Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Brain, David

Area of Concentration

Environmental Studies

Abstract

Christianity contains numerous ecotheologies that present humans as the epitome of creation, but also instruct them to care for the Earth. While Christian environmental organizations have flourished over the past few decades, studies have consistently linked belief in Christianity and Evangelicalism in particular to negative environmental ethics and lack of support for environmental regulation. Numerous explanations for Evangelical’s aversion to environmentalism have been explored and tested such as biblical literalism, religiosity, morality, eschatology, and political conservatism with different explanations ultimately resulting. This led me to explore what aspects of Christianity are responsible for these environmental ethics by studying the social environments of two churches in Sarasota, Florida, one Evangelical and one mainline Protestant. I interviewed their pastor and gave a written questionnaire to ten attendees of the church which aimed at gauging participants religiosity, biblical interpretations, and level of support for environmentalism. The results from my study show no association between religiosity or literal biblical interpretation with negative environmental attitudes but show that the Evangelical church was indeed less supportive of environmentalism. The church that participants attended was the only difference that may have caused their opposing environmental ethics, leading me to conclude that the noticeably conservative social environment of the Evangelical church inhibited its members from supporting environmentalism due to its association with other liberal politics most Evangelicals strongly disagree with.

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