The survey was linked from UMC.org at http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/charting-u.s.-religious-change-in-an-election-season

Some day one of these “religious surveys” might begin to get the picture that there is a massive upsurge in new efforts within churches and ecumenical organizations to respond as People of God to the epoch-sized crisis our civilization has precipitated. It is , in fact, far beyond doubt that we as a church MUST take this on as an occasion for theological reformation. If we continue to ignore this, and dismiss it as something “political” in which we are not going to engage, or engage so rarely that the problems involved seem to fall under just another issue among many (and one which ranks FAR below all the rest, in terms of how much relative attention we give it) , then we will have to answer to our children and grandchildren about just what it was we thought we were doing, letting this continue without a massive movement among God’s people. What all the major denominations are doing and saying (or NOT doing and saying) is going to continue to be yet another reason why the population of NONES will continue to rise, as the church continues on its merry way in ignoring the issue. Sorry, an article once every 2-3 months just doesn’t cut it as far as media coverage from our news agencies. The silence is deafening.

The survey itself contains the numbers that should inform us that Climate Change is considered one of the key issues,  even though it isn’t as significant as Health, Unemployment,  and terrorism (under which we could justifiable include the issue of Islamaphobia, which also plays into racism),  it ranks right in there on the same level (in the percentages)  as race, abortion, and same-sex-marriage (and I’m not even suggesting here any kind of “ordering” of coverage,  but merely recognizing that just as many people are concerned about Climate Change to the extent that they are about Islam/Islamaphobia , race relations and gay marriage* . This might suggest to us as a church body that our lack of conversation about Climate Change,  actually dwarfed by the coverage given race and gay marriage,  might be a sign that we are not addressing this issue to the extent that it is perceived by the people out there. The rarity of UMC coverage on Climate Change raises a serious question:  Why do we give this such scant coverage?  It is not that it is controversial,  since both race and GLBT issues are extremely controversial and hotly contested and a source of deep divide, but are topics often breached by the UMC media,  and yet Climate Change and what to do about it are not topics often seen (and not only “not often”,  but comparatively VERY rarely.

*I want to reiterate that I am also VERY concerned with,  and have written often,  about Islamaphobia, Racism,  and Gay rights/issues.  Especially the issue of Islamaphobia.  So I am not seeking to put any of these AHEAD or HIGHER than the others.  But there are differences in the kind of threat each represents.  But what I am questioning here is the absence of coverage and conversation on Climate Crisis issues.