Faculty Lecture Preview: Aaron Routhe on Evangelicals and Climate Change

Professor Aaron Routhe, sociology, will continue the Faculty Lecture Series next Wednesday with his lecture on contemporary evangelical positions on global climate change.

Routhe's lecture, "Evangelicals and Climate Change: what they believe and why," addresses a topic near to his own heart -- the subject of ongoing research for his doctoral dissertation on environmental sociology.   

"This is a reflection of professional and personal interests," said Routhe. "In the last 10 years, there's been a lot of dialogue about evangelicals and whether or not they care...What's the relationship between religion and environment? We know a lot about "elites-think" and what the people who say they speak for the rest of the evangelicals think, but what do the ‘others' actually think and do about climate change and the environment?"

For Routhe, the subject his dissertation approaches is a deep reflection of his own faith journey throughout his career. The question of environmentalism does present some particular challenges and questions for evangelicals. Depending on how the evidence is viewed, there is some proof that religion discourages such environmental concerns, as well as evidence to the contrary -- that religion actually does encourage environmentalism and proper stewardship of the Earth.

"We deal with a kind of theological question here: does scripture give us any clues?" said Routhe. "Because of my personal interest in this, as well as the professional interest in it, I decided when I got to my doctorate, for better or worse, to research something I care deeply about."

Routhe was first drawn into the world of environmental sociology after being a biology major with specific interests in ecological biology. After taking a sociology class during his final semester at Houghton, he realized his deeper interest in the human element of interaction with the environment and eventually pursued sociology in graduate school.

Routhe's journey has resulted in this dissertation, and as a side result, this lecture. For his research, Routhe has been doing face-to-face interviews with professing evangelicals on what they think about global climate change, whether it is happening, and why they think the way they do. Currently, he is in the process of consolidating the data, and the upcoming lecture this Wednesday will be one of the first presentations on this research.