The Reworking of Evangelical Christian Ecocultural Identity in the Creation Care Movement

Authors

Emma F. Bloomfield, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Book Section

Publication Date

5-18-2020

Publication Title

Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity

Publisher

Routledge

Edition

1

First page number:

195

Last page number:

207

Abstract

In Chapter 12 of the Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity, Bloomfield performs a rhetorical analysis of the Creation Care movement, which pairs biblical teachings with support for environmental advocacy. The author explores the movement’s guiding narrative and how Creation Care members perform their ecocentric identity through a survey of active members. Member responses provide an opportunity to interrogate how potentially competing and contradictory positionalities – Christianity and environmentalism – are negotiated. The Creation Care movement invokes unique interpretations of biblical verses and unites conventional Christian tenets with the additional consideration of humans as a respectful and responsible part of creation. While many Christians oppose government-implemented environmental protections and may even welcome climate disruption as a sign of the Apocalypse, some Christians are finding ways to balance their religious identities with ecological concerns. The Creation Care movement serves as an important case study in contemporary performances of intersectional ecocultural identities. The author’s analysis offers insight into ways Creation Care movement members’ values and interpretative work deviate from traditional assumptions regarding Christians being anti-environment. The ecocentric Christian identity fostered by the Creation Care movement represents a reconfiguration of the relationship between Christianity and the biosphere, which may produce new opportunities for environmental advocacy.

Keywords

Ecocultural identity; Christianity; Environmentalism; Anthropocene; Creation Care movement; Environmental discourse

Disciplines

Human Ecology | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology

Language

English

Repository Citation

Bloomfield, E. F. (2020). The Reworking of Evangelical Christian Ecocultural Identity in the Creation Care Movement. Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity 195-207. Routledge.