Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval

Abstract

PhIlIP JenkInS haS established for himself a most distinctive role in religious scholarship. He is our foremost commentator on “world religion.” His perspective on his subject allows no energy for theoretical, abstract, or schematic matters. He is rather a close observer of the actual practice of religion, and his interpretive commentary is careful, disciplined, and alert to what he observes. Jenkins takes on a fresh and urgent matter, namely, the way in which climate change impinges upon religious practice and institutions. Jenkins has no interest in simplistic connections, e.g., that volcanoes are caused by God’s anger, even though he begins his book with reference to Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon on “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Jenkins is careful not to claim “causation” between climate and religion but is attentive to the ways in which climate change creates conditions that seem to evoke extreme and sometimes disastrous religious practices. His book features studies of such critical moments of climate danger and upheaval.