Edmonds church looks to bridge gap between climate change and religion
Jan 26, 2020, 8:16 AM
(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
It appears that more and more churches — including Dave Ross’ own — are starting to preach about climate change in the Sunday sermons. So has God taken a side here?
Edmonds United Methodist has a series of programs going on. The next one is January 26 and it’s titled, “Are you ready to pay the cost and inconvenience for climate change?”
The church is tackling climate change on a practical level. Gayla Shoemake chairs the Advocates for Justice and Environment team at the church, and joined Seattle’s Morning News to discuss why they’re taking this approach.
“We believe at this point it is a crisis. And although we’ve had sessions probably over the last 10 or 15 years at our church, we just decided at this point we have to do something that is significant and that will impress the people in our church,” she said.
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While this is usually the type of thing the government or an academic institution does, Shoemake feels the church has a special role to play in talking about climate change.
“The church looks at it from a moral perspective, and that is a perspective that we have that the government doesn’t really have. We’re called by our Christian religion to take care of the Earth,” she said. “There are many evangelical churches that are working on this whole climate issue. They do not get much publicity because you get much more coverage when there’s some opposition.”
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For now, the programs are not meant to push any specific legislation or get political in nature, but to help give a road map on how individuals can make a difference.
“We really don’t preach about it. We just present the information as we see it and try and give people hope that they can make a difference,” she said.
“The Methodist Church has taken a position, and they do believe that the big change is because of human interaction,” Shoemake continued. “And even though we believe seriously that governments and corporations have a huge part of it, we also believe individuals do have an impact and can make a difference.”
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