Updates, Downdates, and Other Thoughts

Nathan Aaberg —  June 30, 2021 — Leave a comment

One of the challenges of writing a blog is feeling at times like one is writing in a void. I write words. Are they read? If they are read, do they catch? Do they find traction? Do they add anything to the reader’s life? I am forced to ask sometime, “Why do I write?”

When I started writing this blog all the way back in 2014, I literally could not not write.

I had to get my thoughts and perceptions out there. There was a fire in my belly. I had, perhaps like many introverts, many things I had thought but had not expressed. But I found I needed to express them. And I needed to examine and explore why I thought keeping God’s Creation was somehow essential to the Christian faith-life. Was it essential? My heart said yes.

I have since had the opportunity to meet remarkable Christians through this blog and to understand at a deeper level how Creation is interwoven through the Bible. I have seen how keeping Creation in an attentive, focused way grows one’s “faith muscles” and one’s love of God. This has been a blessing. I hope it has been a blessing for you in some way as well.

I still have the fire in the belly about Creation. It is, I am convinced, full of the glory of God. I am still amazed by the things I learn about how Creation works. Its mysteries and patterns will fascinate me to the end of my life and, I pray, beyond that. I still find my heart broken and angered by how Christendom as a whole accepts violence and diminishment of the life of God’s earth and even condones it at times. I am grateful for my wife Mayumi and her insistent voice that Creation matters.

Is this a calling? I don’t know. I do know I seek a more specific, rooted calling, a way to do the most I can for God’s will for Creation and people to flourish in a particular place. I sense I am at a transition point which I cannot name.

Below I will share some thoughts and impressions from this moment of my life. For someone raised as a Midwestern Lutheran, it feels a little too self-focused. But I hope it may resonate in some way with you. I would certainly welcome any wisdom you might have to offer.

1. A spiritual challenge I face is that I do not belong to a community of believers. Yet, I find more truth and beauty and conviction in the Bible and the words of some saints of our tradition than I ever have before. Tim Mackie and The Bible Project are great blessings right now in seeing consistent and beautiful patterns throughout the Bible. Priya Parker’s book The Art of Gathering actually gives me some ideas about the kind of worship gathering that might resonate for me and others. I’d highly recommend the book.

2. A blog post coming in the next month or two will be transcription of an interview I did with John Kempf. John Kempf is one of the leading voices and practitioners of regenerative agriculture. He also happens to be a brilliant Amish Christian. I’d highly recommend his podcast (start with this episode). The way he combines a deeply spiritual understanding of how God’s earth works with a comprehensive, scientific, practical mindset amazes and inspires me.

3. I continue to work on a novel that incorporates themes that I have written about here and that I see in the Bible. Are there parallels between writing a novel and being a Christian? One I’ve found is that writing a novel is completely different than trying to outline it and plan it in theory. Just like there’s a difference between reading about following Jesus and actually trying to do it. I’ve had to learn to not try to control the narrative. I’ve had to be OK with starting writing sessions not knowing where things would go. And I’ve found I’ve had to face my own weaknesses, even my weaknesses in understanding how people actually think and feel and how the world works. It’s humbling, very humbling. One needs grace. God works through our weaknesses as we read in 2 Corinthians 2:19. Maybe when life is easy and smooth, we’re not actually putting ourselves out there enough for what God wants us to do?

I’ve also been struck by how hard it is to write of faith and life and the significance of Creation without making the narrative chock full of theology. And it’s occurred to me that perhaps Christendom has devoted way too much energy to theological disputes. It’s actually a mindset, this dwelling on doctrinal borders seems to be a cultural way we often do the faith. What if the Amish concept of ordnung (a collection of unwritten guidelines for all parts of life) was applied in some hybrid way to Christians of a particular community so that how we lived was as valued as what we believe?

4. Want to read to a challenging novel? Check out Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. It has all kinds of insights about climate change and what people will be like when facing the consequences of a world made more chaotic and dangerous by forces that could have been prevented. A question that is often asked by characters in the book in different ways is, “If we looked at our situation from the future, what we should do is so obvious. So why don’t we do it?” What is the answer for Christians and churches? Maybe this is a world-wide version of the situation the good Samaritan faced. Maybe doing life and church as usual is the wrong thing. Maybe acting like this is an emergency and stepping out of our comfort zones is the right thing.

5. Today, I saw the biggest toad I have ever seen. I had gone out to just check in with the high school youth who are participating in the farming program the non-profit I work for offers each summer. I joined in for a bit in the weeding among the cabbages. There are weeds to pull because it is an organic farm, which means insects can live there. And when there are insects and cover, toads can live as happily as toads can, although their expressions don’t necessarily convey happiness very intensely. The toad was in the midst of the cabbages and weeds. Its back was dark, its eyes large. It didn’t seem very alarmed, perhaps because its dark skin made it blend in with the dark, rich soil of the fields? The youth around me seemed to take it all in stride. I’m glad they associate farming with wildlife.

My thought – Christian farming should be measured by productivity, quality of life, and how much the life that farm supports.

6. Finally, I need to say that Mayumi, our younger son, and I all visited a farm of a friend in southern Illinois a few weeks back. Like the Riemers, the farmer is grazing cattle in a way that mimicks how ruminants and the land can productively benefit each other. The land was absolutely beautiful. We saw an eastern meadowlark, a great blue heron, lush pastures that hold water and provide habitat, and healthy cattle. The farmer patiently shared with us the planning and effort that goes into stewarding the land so attentively. All of the fruits of the spirit are at work in his heart and mind as he farms. In his way, in his deeply rooted and deeply focused way, he is serving God with love and devotion. I am still moved at the memory of that tour and the life he and his wife have built.

Careful grazing can benefit woods like these. A great blue heron flew up out of the pond in these same woods about 30 yards away.

A herd will appreciate the shade of woods on hot summer days. This was a very curious herd, by the way.

7. I find myself praying for the love, strength, and wisdom of Jesus in all of my life.

I hope this finds you convinced of God’s love, filled with love and strength and wisdom, and living consciously and fully for God’s purposes. I’d love to hear what you are doing and what you are finding to be your purpose and focus, especially as they relate to God’s Creation.

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Salvation is Bigger Than You and Me

Nathan Aaberg —  May 3, 2021 — Leave a comment

There was much that surprised me in N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope.

In the book, the New Testament Scholar and Anglican bishop explains what, in his view, the ultimate future of life will be from a Christian understanding. This includes what our futures will be after we each die. It also includes what God’s ultimate intentions are for this world. And, counterintuitively, he details what response that understanding should prompt in us in our daily lives and in our churches.

I was surprised by, among other things, how strong of a case Wright made for a literal bodily resurrection as our future destiny. This comes from Wright close reading of the Bible. Here, as in other cases, he finds threads that are both conservative and radical at the same time.

But nothing surprised me more than several paragraphs at the end of the chapter that concludes Part II (“Future Plan”). In these paragraphs, Wright forcefully questions our traditional understanding of what salvation is all about.

These paragraphs are so significant that I have shared them below and urge you to read them.

But the most important thing to say at the end of this discussion, and of this section of the book, is that heaven and hell are not, so to speak, what the whole game is about. This is one of the central surprises in the Christian hope. The whole point of my argument so far is that the question of what happens to me after death is not the major, central, framing questions that centuries of theological traditions have supposed. The New Testament, true to its Old Testament roots, regularly insists that the major, central, framing question is that of God’s purpose of rescue and recreation for the whole world, the entire cosmos. The destiny of individual human beings must be understood within that context – not simply in the sense that we are only part of a much larger picture but also in the sense that part of the whole point of being saved in the present is so that we can play a vital role (Paul speaks of this role in the shocking terms of being “fellow workers with God”) within that larger picture and purpose.

The paragraph does not actually end here but, in my humble opinion, it should have. So I encourage you to read that first section again before going on to the second half of the paragraph below.

And that in turn makes us realize that the question of our own destiny, in terms of the alterantives of joy or woe, is probably the wrong way of looking at the whole question. The question ought to be, How will God’s new creation come? and then, How will we humans contribute to that renewal of creation and to the fresh projects that the creator God will launch in his new world? The choice before humans would then be framed differently: are you going to worship the creator God and discover whereby what it means to become fully and gloriously human, reflecting his powerful, healing, transformative love into the world? Or are you going to worship the world as it is, boosting your corruptible humanness by gaining power or pleasure from forces within the world but merely contributing thereby to your own dehumanization and the further corruption of the world?

Below you will find most of the next paragraph. I end my quoting of the paragraph at a natural stopping point.

This reflection leads to a further, and sobering, thought. If what I have suggested is anywhere near the mark, then to insist on heaven and hell as the ultimate question – to insist, in other words, that what happens eventually to individual humans is the most important thing in the world – may be to make a mistake similar to the one made by Jewish people in the first century, the mistake that both Jesus and Paul addressed. Israel believed (so Paul tells us, and he should know) that the purposes of the creator God all came down to this question: how is God going to rescure Israel? What the gospel of Jesus revealed, however, was that the purposes of God were reaching out to a different question: how is God going to rescue the world through Israel and thereby rescue Israel itself as part of the process but not as the point of it all? Maybe what we are faced with in our own day is a similar challenge: to focus not on the question of which human beings God is going to take to heaven and how he is going to do it but on the question of how God is going to redeem and renew his creation through human beings and how he is going to rescue those humans themselves as part of the process but not as the point of it all. 

There is so much power in how we frame things.

If the point of Christianity is understood to be the preservation of our individual souls in a heaven that is beyond a earth that is just a temporary place that does not matter to God, then it’s not surprising that Christians ignore or even willingly deplete God’s earth.

But what if the point is, as Wright expressed it above, to be part of God’s desire and purpose to bring everythig God made into peace and harmony?

How different our treatment of God’s earth would be. How different our evangelism would be.

This also puts human exceptionalism into its proper perspective. As I wrote here, “The point of the God-given exceptional role (of humans) is serving God’s purposes.”

We are uniquely gifted in order to uniquely serve.

I find Wright’s framing to ring true in a compelling way.

How about you?

 

I consistently find N.T. Wright’s insights to be both affirming of the coherence of the Bible itself in ways that inspire me and challenging to the ways so many Christians have come to understand God and Jesus. I highly recommend that you read his books and listen to lectures by him. 

 

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Before You Hit Play: Tips for Hosting a Climate Change Documentary Screening for Your Faith Community (Guest Post)

Nathan Aaberg —  April 25, 2021 — Leave a comment

In February I shared a blog post by my friend Ryan O’Connor that reviewed several climate change documentaries for sharing with your church or other faith community. When Ryan was first working on the post, I asked him to also share insights he’s gained by organizing documentary showings himself. You can find those wise insights below.

I highly recommend that you take to heart the wisdom he offers. Group dynamics, especially around topics that have become politically polarized, can be hard to handle. Combining your good intentions with thoughtful preparation gives you a much better chance of having a successful event. Thanks again, Ryan, for sharing your insights.

 

On a dark evening in November, I briefly addressed a small crowd gathered in our church’s auditorium. I nervously smiled, realizing I didn’t recognize many of the faces in the crowd. I thanked them for coming.  Then I dimmed the lights.

As the documentary began, I futilely tried to scan my speaking notes in the dark. Had I mentioned my purpose and goals as intended? Was I ready for tough questions? And most importantly, was our planning sufficient, or were there things I glossed over in my eagerness to gather people and hit “play”?

Hosting a movie screening can be an effective, low-barrier way to attract a crowd. It will only be effective, however, to the extent you plan from the big picture to the little details. So, using a Q & A format, I will share what I’ve learned about good planning for these kinds of events.

What are your goals?

If you are planning on screening a movie, or hosting any type of event, I strongly encourage you to work through the following questions oriented around the goals for your event. Be as specific as you can and write you answers down on paper so you can refer back them throughout your planning. Let your goals inform your selection of a film, and be sure to watch the movie yourself prior to settling on it.

What outcome are you trying to achieve in hosting a movie screening?

While a desire to educate others may be the initial goal, the desired outcome is usually something more than deeper knowledge. Be transparent with attendees and state your hopes at the start of your meeting. In addition, recognize that your desired outcome may require more than just a one-time event, and think about how you will follow up.

What actions do you want attendees to take afterwards?

Again, knowledge itself is usually not the goal. In addition, merely giving people knowledge doesn’t necessarily lead to action. What would you like people to do, either corporately or privately, during or after attending your event?

What are barriers to action?

Try to think like a participant, perhaps discouraged by the enormity of the problem and unsure what actions to take, wondering if their actions matter, confused by climate science misinformation, or just busy with life and other important issues. Think through who you’re most trying to reach and how you can reduce barriers for them. Be prepared to address feelings of discouragement or skepticism about pie-in-the-sky solutions.

How can you set up the meeting timing, duration, and physical space to achieve your outcome, desired actions, and reduce barriers?

Think about the things like what day of the week and time of day to host your event, as well as whether you want to provide childcare or perhaps a virtual option so parents of young children can attend. Little things like snacks and room set-up matter too. Rows of long tables are great if you want people to take lots of notes, but if you want to include a small group discussion, round tables or no tables at all might be a better choice.

Who is your intended audience, and how will you advertise your event?

If you want more than your usual attendees to come, you’ll probably have to do more than just put it in the church bulletin. Would the pastor be willing to make an announcement from the pulpit an encourage people to come? Maybe even preach a sermon on the topic? Personal invitations are the best way to get people to come. For my event, my preschool-aged daughter and I handed out small flyers at a different church social event a few weeks prior, and several people came solely from the personal invitation.

How will you respond if there are tough questions?

You don’t have to be a climate expert to start a conversation. In large part, that’s why you’re screening the movie rather than speaking yourself. As a facilitator, it’s not your job convince skeptics in the moment. Resist the temptation to get into debates with people. It is okay if not everyone agrees.

While it is important to refute obvious falsehoods, it is equally or more important to treat others with respect and charity. However, it will give you more confidence if you have a plan for how you will respond to difficult questions. Often, the best answer is to state that you’re not a climate scientist, reiterate that we’re united around common goals like caring for God’s earth and all people, and that you’d be happy to follow up afterwards.

That being said, if you’re looking to moderate a session and want to brush up on climate science, excellent resources are the state-level climate summaries from NOAA, which cover both changes observed to date as well as major impacts expected by mid to end of century, tailored to each state in the U.S.

If you’re concerned about how to respond to specific questions, like the reliability of climate models or “Hasn’t the climate always changed?”, the website SkepticalScience.com, has numerous rebuttal articles that correct misinformation. While an excellent resource, the sheer volume of articles and technical details can be a rabbit hole. I keep it bookmarked to respond to follow-up questions, if needed, rather than to prep myself for hypothetical boogeymen.

If you’re looking a good hard copy resource, a book on climate science specifically written for people of faith is A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions by renowned climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe and her husband and evangelical pastor Andrew Farley. Published in 2009, the book provides an excellent summary of climate science along with discussion of how Christians should respond. The book and its faith-based commentary makes it an excellent companion to the websites above, which are regularly updated with climate impacts observed to date and the latest future projections.

Another good resource is A Catholic Response to Global Warming, by Steven Coleman. While written for a Catholic audience, it contains an excellent summary of both the moral and scientific urgency for people of all faiths and is very accessible at only 24 pages.

A practical example: my story of screening The Human Element

Back to my screening of The Human Element. As the stories on the screen unfolded in the darkened room, my nerves settled down. I went through the mental checklist of my goals, the schedule for the evening, and the big-picture outcomes and actions around which I had planned the event.

My primary goal was to educate others and spur a conversation with church members about observed climate impacts and personal concerns about future changes. Secondary goals included recruiting new members to our care of creation team and getting feedback on other topics attendees would like to learn about in the future.

With those goals in mind, I made sure to have each person sign in as they arrived and included a check box for them to indicate if they were interested in joining the team.  I also provided a handout for each person that included the discussion questions and a list of potential future topics, along with instructions for them to check off their top three.

Because part of my goal was in part to foster discussion and sharing, I had set the room up without tables, and following the movie I had people circle their chairs into small groups of 4-5 and discuss the following questions:

Which stories in the film resonated with you most?

How has climate change impacted you and your community, or those close to you?

What are common values you share with those suffering the impacts of climate change, either in the film or in our local community?

What is the role of us as individuals and collectively as a church in helping to address climate change?

Following the small group discussion, we reconvened for a short large group report-out so that everyone, including myself, could hear a summary of the discussion.

There was a challenging reaction immediately after the film. Before we broke up into small groups, I asked the group for one or two people to share their immediate reactions.

An older gentleman from the back of the room blurted out gruffly, “Depressing!”

As the movie had ended on a positive note, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I didn’t try to argue with him. I just acknowledged that yes, climate change can be a depressing topic, but that there are also reasons to have hope, both from common ground solutions and from our faith.

And then I simply introduced the small group discussion and moved on to the next thing as planned.

I also wanted peopled to commit to an action–one new thing they could do in their personal lives to care for the Earth and for the poor suffering from environmental degradation. Recognizing that one barrier is not knowing what to do, I provided a handout of potential, high impact actions for consideration, such as signing up for a green power program through their utility, eating less meat, buying locally grown food, and changing commuting and driving habits.

At the end of the meeting, I asked everyone to take five minutes to write down their personal action commitment. I suspected that for some people, a secondary barrier might be a feeling that the issue was so big their actions wouldn’t matter and that they might be in the minority in trying to change their habitats. With this in mind, I ended on a hopeful and encouraging note. Quoting St. Paul, I noted that we are mutually encouraged by each other’s faith (Romans 1:12). By sharing our intentions, we can support each other in what we plan to do and be inspired and encouraged at the same time.

In the end our team felt the event was a success.

We had a good turnout, including many people who responded to personal invitations—we weren’t just preaching to the choir. We doubled the membership of our creation care team. We got several ideas for future topics.

But most importantly, we brought members of our community together for a conversation, started breaking down barriers to action, and planted the seeds for bigger personal and collective steps down the road.

 

Have you hosted an event for your church or other community of faith about climate change? How did it go? What did you learn? Have you found other resources that are especially effective? Feel free to email me at wholefaithlivingearth@gmail.com.

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The Fat of the Land is Real (and Good)

Nathan Aaberg —  March 31, 2021 — 2 Comments

There are several references to the “fat of the land” or “fatness of the land” in the Old Testament.

Genesis 27:28 Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: (KJV)

Genesis 27:39: And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above. (KJV)

Genesis 45:18: And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. (KJV)

I don’t know about you, but I had long assumed the term was only metaphorical. In fact, many translations now have changed the phrase to “earth’s richness” or “richness of the earth.”

And then I listened to an interview with John Kempf by the hosts of the Back to the Roots podcast.

John, a great podcaster himself, is one of the leading voice of regenerative agriculture in the United States.  You can find the interview here, and I’d encourage you to listen to it. John is brilliant, humble, and gifted in all that he discusses.

Around the 13:00 minute mark you can hear John bring up the Biblical phrase “fat of the land.” This is not unusual. John frequently brings up Biblical references and concepts in his podcasts and interviews. You can tell he has been steeped in the Bible.

John proceeds to explain the literal truth of that phrase.

Here’s one key quote: “Stable organic matter (in the soil), stable humic substances, are about 40 percent lipids. (In other words) 40 percent fats. So I believe that when we talk about the fat of the land, we’re really having a conversation about carbon storage, organic matter building in soil as a result of microbial activity and accumulating fats in organic matter.”

In other words, land can literally have fat. And healthy land does have fats.

I was driving as I listened to the interview and feel fortunate to not have had an accident.

First, how fascinating is it that something we take as a metaphor in the Bible has actual agronomic truth?

Along these lines, check out this link to a description of a scientiifc finding from University of Colorado Boulder researchers. They’ve found a fatty acid in a soil-based bacterium that appears to have anti-inflammatory properties.

Second, let’s unpack the larger meaning behind what John says.

A farmer only has stable organic matter in the soil if the farming being done mimics the workings of God’s earth in nature. Nature, for example, almost always covers its ground with diverse plants that, through their living roots, feed carbon that feeds life in the soil. Nature also integrates animals into any natural system, and they also add nutrients to the living soil system. Nature does not disturb these processes through plowing and tillage. Nor fungicides and herbicides and insecticides.

Farmers can imitate those same principles and approaches. And some are, as you can see in the video below. Applying those principles and approaches to the specific context of a specific place is called regenerative agriculture.

And much of the focus of regenerative ariculture is building the biological life of the soil. That rich life, including diverse bacteria and fungi, provides the plants with easy-to-absorb nutrients and phytonutrients to the plant. In other words, plants feed the soil, and the soil feeds the plants.

That rich soil life also builds stable humic substances where we find the real fat of the land that John mentioned.

We shouldn’t be surprised then that when we eat plants and animals from land that has that abundant soil life, we get healthier food which gives us healthier bodies.

A number of years back, Jim, a Christian friend of mine, and his wife Joelle had gotten married and were hoping to have children. That wasn’t happening. They turned to doctors for ideas and help. Nothing they heard made sense. They were frustrated and not sure what to do.

Then Joelle’s sister asked about their diet. They described a standard diet of processed foods from conventionally-farmed plants and animals. Joelle’s sister urged them to look into more natural and organic options. They were desperate. So they went all in. They competely changed to a diet of natural and organic foods, largely home cooked.

And before long they became pregnant. In fact, they just had their third child earlier this year. This experience completely changed the direction of their lives (they are now homesteading, among other things). It’s even given them new insights into their Christian faith and what it means for us to be stewards of God’s earth.

Jim and Joelle shifted to a natural diet from a processed, conventional diet when they had trouble having children. They now have three children, including Eloise and Abram (Gus was just born recently) – abundant life from abundantly alive farms and foods.

We now know that we have stripped away that life-giving richness of the land with an industrial, extractive approach to farming. But people like John Kempf, many of whom are Christian, are showing how it is possible to restore and rejuvenate God’s good earth.

By having loving hearts, creative and dynamic minds, and attentiveness to the beautiful systems of God’s earth, we can honor God and provide life-giving food to our neighbors.

Maybe we’re supposed to take Jesus’ words in John 10:10 – “..I came that they have life and have it abundantly” – literally as well?

By making God’s life abundant on God’s earth and in God’s soil, we give others and ourselves abundant life.

Here and now.

 

P.S. Here’s a blog post by a regenerative farmer – Will Harris – about the fat of the land concept and artificial meats.

P.P.S. Here’s a blog post by Rabbi Daniel Lapin about the two different Hebrew words interpreted as “fat of the land” by English translators. While the rabbi explains both words can be translated as “fat” in a general way, one has the meaning of milk included in it, and the other can mean fat or oil. In his blog post, you can read Rabbi Lapin’s idea of what he believes the deeper difference is between the words and what larger message that has for us. It occurs to me, however, that he may be missing a more obvious difference betweent the two words – one word refers to animal-generated fat and the other refers to fat coming from plants. Both animals and plant life are needed for living soil. But I realize it’s more than a little presumptuous of me to question a rabbi about a Hebrew question! So I’ve sent a message to him asking for his feedback on my perspective.

 

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Reviews of 3 Climate Change Documentaries for Sharing in Your Church (Guest Post by Ryan O’Connor)

Nathan Aaberg —  February 28, 2021 — Leave a comment

I am happy to share another guest post by Ryan O’Connor. Ryan and his wife, Kara, live out Christian lives of love and compassion towards their neighbors and Creation in Wisconsin. It’s a blessing to know them. Ryan clearly has a calling for working within his church (and perhaps someday within other churches as well) to encourage believers to work together to cherish God’s earth. I’m grateful to him for this article and the one that will follow with tips on facilitating events in your church.

Several months ago, Nathan invited me to write a guest post for his blog about what I’ve learned about promoting creation care. One item that piqued the interest of readers was the idea of hosting a movie or documentary about specific issues. A movie or video showing is an easy, low-barrier event to host. They can also be great conversation starters, spark renewed interest in an adult education group, and educate others about your topic of choice. With this post, we begin an occasional series of reviews of videos and documentaries on specific topics.

Let’s start with documentaries on climate change: As the defining moral environmental issue of our time, there is no shortage of climate change documentaries to choose from. I have seen each of the three that I describe in this post used in public settings, including in churches. One (The Human Element) I used at my own church, and I attended a screening and discussion of another (Paris to Pittsburgh) at another church.

Below I provide a short review of their major themes. I also attempt to highlight their strengths, weaknesses, and ideas for best potential uses as a creation care teaching tool.

As with any event, set specific goals for what you want to accomplish through your film screening. Plan for a discussion immediately afterwards using questions carefully tailored to your goals.

A word of caution and of hope: Climate change has unfortunately been highly politized, sometimes with rhetoric echoing the increasing divisiveness of our country. It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way, particularly among people of faith who believe in a good creator who made the world and put it under our care. As Pope Francis stated, being “protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.” (Laudato Si, paragraph 216).

Anyone planning to host an event should first watch or listen to Katharine Hayhoe’s excellent TED talk, “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it” (17 minutes), in which she emphasizes the idea of connecting over shared values: children or grandchildren, caring for the poor in developing countries, fishing, or even snow sports like ice fishing, downhill skiing, or sledding.

If we start with common values, we’ll set the stage for common ground solutions: Don’t skip this step of preparation. It’s the most important thing you can do. If you’re thinking about hosting a movie screening, be sure to start first by thinking about your goals within the context of the common values you and your fellow believers share.

As you read through the following summaries, keep those goals in mind as you work to select a film that right for your audience and objectives.

 

From Paris to Pittsburgh 

Summary: This documentary celebrates how Americans are demanding and developing real solutions in the face of climate change (released in 2018, 1 hour 17 minutes).

Strengths: The documentary provides a brief background of impacts, blending science with personal stories and compelling visualizations. It conveys the urgency of taking action now while also featuring a hopeful tone spotlighting local examples of energy efficiency and renewable energy from a rage of locales. In addition to highlighting Pittsburgh, the film takes viewers to America’s heartland, Puerto Rico, California, Florida, and New Jersey, spotlighting the cities, states, businesses and citizens taking action. The film conveys a sense of urgency without being alarmist and features both pragmatic action and common ground policy solutions.

Weaknesses: The film is highly critical of former President Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement and may not be well-received by people whose political leanings are right of center. The film takes its name from Trump’s statement in 2017 “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris”. As the film shows, however, many Americans are supportive of efforts to address climate change.

Best use: A church with a progressive-leaning membership could use the film as a springboard to think about their own ways to reduce their carbon footprint. This is especially important given the need to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030 in order to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees C.

 

The Human Element

Summary: This documentary showcases the lives of everyday Americans on the front lines of climate change impacts. With rare compassion and heart, the film inspires us to reevaluate our relationship with the natural world (released in 2018, 1 hour 16 minutes).

Strengths: The film highlights the struggles of ordinary people in the U.S. struggling with current impacts of climate change, through the lens of the four traditional elements of nature. This includes fishermen on an island in Chesapeake Bay being lost to sea level rise (water), kids struggling with asthma due to pollution (air), communities in California dealing with wildfires (fire), and coal mining communities in Appalachia facing the collapse of their livelihood (earth). The film concludes with an inspiring message that we, as a new element of nature, have the power to create change. The filmmaker also has made available a discussion guide for use, and strongly encourages hosts to tailor questions towards your own goals.

Weaknesses: The film is strong on impacts but stops short regarding solutions. This enables the film to be used in for variety of purposes, including examining impacts in your own community. However, with all the focus on negative impacts, the tone can be a bit depressing at times. If you’re looking for examples of what you can do to help solve the problem, you’ll need to pair this film with other resources.

Best use: Communities of all stripes will find it a perfect introduction to climate impacts already being experienced right here in the U.S. The movie could also be used for initiating a discussion on how climate is impacting people in your own community. I like the fact that it is accessible to a broad background of regions, cultural backgrounds, and political stripes. It could also be used as a springboard for reinvigorating a creation care team and inspire your group to think about its next steps.

 

2040

Summary: The documentary 2040 envisions what life could be like 20 years in the future if we embraced creative solutions to environmental problems. Inspired by imagining the future for the filmmaker’s 4-year old daughter as well as her peers around the world, the film takes viewers on a global journey to examine the possibilities in energy, food, agriculture, aquaculture and education. Special effects are used to envision the transformation to a more just, environmentally thriving future (released in 2020, 1 hour 32 minutes).

Strengths: The film features a very hopeful tone and focuses on creative solutions, emphasizing we already have all of the technology and tools we need to solve ecological problems. The filmmaker also deftly weaves together interconnected problems like poverty and environmental degradation. According to social science research, people are more likely to take action when inspired by a positive message, rather than cajoled with a negative one. The film is built solidly on this premise, a rarity for climate change documentaries. The film has also received a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes as well as an endorsement by the popular parental movie guide Common Sense Media.

Weaknesses: The film’s optimistic views can sometimes feel futuristic and pie-in-the-sky, lacking a dose of reality. While some impacts and root causes of climate change are discussed, the film lacks the sense of urgency of other documentaries, in part because special effects make the impacts seem far-off and hypothetical. In addition, many of the solutions don’t feel like they are very actionable at a personal level, at least in 2021. However, that shouldn’t stop viewers from imagining how life could be different if we all made deliberate choices.

Best use: Congregations and community groups of any political persuasion will find 2040 refreshing for imaging a better future. The film could be used to jump start a discussion on shared values and a shared vision, as well as action steps for how to get there together. The broad age ranges of interviewees—including numerous children—as well as those from various cultural backgrounds and ethnicities make it very well-suited to younger generations, groups with a diverse audience, or those motivated by a concern for others around the world. There are also numerous resources available on the film’s website for follow-up education and action.

 

Interested in additional options? Check out short reviews of some of best documentaries featured in recent film festivals in this post by Yale Climate Connections. A nice summary of additional traditional documentaries has also been compiled by the sustainability-focused site YouMatter.

Does this post pique your curiosity or get your wheels turning about hosting an event for your group–virtual or otherwise? Stay tuned for an upcoming post on tips for hosting an event, including my own story of screening one of the films at my church.

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