As I write this review, the United Nation’s Climate Change conference is just wrapping up—with all the political intrigue and bluster expected from events like this. It’s just been reported that OPEC sent a letter to its members urging them to resist any mention of fossil fuels in the summit deal. So it goes.

Theology and Climate Change exposes the theological underpinnings of climate change, arguing that it’s fundamentally a theological (not to be confused with religious) problem. Both modern Christianity and secularism are the results of leaving behind first truth claims of the pre-modern era for Enlightenment norms. This shift to Enlightenment thinking has given birth to Progressive Dominion Theology. Creation no longer has telos—it is ours to manipulate in a now 400 year long “pathway of advance and victory” (70).

Once first truth claims are exposed, it’s easier to understand the inconsistencies of Evangelicals in their resistance to climate change mitigation strategies. They don’t necessarily have trouble with the science, but rather

an underlying sense of insecurity that the very way of life that they are embedded in is under threat. (116)

This book was not what I expected—it was much more significant. Read this carefully to explore why we’re in the mess we’re in and how theology and religion have brought us to this point.

Tyson, Paul. Theology and Climate Change. Routledge, 2021. Routledge Focus on Religion.