Review of Climate Church, Climate World
How People of Faith Must Work for Change
By Jim Antal
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Review by Nancy Menning
August 27, 2020
The climate crisis is a moral emergency for people of faith. As a threat multiplier exacerbating every social justice issue, climate change imperils the faith-based justice work of religious communities. In addition, it poses an existential threat by undermining the continuity of creation itself. In Climate Church, Climate World, public theologian Jim Antal calls on people of faith to act courageously for the common good.
Hours after President Donald Trump’s 2017 announcement that he intended to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, the President and General Minister of the United Church of Christ (UCC) asked Antal, as a denominational leader, to write a resolution for the upcoming national meeting of the denomination. Less than five weeks later, the General Synod of the UCC passed an emergency resolution that called upon clergy to preach about the moral emergency of climate change. It also urged each congregation and person of faith to act individually and collectively to transform the energy systems that drive climate change. Finally, it pressed both clergy and lay people to proclaim in the public sphere a prophetic message of climate justice.