What is the Meaning of Greening? Cultural Analysis of a Southern Baptist Environmental Text

Scholars and journalists alike interpreted “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change”, a document released in 2008 by a group of American Southern Baptists, as evidence that American evangelicals were becoming increasingly concerned about the environment. Using the tools...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Veldman, Robin Globus (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Carfax Publ. [2016]
Dans: Journal of contemporary religion
Année: 2016, Volume: 31, Numéro: 2, Pages: 199-222
Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés:B Southern Baptist Convention / Éthique environnementale / Communication
Sujets non-standardisés:B Environmentalism
B Climate Change
B greening of religion
B Environnement (art)
B Stewardship
B textual analysis
B Evangelicals
B Global warming
B Politics
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Résumé:Scholars and journalists alike interpreted “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change”, a document released in 2008 by a group of American Southern Baptists, as evidence that American evangelicals were becoming increasingly concerned about the environment. Using the tools of textual analysis, I show that this was not the only interpretation of the document at play. While journalists and scholars understood the Declaration as addressing the need to halt climate change, for a group of key Southern Baptist signatories, the document expressed a need for Southern Baptists to engage more actively in the public environmental discourse, lest they relinquish this domain to secular and liberal voices. Critically, the latter group viewed the Declaration as compatible with climate scepticism. My analysis shows how cultural context informs climate change attitudes, while also suggesting socio-historical factors—particularly evangelicals' embattled mentality—that may support climate change scepticism in Southern Baptist circles.
ISSN:1469-9419
Contient:Enthalten in: Journal of contemporary religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2016.1152676