In Unit 1 of Religion and Science in Conversation join Rev. Walter Kim (president of the National Association of Evangelicals) and Professors Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Yale School of Environment) talking about “Caring for God's Earth." Is taking care of nature a sacred calling? How can environmental scientists benefit from the ethics of religious communities?
Reverend Walter Kim, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and John Grim share their personal paths into faith-based environmentalism and survey the movement already underway — from the NAE's decades-old creation-care resolution to Pope Francis's Laudato Si' and evangelical relief work in Malawi. A hopeful look at how religious traditions have long treated care for the earth as a matter of faith.
Walter Kim argues evangelicalism has a robust theology for personal salvation but no equivalent, normalized theology of creation care — and unpacks overlooked biblical mandates like Sabbath rest for the land. The conversation confronts the harder questions: government's role, the "sacredness" of nature as a theological sticking point, and what it really means to love our neighbor, including generations not yet born.
Tucker, Grim, and Kim explore why decades of climate science haven't translated into action — and locate the answer in a deep split between knowledge and wonder, expertise and trust. They close by naming a simple, shared concern that could unite scientists and faith communities alike: food, health, and children.