Stewardship or Dominion? An Ethnography of Climate Change in Evangelical Oklahoma

Abstract

Conservative evangelical Christians have been labeled by liberal supporters of climate change research as “climate change deniers.” However, conservative evangelical Christians do not deny climate change so much as integrate it into their existing worldview, which is predicated on the Bible as the inerrant word of God. This thesis discusses the different spatial and temporal scales of this worldview and shows how Christians actively engage key passages from the Bible to make sense of new information regarding climate change. It also demonstrates that these interpretations are not isolated; rather, Christians work together and support each other in arriving at Biblical truths through group fellowship opportunities and worship services. In doing so, this thesis shows that debates over “denial” preempt and destroy any opportunity to discuss ways to combat detrimental change with conservative evangelical Christians.