Counter-Framing the Environment: Evangelical Laissez-faire Environmentalism and the Green Dragon

• In Event: 046 - Section on Environment and Technology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Faith, Politics, and the Environment

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the discursive frame used by evangelical elite as they promote religious interpretations of the environment distinct from more pro-environmental factions. Using qualitative document analysis of the Resisting the Green Dragon series sponsored by the Cornwall Alliance, we identify four key themes to this frame: (1) environmentalism is not science, (2) environmentalism is religion, (3) environmentalism threatens Christianity, and (4) environmentalism threatens personal and political freedom. The four themes focus on denying or neutralizing scientific claims of environmental degradation but also, and perhaps more importantly, countering moral claims advanced by evangelicals promoting creation care by linking environmentalism to a set of ethical considerations salient among evangelicals. We argue these considerations relate the environment to moral imperatives associated with, but not reducible, to a dominion mandate.

Authors

• Lynn Hempel, Colorado State University

• Kelsea E. MacIlroy, Colorado State University

• Keith Smith, Colorado State University