A distinguished atmospheric scientist from Canada made an impassioned plea to the evangelical community to heed God’s word and take climate change seriously, when speaking about integrating science and faith at the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism held in Incheon, Korea. However, it is not fear that motivates believers but love, she said.
Professor Katherine Hayhoe, who is chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, was one of the speakers introduced by Chris Wright, a seasoned theologian and global ambassador for the Langham Partnership, who called climate change “an issue which Christian mission cannot ignore.”
Wright referenced the crisis as meriting missional attention under the fourth aim of the Lausanne movement: to see the impact of the kingdom in every area of society, and also in line with the overall aim of the latest Lausanne Congress, which seeks to “Let the church declare and display Christ together.”
Speaking to the Congress, Hayhoe outlined the correlation between creation as narrated by the Christian faith, alongside objective scientific reasoning.
“I was fortunate to grow up in a home where I was taught that the Bible is God's inspired written word and that science is God's expressed word,” Hayhoe said. “Think about it for a minute. If we believe the universe was created by God, as it says in the gospel of John, chapter one, that ‘the word was with God in the beginning and through him all things were made,’ then what is studying this amazing universe we live in?”
Science means trying to understand the mind of God, according to Hayhoe, and the laws and rules of physics He established, which govern the universe and world we live in.
“The author of Hebrews defines faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what we do not see,’ added Hayhoe. “But if I could go back two thousand years, I would jog the elbow of the author of Hebrews and I would say you forgot the second part.
“The second part of the verse is, ‘What is science other than the substance of the here and now? The evidence of what we do see.' Faith is not in competition with science. They are two complementary things.”
Hayhoe reminded the Congress that the psalmist writes [Psalm 19] about the heavens declaring the glory of God and the skies proclaiming the work of his hands: “And the more our ability to see with our eyes God's amazing handiwork… … the greater our awe.”
This understanding of the love, care and attention given by God towards His creation, our current home, reminds us that it is a “home that we have a God-given responsibility to care for,” stated Hayhoe. She asked a rhetorical question, “Why do I say that?” and followed quickly with the assertion, “that’s what the Bible says.”
Hayhoe explained the interrelationship between humans and the planet, referring to God creating every living thing, including “planets and animals and us.” She outlined how everything utilized by us, whether water or food or resources for modern life, ultimately come from the planet created by Him. “The planet can survive without us. We, on the other hand, can’t survive without a healthy, thriving planet.”
“We are all living things and we humans are some of the neediest and most vulnerable of living things,” Hayhoe added. “Nature does not need us. We need it. That's how God created us. So take a breath. That breath is full of oxygen that keeps us alive. But did you know that half of that oxygen comes from tiny phytoplankton in the ocean?”
The devastating impact of a downgraded ecosystem for the Earth, according to Hayhoe, when the planet is not healthy and thriving, and nature is “choked with pollution,” are vulnerable people lacking enough food, clean water or a safe place to live. “The very ones we Christians are told to love and care for,” Hayhoe reminded starkly, before issuing a challenge to skeptics.
“So to any who say that caring for the planet is somehow worshiping creation over the creator, I say: Open your Bible to the very first chapter and consider that we too are part of creation.
“Consider also how the Bible explicitly says that God values the most seemingly insignificant aspects of creation, the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, and has designed us to live in an ecosystem where everything is connected and our lives are interdependent with nature in ways that we are only beginning to understand.”
A scientific illustration of this interdependency is a fungus, known as white nose syndrome, which is killing bats. Hayhoe said this may seem inconsequential to humans but bats have an essential function affecting our own wellbeing. They normally eat pests, which otherwise devour the crops eaten by us. However, with falling bat populations, farmers have resorted to more pesticides, which then pollute air and water quality.
Hayhoe referred to fresh scientific analysis proving that the increase in pesticide pollution, following the bats’ deaths, has led to a thousand human infant deaths in the nearby area. “You see how everything we're starting to understand is connected.”
The chief scientist also pointed out that the Hebrew word for “dominion”, which is “Radah” in Genesis, means responsibility in its original etymological root, as much as dominance. Even so, if disagreements remain on that point, she further referenced Psalm 72 showing that responsibility is important to God, when it comes to dominion over creation.
“Radha means that he will deliver the needy who cry out, who will save the afflicted, who have no help. That is what this word means,” said Hayhoe.
Scientific analysis shows the detrimental effect on the planet’s resources, with falling animal populations, as humans use more of Earth’s resources. The issue does not just affect bats either – Hayhoe referred to some hard statistics showing the effect. 70 percent of land-based animals, from giraffes to bees, have disappeared since her birth in 1972. In fact, 70 percent of the total number of animals on Earth have disappeared – “and that is what we refer to as the biodiversity crisis.”
Hayhoe went into more scientific detail about the crisis of the climate changing faster than at any time in history although she did say “natural factors” were involved. However, the human factor was a clear influence.
“Right now, the Earth should be cooling very slowly. Instead, it is warming faster and faster and we are the ones to blame. We know that 22% of these heat trapping gasses come from deforestation and industrial agriculture, which of course also affects pollution and biodiversity. We know that the rest comes from digging up and burning coal and gas and oil for industry, for transportation and more.”
More heat-trapping gasses produced by humans were affecting the atmosphere. Hayhoe, calling the problems “worrying,” used an illustration of an extra blanket being wound around the planet. “And imagine if someone snuck into your room at night and put an extra blanket on you. You'd wake up sweating saying, ‘Hey, I didn't need this extra blanket. I'm too warm.’ That's exactly what's happening to our planet.”
These issues of pollution, climate change and the biodiversity crisis are not distant issues, said Hayhoe, confessing that she used to think that way. “Most people are worried, but we don’t think it’s our problem.” Her scientific mind delved into the facts and discovered issues such as that nine million people, representing a third of global premature births, died from fossil fuel air pollution each year – far more than the seven million who died in the Covid pandemic.
Hayhoe preferred to use the term “global weirding” rather than “global warming” because “the weather is getting weirder and it’s putting us all at risk.” Heatwaves, floods, droughts and storms have always been present since the Fall, but there has never been a heatwave so strong as the recent southeast Asian heatwave. Other examples were given such as floods in Brazil in May 2024, or wildfires in Canada or recent typhoons in Shanghai.
Climate change affects everyone but those already vulnerable especially suffer. This includes people without safe places to live, or food or clean water.
Hayhoe gave two specific examples. Firstly, poor neighborhoods often inhabited by immigrants are more prone to floods or become a lot warmer in heatwaves, not helped by a lack of investment in infrastructure or green space: “There's no place for the water to go when it rains and no vegetation to shade their homes when it's hot.”
Secondly, families in Malawi where child marriage was previously outlawed have begun “to make the unimaginable choice” of selling a daughter into marriage to get money to pay for food when crops fail because of environmental issues.
“These are environmental issues, but they are not only environmental issues, they're issues of hunger and poverty, housing and health, and perhaps most of all, justice and equity because climate change is not fair,” said Hayhoe.
“For the nearly one billion who live in the low elevation coastal zone, and depend on the ocean for their primary source of food and protein, how will they feed their families when the ocean food chain breaks down and sea level inundates their homes?” she added.
For Hayhoe, these are not scientific issues but issues of faith. She reminded the Congress that Jesus said in the gospel of John that his followers would be recognised by their love of others.
“How can we claim to love others and not care about this? No, I'm convinced if we take the Bible seriously that we will be at the front of those who are advocating for and demanding action on these issues for protecting the people and other living things most affected.”
Although the Bible does not talk directly about pollution, biodiversity loss or climate change, Hayhoe believed that it does address our attitudes as Christians. Most people are afraid, she said, but Christians do not have to follow this trend. She reminded delegates that 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear.
“So if we are reacting out of fear that is not from God, instead we have been given a spirit of power, which means we are empowered to act. We're not paralyzed. We have the God-given ability to act out of love, concern for others rather than ourselves, and with a sound mind, which I believe is informed in part by the science that we do, studying this world that God has given us.”
Individual action is not enough, according to Hayhoe. She added that the church understood the importance of community so the most vital action “is what most people are not doing, which is to simply have a conversation about why this matters and what we can do about it together, talk about it, teach about it, discuss what to do.”
These conversations should complement actions such as investing in the church forests of Ethiopia, or stewarding resources wisely to install solar panels on church buildings, or partnering with a climate justice organization.
“When we invest in our communities to make them more resilient to climate impacts, all of these actions speak just as loudly, if not more so, than our words.”
Hayhoe said a five-year-old scientific study concluded that every single environmentally friendly action taken makes a difference. And it found that seeing these matters as not economic or environmental but as moral helps to “frame these issues.”
Lastly, Hayhoe said a global poll found that the main reason why people cared about the environment is love.
“Love for each other and for the next generation is what motivates us to act. And that to me reminds me of Galatians 5, where it says, the only thing that counts is when our faith expresses itself through love.”
For that reason, Hayhoe said her publicly expressed views reaffirm the deepest truths of the gospel namely: “God's abiding, extravagant, overwhelming, and endless love… has been poured out in our hearts already to share with everyone around us so they too recognize that our God is a God who passionately loves every person and every part of his creation.”
