Hoosier evangelicals slowly going solar,\u00a0but they're not talking about climate change

Indianapolis Star

5 hours ago

The Rev. Robert Whitaker is part of growing movement across Indiana encouraging evangelical congregations to pursue clean energy, but his talking points don't start with climate change.
He said the focus is on fresh air, clean water, a biblical mandate, and the kicker: Lower utility bills leave churches more money to spend on their missions.
The movement is slowly picking up steam statewide, but it hasn't been easy to get evangelicals on board, said Whitaker, who is senior pastor at Christ Community Church, an evangelical congregation in Bloomington.
At least some of that reluctance is because climate change is a political minefield in some religious circles.
Evangelicals make up the largest group of Christians in Indiana, and they're also the least likely religious group to view climate change as a serious problem, according to the Pew Research Center. But the wedge between evangelicals and environmentalism has less to do with theology and more to do with politics, according to Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist who studies the intersection of faith and climate change.
"The problem itself is the result of decades and even centuries of politicization of faith in America," she told IndyStar.
The Pew Research Center also reported 85 percent of White evangelicals identify with or lean toward the GOP, and Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to say dealing with climate change should be a top priority for the federal government.
So despite spreading the news of a Creation Care Partners grant program that can help evangelical churches cover the costs of going green, Whitaker has only seen a handful of congregations apply.
'I have to be honest, I've been a little disappointed that more evangelical churches haven't taken it on,' he said. 'But it's been successful for us.'
Whitaker hasn't always been a vocal supporter of solar energy. For much of his life, it wasn't a priority.
'It was just one of those back burner issues for me, theologically, and could easily be stereotyped as radical, left wing, tree hugger,' said Whitaker, who grew up in a religious tradition during the 1970s that didn't put much emphasis on environmentalism.
But his son slowly helped him expand his worldview.
Hours of road-trip chats about film, philosophy and theology evolved into conversations about climate change and clean energy. After that, Whitaker said it didn't take long for him to see the truth about the condition of the earth.
Whitaker approached his church board and then members with news of a grant to go green, making it explicit the project costs wouldn't come from the church budget. Most people were on board. Within a matter of weeks, the congregation raised an additional $24,000 dollars. But some people grumbled, and others probably left the church, Whitaker said.
Still, "what happened in the end is most people caught on," he added. The church installed solar panels during the summer of 2022 and is finishing up an overhaul of the HVAC system to increase energy conservation.
Not all evangelicals have made the same pivot, even after years-long efforts to engage religious groups in Indiana with energy conservation.
Fifteen years ago, Madeline Hirschland cofounded Hoosier Interfaith Power and Light, which was an multi-faith network across the state, to help congregations reduce their energy usage and install solar panels.
Fossil fuels account for over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which linger in the earth's atmosphere and trap the sun's heat. The world is warming faster now than ever in recorded history, and the globe is starting to feel the effects: heatwaves, wildfires and and floods are all increasing in intensity and frequency, according to NASA. Plus, research has shown air pollution from fossil fuel plants can lead to lung cancer, asthma, and heart disease.
Clean energy is one way to reduce the amount of carbon heading into the atmosphere, and for Hirschland, encouraging faith communities to practice energy conservation was an easy connection to make.
"It was a natural fit for me," she said. "It feels like a matter of faith."
Hirschland, who is Jewish, said 18 different faith traditions were represented among the churches that committed to energy conservation and received funding for solar panels. There were mainline protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews involved — but only a handful of evangelicals.
'There was a sense that actually the missing piece was the largest faith group,' Hirschland said. Evangelicals operate between four and six thousand churches across the state, according to her estimates, but 'evangelicals tend to want to work with evangelicals.'
Whitaker, who is an evangelical himself, explained the reaction he heard most often from others was a hesitancy to be involved with interfaith groups, so as not to be grouped in under one faith, theology or agenda.
Another reason, he explained, is the politics of going green make solarization a hard sell.
'I think one of the reasons evangelical churches have been reticent to be involved is because the whole project up until now — I think it's changing — became politicized,' Whitaker said.
Fewer conservative Republicans believe the climate is warming due to human activity compared to Democrats, according to the Pew Research Center, and less than a third of Republicans say that reducing carbon emissions will make a big difference as world confronts climate change.
Hoosier Interfaith Power and Light has since merged with a different network, Faith in Place, but Whitaker, Hirschland and others are still urging evangelical Hoosiers to untangle their theology from their ideology.
'You don't have to be a Democrat or Republican; we don't want to talk about that,' Whitaker said. 'What we want to talk about is a creation mandate that we believe was given to us by God.'
Long before Hirschland helped start Creation Care Partners, the organization issuing energy conservation and solar grants to evangelical congregations, she worked in poverty alleviation in rural Kenya. She met parents whose children had died of malaria and learned about changing rainfall patterns and rising heat that helps mosquitos proliferate.
She quickly came to believe that climate change was threatening people's livelihoods and lives.
When she realized the emissions raising global temperatures were highest in places like the United States, she turned her focus back toward Indiana, where she's become an advocate for faith groups to practice energy conservation across the state.
'It's an issue of faith, it's an issue of caring for the garden,' Hirschland said. 'It's an issue of caring for the least among us, for those who are impacted by what we do but don't have any power over it.'
The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), a non-profit that encourages churches to pursue creation care, boils down the biblical basis for creation care into four parts: Christ died to reconcile creation to God; all creation belongs to Jesus; to love what God loves fulfills the ten commandments; and Christians are called to care for the poor — who are disproportionally impacted by environmental hazards.
'If there's pollution that's harming someone, do I care about that?' asked Jeremy Summers, the director of church and community engagement at EEN. 'Do I care about the asthma rates increasing in areas where there's high pollution rates? It's a matter of life.'
Evangelicals involved in creation care work also point to the mandate given by God in the first book of the bible.
'It starts with a garden, and the human beings are given the charge to be stewards of that beautiful place,' said Whitaker. 'Before all this, I was a consumer, and now I see myself as a caretaker.'
Despite what he feels is a moral and spiritual call to care for creation, Whitaker says rhetoric isn't how he cinches the deal with churches. That's where savings come in.
'Quite honestly, the most important thing to me is that we saved energy and didn't pollute the environment,' Whitaker said. 'The savings, in my opinion, are not as important. But you use that as a line to get people going.'
Solar installation can be expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars depending on how many kilowatts a church might install. And a tax credit that helped churches and non-profits save 30 to 40 percent on solarization is on the chopping block in the current text of the Republican megabill.
But, luckily for churches, there's still a lot of help out there to go green.
For one, Hirschland and Whitaker are helping distribute $500,000 in grants to evangelical churches through Creation Care Partners. The money was obtained through a settlement with American Electric Power.
The Creation Care Partners' grant helps congregations reduce their energy use by 25 to 40 percent. Evangelical congregations can receive up to $29,000 to install solar panels or work on energy conservation — which Hirschland says is usually a more cost-effective way to save — through upgrades to LED lights and sealing and insulating their buildings.
And once they do, Hirschland said, they'll see their utility bills drop. The money moved away from utility bills can be used to advance mission work the church is supporting.
'It's both a way to care for God's creation, and it's also a way to do more of what they want to be doing,' said Hirschland.
St. John's United Church of Christ in Collinsville, Illinois, dropped its electric bills from $2,000 a month to $200 since they installed solar in January, according to Wade Halva, who works with Faith in Place in southern Illinois. Over the next 25 years, the church could save close to half a million dollars.
Halva said that when he's working with churches, one of the pivot points is when they discuss how a church has had to adjust its budget to cut costs.
'How many programs have you stopped in the last 10 years because you didn't have this amount of money in your budget? Did you have to let a staffer go? Did you stop a summer food program?' he said he asks different pastors and church leaders. 'Then I ask them to imagine what they could do within an additional this amount of money in their budget every year for the next 20 years.'
IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.