Panel: HOPE AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS - THEOLOGICAL, INTERDISCIPLINARY AND PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVES



715.3 - GOOD FRIDAY FOR FUTURE? CHARISMATIC EVANGELISM BETWEEN CLIMATE SCEPTICISM AND ECOTHEOLOGY

AUTHORS:
Kosack D. (University of Erfurt, Professorship for Dogmatics ~ Erfurt ~ Germany)
Text:
The most wide-reaching German-language YouTube videos that address climate change and ecology from a Christian perspective came from Leo Bigger (ICF Zurich) and Johannes Hartl (Augsburg House of Prayer). Both are shaped by a sceptical or even negative attitude towards the ecological movement. This position, in turn, is based on disintegrated-instrumental imaginaries of the relationship between human and non-human nature. In addition, Bigger and Hartl formulate anthropocentric and individualistic narratives of hope. Based on these three core categories - position, imaginary of nature and narrative of hope - the two videos of charismatic speakers are here analysed and furthermore discussed in the context of pentecostal ecotheologies. Indeed, the latter aim to correct theological reductions that are the basis of climate-sceptical Christian evangelism. For this purpose, pentecostal theologians develop, for example, a nature imaginative that assumes the presence of God in the 'spirit-baptised' creation and a hopeful narrative of reconciliation and the end-time completion of non-human nature. With its two simultaneous lines of examination (qualitative-empirical and systematic-theological), my contribution describes an example for the interaction of climate discourses, religious practice, and theological concepts - as well as for the way in which this interaction can be productively developed.