Faith and Science Go Hand-in-Hand for Climate Action

“The earth is what we all have in common.” – Wendell Berry

Numbers and more numbers. Lists and seemingly endless streams of warnings. The end is near! Wildfires, tsunamis and hurricanes. Tornadoes and high winds. Melting glaciers and rising waters. Beware!

Few have listened.

Recent studies show that citing endless statistics and warnings about the growing crisis in the global climate has not brought about much-needed change. The climate crisis has only worsened. Unless the flood waters lap at our own door and the flames lick at our own toes, it seems that too few of us have paid enough attention to make meaningful changes in our daily habits.

Braiding Heart and Mind in Response to Climate Challenges

While science appeals to the mind, faith can touch the heart. To make lasting change, we need to appeal to both. In May 2024, Molly Mechtenberg braided together the two — science and faith — in her role as executive director of the Detroit nonprofit Hope for Creation.

“I’ve always been a person who loves the outdoors,” Mechtenberg says. “I’ve always been very concerned about climate change. It hasn’t always been easy to find a pathway to merge those two things.”

Hope for Creation, she explains, has a mission of “building a network of people of faith and conscience to take climate action and work towards a more just and resilient community in Southwest Michigan.”

The Southwest Michigan chapter of Hope for Creation has partnered with:

• The Kalamazoo Climate Crisis Coalition
• Michigan Interfaith Power & Light
• Common Ground: Kalamazoo Community Garden Network
• The Northside Ministerial Alliance.

These partnerships work with numerous faith communities, city governments, county commissions, and congregational green teams.
“I consider myself a person of deep spirituality, and so I’m really comfortable with the interfaith aspect,” Mechtenberg says. “I appreciate so many different faith perspectives, what they bring, what they have in common, and what makes each unique.”

One of those partnerships, Mechtenberg says, has been with the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Portage, Michigan, which shares a similar mission to care for the Earth.

Adding the Faith Perspective to Climate Work

Pastor Jerry Duggins of the Westminster Presbyterian Church says that one of the church’s efforts to bring awareness to climate change is an annual art show based on ecological and environmental issues.

The environmental angle, Duggins says, “flows out of our sense of faith at Westminster. We have some core values, one of which is the arts and music. Another is Earth care. […] The other thing that feeds into this is our purpose statement, which we call our Intention Statement. Part of [our purpose statement] says that we are interested in engaging the world, not on our terms, but the world as it is. We view this outreach as an invitation to local artists to participate with us in delivering an environmental message.”

Mechtenberg encourages these relationships with local churches.

“It’s important to recognize that a lot of social movements come out of congregations and churches and faith traditions,” she says. “That’s nothing new. When you look at the history of this country, faith communities have played an important role in creating change. This climate work that we do is trying to harness that energy. We want to draw upon what keeps us hopeful and what keeps us inspired.”

Mechtenberg points to the common threads as a unifying factor in this movement, adding, “That’s going to look different depending on where you are coming from, but most all faiths have this common thread of a belief that the Earth was created by a divine creator. It was made perfect, and it is beautiful, and it is our job to care for it.”

Creating Green Initiatives and Maintaining Hope in Climate Work

The challenge is real. The current U.S. administration has rolled back many environmental protections. Oil drilling is to resume in our surrounding waters and oceans. There is talk of logging national forests. Some lawmakers continue to call climate change a hoax, even as disasters — floods, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes — continue to expand across the country. Renewable energy initiatives and environmental protections are being replaced by efforts to resume the use of fossil fuels.

What can faith communities do to bring back a focus on saving our planet? To assist in standing up against this attack on the climate, Hope for Creation has created the Green Team Resource Hub. Green Teams are groups within congregations that have a specific focus on environmental work.

“We are currently developing more ways to support these groups and encourage projects, but first we are providing a space for people to share expertise,” Mechtenberg explains. “We have a prayer/reflection page, success stories, information about climate justice, and a resource page on our website to connect people with other groups doing similar work.”

Other initiatives include things like advocacy for the City of Kalamazoo to adopt a plan to switch to utility-scale renewable energy and organizing Earth Day planting festivals. There are many others.

While these initiatives are encouraging, Mechtenberg acknowledges that there are those moments when one loses hope. Even here, Hope for Creation can help.

“We are beginning a rotating climate grief sharing circle at different faith communities,” Mechtenberg says. “We are starting one in Portage this spring and another in Kalamazoo, and we’ll see what the reception is like. The circles are open to anybody. It’s a space for sharing our feelings around climate change. I’m sure other topics will come up, too, as it’s just a hard time in a lot of ways right now.”

Art as Witness and Muse for Change

While Western culture tends to emphasize reason over emotion, both must be engaged if there is to be hope in reversing the damage done to our Earth. Pastor Duggins points out, “Rather than standing aside, the faith community is and should get involved in green issues. Our belief is that God meant for us to be good stewards of the earth, not abusers. The belief of our church is that this approach to environmental issues is a vital part of loving our neighbor and serving others with justice and compassion. At Westminster, we believe in helping, advocating, and providing direct support to those in need while working toward systemic change for a more just world.

Duggins church is one of the more active Hope for Creation participants, and its annual art festival with a focus on environmental topics is a much-anticipated event. It is open to the larger community, with an attendance numbering in the hundreds. In 2025, the church held its 13th festival with more than 50 works in a wide range of media, including watercolor, glass, fiber arts, ceramics, poetry, and more. Each piece is accompanied by an artist’s statement to explain the artist’s viewpoint on the climate crisis.

“The other thing that fed into this art festival is a purpose statement, which we call our Intention Statement,” Duggins elaborates. “Part of that says that we are interested in engaging the world, not on our terms but the world as it is. We view this outreach as an invitation to local artists to participate with us in delivering an environmental message. That flows directly from our sense of faith in the church.”

Recent studies in neuropsychology show that reason and emotion are intertwined. While Western culture tends to emphasize reason over emotion, both must be engaged if there is to be hope in reversing the damage done to the Earth. Combining science, or reason, and faith, or emotion, can be a powerful force for change.

Change often begins with an initial emotional response to something we see or experience, Mechtenberg says. Without that initial emotional trigger, people fall into apathy, withdrawal, or even denial. Once emotion is engaged, we pay keen attention, and if the emotion is strong enough, we are moved to do something to create change for the better. How we create change then taps into reason, formulating ways and developing processes so that we can achieve that change.

It is why intertwining faith and reason can be so effective in leading to issues of social justice, and, in this case, to working toward healing the Earth.

The Importance of All Faith Traditions Coming Together for Climate Work

While Hope for Creation has largely worked with Christian traditions, it has also worked closely with Jewish congregations.

“We have connections across the board, but the Christian and Jewish connections have been most active here locally,” Mechtenberg says. “It’s my goal to work toward expanding those connections and relationships.” She adds that other faith groups are involved, too. “At our last event, we had 17 different congregations represented, but we also had a Muslim intercultural association get involved and some individuals bringing in Buddhist practices.”

What makes Hope for Creation unique, Mechtenberg says, is how they blend science, spirituality, and a call to action. While the faith partnerships tap into emotion, Hope for Creation picks up that thread of faith and spirituality that fosters respect and love for the gift of creation and moves it into the realm of science, blending the two and coming together as a community in action.

“Our goal,” Mechtenberg summarizes, “is to offer opportunities to work with, worship with, and advocate alongside other people of faith and conscience who are champions of earth stewardship and earth healing in their congregations and in the public sphere.”

By Zinta Aistars