Is God green? : emerging environmentalism in the evangelical community

In recent months, evangelical environmentalism has been the subject of much media coverage and debate. The central questions are whether evangelical environmentalists could be potential allies for the mainstream environmental movement, and what impact pro-environment evangelicals might have on politics. I argue that evangelical environmentalists do not seek alliances with the mainstream environmental movement because the perception in the wider evangelical community is that environmentalism is liberal and un-Christian. This perception is the result of a confluence of theological, political, and cultural developments that have taken place over the past 30 years. As a result, the leaders of evangelical environmentalism do not want to risk forming coalitions with civic or political groups that would alienate members of their own political and religious communities. Instead, they work from within their own religious community to reframe environmentalism as a Christian duty, and they seek to change the Republican Party's stance towards environmentalism to align with their own.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Psaros, Marina Sophia

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Judith Layzer.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37473

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37473