EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Faith-Based Environmental Groups in the United States and

Their Strategies for Change

Angela M. Smith

Master of Arts

May 2006

This thesis is about the faith-based environmental movement in the United States and the strategies that it uses to bring about long-term environmental change. In particular, the present research is concerned with the religious environmental movement because it works explicitly and primarily to instill and strengthen environmental ethics, in addition to pursuing the more issues-based work of secular environmentalists. My research addresses two questions:

1) What are the general characteristics of faith-based environmental groups?

2) What factors influence the degree to which they pursue ethics-based versus issues-based work?

I define ethics-based work as that which calls for broad attitudinal and lifestyle changes, aside from any particular issue, and which seeks to provide individuals with a generalized framework within which to view their responsibility to the natural world. Issues-based work is defined as that which refers very specifically to a certain environmental topic, such as global climate change, and which only calls for behavioral changes as related to the particular issue of concern.

To answer my questions, semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with forty-two representatives of faith-based environmental groups in the United States. These groups were primarily of Judeo-Christian affiliation and comprise the entire population of such groups with the exception of three who did not participate. Information about groups was also gathered to a lesser extent from group websites. Quantitative and qualitative data collected was used to identify trends among groups, to generate descriptive statistics, and to conduct correlation analyses to test my hypotheses.

With respect to my first research question, there were a number of important commonalities regarding group characteristics. First, groups overwhelmingly engage in ethics-based work as compared to issues-based work. This is perhaps the most important distinguishing characteristic of the movement. Second, they tend to be highly collaborative, working with individuals and congregations from a wide variety of denominations, both Judeo-Christian and otherwise. They also partner very frequently with other faith-based environmental groups and secular environmental organizations as well, although their collaborations with these latter groups tend to occur slightly less often and less consistently. Third, most groups were founded only recently, beginning in the early 1990s. Fourth, most operate nationally with equal and lesser percentages of groups focusing their work statewide and locally. They also tend to be clustered geographically in regions that are more ideologically liberal. Fifth, lack of adequate funding imposes significant limitations on groups’ ability to work and expand their efforts. Few have sufficient staff sizes, and many rely primarily on volunteers. Sixth, despite these impediments, the faith-based environmental movement is characterized by a sense of hope and optimism that is unique and that enables them to continue doing ethics-based work when they might more easily receive funding by engaging in more issues-based work.

With respect to my second research question, only three of the factors which I hypothesized to be related to amount of issues-based work engaged in by a group were found to be significantly correlated. These were: 1) amount of collaboration with secular environmental groups, 2) time spent engaged in policy advocacy work, and 3) importance of engaging in policy advocacy work to a group’s achievement of its goals. The greater the religious-secular collaboration, time spent in policy advocacy, and importance of policy advocacy work, the more an organization participated in issues-based work.

My thesis contributes to the academic literature by increasing the limited base of knowledge that currently exists about the faith-based environmental movement. It also provides insights into current debates within the environmental community about the importance of ethics in environmental advocacy. Finally, my research sheds light on what conditions work best for groups who seek to promote an environmental ethic and for those who wish to direct their energies to more issues-based efforts.