Series editor’s note: In 2025, “Deeper understandings” is focusing on the ELCA social statements. We hope to reintroduce them to readers as a means of provoking fruitful, enriching conversation between Christians with different understandings and convictions, and as a springboard for active discipleship in the world. Each article will introduce a particular statement and its Lutheran theological underpinnings, then suggest ways in which it can spark faithful conversation and action in the service of your baptismal vocation.
My hope is that you will find this series relevant to your current context and that it will help you express your Lutheran faith in your daily interaction with family, friends, neighbors and co-workers—for the sake of the flourishing of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world and the life abundant of the neighbor and stranger.
—Kristin Johnston Largen, president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, on behalf of the ELCA’s seminaries
Reflect for a moment on two questions: First, do you worry about climate change? Second, do you talk about it regularly with your family, friends or congregation?
According to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, most Americans answer yes to the first question. But far fewer—less than one-third of us—even occasionally talk about it.
This makes sense, because climate change is hard to talk about. News of rising waters, extreme droughts and shrinking habitats is depressing. It’s easy to feel hopeless in the face of such monumental and catastrophic problems. We might also feel a little guilty, recognizing that our lifestyles and habits contribute to atmospheric changes.
But while we may not want to talk about climate change, we need to. And our church can help get us started.
While we may not want to talk about climate change, we need to. And our church can help get us started.
The ELCA’s social statement “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice” (1993) can motivate and equip us to think and talk together about climate change. Though over 30 years old, the statement offers a lesson that remains relevant: This changing world was lovingly made by a God who forgives those of us who are negatively changing the climate and empowers us all to build a better world.
Like the liturgy, “Caring for Creation” has a confession near the beginning: “Our witness to God’s goodness in creation and our acceptance of caregiving responsibility have often been weak and uncertain.” Sin is real, and human beings too often act as if we are disconnected from God, God’s creation and each other. Such disconnection leads to exploitation, neglect and indifference. That is the theological root of climate change.
The statement calls us to focus less on our mistakes and more on the fact that God forgives us. The God who graciously created this beautiful world continues to see all of it—you and I included—as “very good.” Against a culture looking for someone to blame, against the temptation to expect perfection from ourselves and others, God frees us and empowers us to be loving servants to creation.
God created human beings fully and deeply in relationship with all aspects of this earth. We may be imperfect, but we are deeply loved and capable of loving deeply. We can work together and learn what it means to love our neighbors in a changing climate.
Reformation required
“Caring for Creation” also insists that climate change and other environmental problems are about justice. The poor, who contribute the least to the problem, suffer the most. People experiencing poverty tend to live in the most disaster-prone areas and have the fewest resources to adapt to heatwaves or rising waters. Lutherans look toward a more just world where the burdens of extreme weather are shared, where the powerful offer their support and solidarity to those driven from their homes by floods and fires, and where everyone’s basic needs are sustainably met.
Moving toward such a world, toward a just and sustainable society, will require reform. But Lutherans know something about reforming, about changing systems.
The statement suggests that when we talk about climate change, we should focus not just on ourselves but also on the structures and institutions that shape our lives. Injustice and atmospheric defilement come about because we live in cities that inadequately support public transportation, we depend on a food system that makes unhealthy food cheaper than healthy food, and we participate in political systems that divide people rather than uniting them.
The ELCA social message “Earth’s Climate Crisis” (2023), which builds on “Caring for Creation,” is specific about these destructive systems, naming “colonialism and industrialism” as the forces “responsible in large measure for the social and ecological woes we face today.” Our crises were constructed over generations by greedy corporations that exploit the earth and its peoples and by weak governments that fail to protect what matters.
Lutherans know something about reforming, about changing systems.
But even such corrupt structures can be reformed. God’s love liberates. ELCA social teaching calls us to respond to environmental problems with “courageous and humble” engagement in the world, in politics, in our churches and in our neighborhoods. It outlines specific goals and policies Lutherans should advocate, incrementally building a better world.
Ultimately the statement makes talking about climate change easier because it shares good news: God loves us and made us to be in relationship with the whole world. God sets us free, ensuring that we need not be defined by our failings and our guilt. God empowers us to love our neighbors in a world where they need us and we need them.
The climate is changing, forests are burning, tensions are rising. We participate in the systems causing the problem. There are reasons to worry. But that worry does not need to end in silence and inaction, because God offers forgiveness and the gift of a beautiful world. There are reasons to rejoice. With this in mind, we can and should talk together about climate change and how we can use God’s good news to take action toward a better future.
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