climate change. The second is practice the spiritual disciplines of climate action. I'll say what those are. And then the third is, love our neighbors in public. Um, so the first tell your story, because a lot of the research tells us that a majority of Americans care about climate change, but a minority are talking about it, particularly with our friends and family, even though social science tells us that those are the conversations that are most fruitful.
Speaker 3 00:43:33 Um, I love a study that showed a few years ago that the most statistically significant increase in global warming acceptance happened when daughters spoke to their conservative fathers about climate change. Um, we know that throwing another study at someone, another scientific chart isn't, isn't likely to change somebody's mind or to, to get them to care. But, um, somebody's personal story about why they are concerned, um, coming from someone that you know and love and trust, uh, standing right in front of you, sharing their heart, that's, that's a lot harder to disregard. Um, so let's get better at telling people why we're concerned about climate change. Maybe you're a mom and you're concerned about your kid's future or your kid's health. Um, maybe you're a hunter or a fisherman and or fisherwoman and you want to keep doing that. Uh, and you want to pass that on to your kids, kids and your grandkids.
Speaker 3 00:44:32 Um, but habitats are being harmed and species are declining. Um, there's all kinds of reasons. I, I I like to say, if you are a human being, living, breathing, eating, and drinking on planet earth, and you love other human beings who are eating, drinking, breathing on planet Earth, then you have reasons to care about climate change. I promise you. Um, we just have to make that connection and then talk about it. I, I kind of liked how you whispered climate change at the beginning because it, it, it named the elephant in the room, right? For so many of us in the church, we're afraid to talk about this. We can't be afraid to talk about this because it's too important. Uh, and, and all of us have a reason to care. And I have seen in my own life the the power that comes with seeing someone step out and name this, then it becomes okay for me to name that too.
Speaker 3 00:45:20 And other people who say, oh man, I, I was really concerned about this too, but I didn't think anybody else like me cared. Um, you, you'd be amazed at how many dominoes start to fall when you start to speak honestly and, and truthfully about why you're concerned about climate change. So that's the first. The second is, is, you know, you kind of touched on it. All of these things that we can do in our personal lives, and I have a whole bullet list in the appendix. Um, but I, I frame it in the book, um, in a particular way, cuz I think when it comes to these action steps, a whole lot of guilt, shame, and blame gets attached to these actions. Um, right? Like you, you already apologize for having target clothes and not driving a hybrid, right? <laugh>, um, I, I think we all feel that, we feel that need to like, explain or apologize and I feel it too.
Speaker 3 00:46:07 Um, so I, I frame these actions not as a laundry list of dos and don'ts that we have to like, um, we have to prove ourselves by doing these things. And, and we do it through gritted teeth cuz that's not sustainable. I frame them instead of spiritual disciplines, um, as, as ways that we can form our hearts more fully after God's heart, which we see as a heart for God's creation. So, so when we turn that washer knob to cold, every time we do a load of laundry, it maybe settles our buzzing mind for a fraction of a second and reminds us of our holy duty to be care caretakers of God's world. And when we plunge our hands into the soil of our gardens and weed from May to September, or whenever your growing season is, we become acquainted with the, the world within a world that is soil and, and our hearts are, um, quieted and attuned to the beauty of God's creation.
Speaker 3 00:47:01 So I, I like to think about all those things as spiritual disciplines, which gives us the freedom then to find the ones that give us life and give us joy, right? There's so many things that you can't do at all. So do the ones that bring you joy inspired by my brother, I have cut drastically down on my meat intake too, which meant that in college I was learning how to cook all new things and I had some friends that were learning the same thing. So we would be in the kitchen together and we found joy over discovering new flavors and new cooking techniques that brought us joy. Um, I tried to take the bus a lot in college, which in my mid-size city wasn't always easy, but I found that like having some time to quiet myself before the day was really nice and I wasn't getting road rage, uh, trying to drive myself to class.
Speaker 3 00:47:47 And I was actually looking my neighbors in the eye sometime that were on the bus with me. And that was interesting and, and something I wasn't doing in my car. Um, and the third thing, cuz I know I'm talking a lot, the third thing is love our neighbors in public. And what I mean by that is advocate for policies that will actually change the structures within which we live. Because climate change is a systemic problem and it's gonna require a systemic solution. It's the sum total of all the answers we've given to the questions of like, how do I get from point A to point B? How do I grow and transport food? How do I put clothes on my back? How do I light and heat my home and cool my home? So policy created the conditions in which the world could warm, right?
Speaker 3 00:48:30 And we're gonna need policy to bring the temperature down. Again. We need policies, guardrails around our society, around our economy that can help us make the choices that are actually best for creation and for my neighbor. Um, and and to do that can be really simple. You don't have to like be a policy wonk or, uh, to to have all of the, uh, the bill numbers memorized. You don't have to have all the science and stats in your back pocket of climate science. All you need is to be a voter. Uh, and, and to let your senator, your representative, know that as a Christian, as a constituent, you wanna see them lead on climate change because you think it's part of what it means to follow Jesus. And, and if, if millions of Christians delivered that message to our elected officials consistently without any sort of like, policy prescription even, and just let them do the work, I guarantee we would see a sea change in climate politics almost overnight. Um, so we, we need to be talking about it with our friends and family. We need to be practicing these lifestyle changes, not as drudgery, but as joyful spiritual disciplines. And we need to be talking to our elected officials about this and demanding that they, uh, do something about this so that we can't actually make choices that make economical sense and make ecological sense.
Speaker 2 00:49:55 Yeah. Thanks Kyle. I, I wanna I wanna just piggyback a little bit on what you on, on kind of this, uh, this theme of us not talking about it, right? <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I'm whispering it at the beginning, you know, I'm like, I live in Texas, I can't talk about climate change, genome know. Yeah. Um, but, but also, you know, telling, telling our stories and then talking to our reps about this, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, I would say I was, I was studying, um, uh, in a, in a class bef bef happened to be before my first trip to Capitol Hill. And we were actually talking about, um, immigration and kind of this recent, recent history of immigration reform that wasn't, um, you know, that that kind of could have been, but that was, um, really driven by, uh, evangelical Christians in this, in this space to kind of try meaningful, uh, reform.
Speaker 2 00:50:42 And, and one of my professors happens to be one of the women who was, um, really at the forefront of this. And, and what she told me stayed in my mind, and I think it's important here too, which is why I'm mentioning it, but she said it's kind of the same situation. Um, Americans care about this, right? They cared about, um, immigration reform, Christian Americans cared about this, but we were quiet Yep. In general. Yep. And when they were interacting with, um, the offices of reps and senators, they were basically saying, in essence, you're not the ones who are calling us. Yep. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and this is, to me, I'm seeing this same pattern, right? Like, we care about this, but we're not necessarily talking about it with each other or, um, or with people who are, have been hired and voted in by us to make, to make the policy.
Speaker 2 00:51:34 And they are going to, and, and you list this, I love this section in your book, you a, you give us the number mm-hmm. <affirmative> more than once mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you give us a little script if we're feeling nervous about what we might say or write. Yeah. Um, and then also, you know, they keep track of kind of who is calling in and what their perspectives are because that's their job to represent their constituents. Right. Right. And if their constituents are silent, then they don't know how we feel, what we would support policy-wise. Yeah. Or why we even think that it's important. Right. And, um, and that to me, you know, when I learned that, I was kind of surprised, but, um, but this is the, this is the same kind of thing. So Yeah. You know, I would say too, if this is something that you're beginning to think, oh my goodness, this is important. Like, consider actually saying something <laugh> Yeah. Right. Yeah. To, to your friends, but also to our Congress people so that they know that we believe that this is important.
Speaker 3 00:52:32 Totally. And if you don't have a lot of experience with that, I can understand why it feels like a black box. Like how, how do I do that? Even? So I do try to break that down. Like there, there is a capital switchboard that you can call and if you're e if you're feeling nervous, do it after hours, then no one's there, right? You'll, it's a totally automated system. It helps you with, with number prompts. Like you type in your zip code, it finds a representative for you, it connects you to their office. And if it's after hours, you can simply leave a message and you can write down what you want to say and read. It takes three minutes, um, just to, just to try it. If you've never done it before it, it's actually so much easier than you think and so much more empowering than you might think.
Speaker 3 00:53:14 And I loved what you said, like, if we don't speak up, they don't know how to do their job cuz it is their job. And not only that, um, by listening to voters, that's how they keep their job. Like that's how they stay in office, right? They have a very, they have a vested interest in paying attention to what constituent voters say. So even if you call in too and you say, I'm a Christian, I'm a constituent, I vote every single year and I really want you to pay attention to this and do something on climate change. If they hear that over and over and over again, then they're gonna be really scared to vote against a bill that might come up to the floor later that year because they've heard from so many voters that, uh, this is a top issue for them. And they, they want voters to like them so that they keep voting for them so that they can stay in their job. That's, it's, it's very elegant. How are, uh, our system of elected democracy works?
Speaker 2 00:54:07 Oh my goodness, Kyle, I, um, I told you before that I have a, a handful of notes. I mean, I had a page full of notes, um, that I came into this with. But as we start to close out, um, I just wanna ask you, um, where did I not take us today? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like, what, what question did I not ask? Like, what's still kind of burning in you there? Or like, I, if, if she would've only said this, I could have asked this. Like, like what is that that you wanna leave us with?
Speaker 3 00:54:36 Yeah. Um, so one of, one of the, one of the pieces that surprised me a bit as I was writing and and doing research for the book was, was this idea of, and we talked about it already, I just wanna go a little bit deeper, like take the next step. This idea of, uh, practicing these spiritual disciplines of climate action as a way to unlock joy. And not just our joy, but God's joy. Um, that, that, that working to lower our carbon footprint through all kinds of actions. Um, and when we, when we undertake them mindfully and when we undertake them intentionally, uh, with Christ at the center, right? Because that's what spiritual disciplines are. We put Christ at the center, um, and we practice these things to train our hearts and our minds on Christ and to form our hearts after God's heart. When we undertake these actions in that way, um, suddenly what is so often couched in guilt and shame and blame and fear, um, gets flipped on its head.
Speaker 3 00:55:55 And, and, uh, we don't, we no longer do these things out of obligation. We do these things because they are bringing us joy and that joy is not coming from nowhere. That joy is coming from God because God takes delight in God's creation. And he takes the light when, when his human image bears takes steps to faithfully respond to that command, to rule through service. When, when we, when we rule creation rightly, when we rule it by seeking the good of creation and the flourishing of all creation, because we're serving and we're protecting it, um, we're living as God created us to be. We're, we're living in the center of God's will. And, uh, I, I love the movie Chariots of Fire when, when Scottish Olympian and deeply committed Christian, Eric Little is torn over whether to run this, this really important race on a Sunday or not.
Speaker 3 00:56:55 Um, cuz to work on a Sunday would be contrary to his religious convictions. And, and there's this line where he's, he's wrestling with us and he says, but God made me fast. And when I run, I feel God's pleasure. I feel God's joy. And I, I kind of flip that, or I I use that in the book and I say, God made all of us earth keepers, God made all of us to rule over creation by serving and protecting it. And when we do that, we feel God's pleasure. We feel God's joy. And, and so I guess I would just wanna leave with an invitation, uh, that, that it can be really easy to engage in this work out of that fear, out of that sense of drudgery, out of that sense of obligation and guilt and shame and, and blame. Like it's really easy.
Speaker 3 00:57:49 Climate folks are like the biggest scolds in the room. <laugh>, right? They're always wagging their finger and, and they're telling you what you're doing wrong. I hate that about the movement. And um, and so whenever I have the chance, I try to flip that and say, this isn't about, this isn't even mostly about, um, obligation or drudgery. This is about unlocking God's pleasure and God's joy in your life. Try some of these, these lifestyle changes. Try some of these things. I have a whole list in my book. Try some of them and see what happens. See, see if joy is unlocked in unlikely places. See if, if your heart is quieted, um, if some of that anxiety you might feel is stilled. Um, cuz I think you might find that, and that's what I love about this, that this isn't, this isn't just a call to self-flagellation. This isn't just a call to accountability, although that is important. We have to be held accountable for the ways that we have failed to, um, steward God's creation well and love it and care for it. But it's not even first and, and and foremost about that. This is, this is about an invitation to unlock more of God's pleasure and God's joy in your life.
Speaker 2 00:59:03 Thank you so much for this. Um, the name of the book that released, uh, February 21st is Following Jesus in a Warming World, A Christian Call to Climate Action. There's gonna be a link to purchase this in the show notes, and I think we might even get, get a promo code. And so if we do, then we'll put that in there too, because you have a lot, like you said, a a list of some of these spiritual disciplines that we might explore. Um, you know, and, and see what kind of, you know, is beckons us mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and um, and also a lot of the things that we kind of, that we kind of breeze through, you explore in more detail and in more depth in the book. And so I do encourage people to grab a copy of that. But thank you so much Kyle for being with me today. This was really, this was really a pleasure. Thank you Alexis. I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 00:59:55 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth Bus. Be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also visit us at. That makes total sense com.
