Examining the Environmental Attitudes of Euro American and African American Mainline and Fundamentalist Protestant Pastors Romesh Anketell Abstract In recent years there has been increasing attention paid to religion in the United States particularly to the division between mainline and fundamentalist Protestant Christians There have been relatively few studies that have dealt with this division in regards to how these individuals view environmental issues Existing studies have focused on individual parishioners rather than on the beliefs of individual pastors who I assume for the purposes of this study are in positions of influence and leadership within the churches Understanding the environmental attitudes of Protestant pastors and therefore the spiritual guidance parishioners receive may lead to an understanding of whether parishioners ultimately turn this guidance into action This study examined the differences in environmental opinions between four groups of pastors AfricanAmerican mainline African American fundamentalist Euro American mainline and EuroAmerican fundamentalist pastors Individual interviews were conducted with each pastor to determine the level of overall concern for the environment and type of concerns the pastors exhibited The mainline pastors interviewed exhibited a greater overall concern for the environment than did fundamentalist pastors Both Euro American fundamentalist and EuroAmerican mainline pastors exhibited a greater concern for global environmental problems than local problems African American mainline pastors also exhibited a greater concern for environmental problems than African American fundamentalists but this difference was minimal The gap between fundamentalist and mainline was much more apparent in the case of Euro American pastors The clear differences between the fundamentalist and mainline pastors appeared to be related to the fundamentalist pastors strict interpretation of the Bible while the more uniform responses of the African American pastors might be a result of the importance of their common cultural heritage and experiences p 1 Environmental Attitudes of Pastors Introduction Until recently the relationship between religious beliefs and concern for the environment has been studied infrequently Currently many issues concerning religion particularly the Protestant Christian denominations have gained heightened interest in the United States Much of this attention is due to a split in philosophy within these denominations between the fundamentalist forces and the more moderate Protestants The defining characteristic of fundamentalist Christians is that they believe the Bible to be the infallible inspired Word of God and believe that it should be interpreted literally Mayer 2004 Wacker 2000 Moderate mainline Christians are defined as all non fundamentalist Protestant Christians This is a sizeable group and one that varies in their approach to studying the Bible The one common characteristic of mainline Christians is that they believe that the Bible is open to some level of interpretation although the degree of interpretation allowed differs among denominations Lynn White s 1967 thesis has dominated this area of study until recently White proposed that the Judeo Christian faith is the cause of our current ecological crisis He believed that these religious beliefs are fundamentally anti environmental because they emphasize the needs of humanity over nature and treat nature as something to be dominated and subdued Since then research has shown that individuals from more fundamental religious groups mostly fundamentalist Christians tend to exhibit attitudes corresponding to lower levels of concern for environmental issues Guth et al 1995 Hartwig 1999 Since these studies do not distinguish among types of environmental issues Schultz et al 2000 examined the attitudes of Christians in regards to ecocentric concerns and anthropocentric concerns Ecocentric concerns are related to the intrinsic value of plants and animals while anthropocentric concerns are related to the effect environmental damage will have on the quality of life for humans Schultz et al found that a literal belief in the Bible was negatively correlated to ecocentric environmental concerns and positively correlated to anthropocentric concerns All of the previously mentioned studies deal with churchgoers but do not take into account the views of the pastors who are in positions of influence and leadership within the church This study will examine the environmental attitudes of mainline and fundamentalist pastors specifically gauging their overall level of concern for the environment and what types of environmental problems they deem to be most significant Another interesting dimension of the church and the environmental attitudes of its parishioners can be found when examining the differences between African Americans and p 2 Environmental Attitudes of Pastors Euro Americans This relationship is not one that has been studied widely The prevailing belief has been that African Americans were not as concerned as Euro Americans about environmental issues It has been argued that African Americans are more concerned with survival issues such as housing and jobs Kreger 1973 however newer studies have indicated that African Americans actually tend to exhibit the same if not more concern for environmental issues than do Euro American Americans Commission for Racial Justice 1987 Mohai 1990 Mohai 2003 These studies have focused on the two populations in general rather than particular religious groups Little is known about how different racial groups within the protestant church reconcile their faith and environmental views The aim of this study is to find out the overall level of concern for the environment among four groups of pastors African American fundamentalists African American mainline EuroAmerican fundamentalists and Euro American mainline and to find out what types of environmental problems pastors in each group deem to be most important This study seeks to discover why these pastors feel the discussed problems are important and whether they have a biblical basis for these beliefs Based on the previously mentioned Mohai studies I believe that African American mainline pastors will exhibit the greatest overall level of concern for the environment while the Euro American fundamentalist pastors will exhibit the least overall concern for the environment Although African Americans
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