Climate Change and God's Work of Election

Gijsbert van den Brink Eva van Urk The doctrine of divine election is not the first theme that comes to mind when we examine Christian themes that might make a difference to one’s attitude vis-à-vis climate change. In a recent volume on systematic theology and climate change, terms like ‘election’ and ‘predestination’ do not even occur in the index – let alone that a separate contribution on their roles has been included. Yet, doctrines, notions and intuitions about God’s work of election have become deeply engrained in the Christian mindset throughout the centuries, and it should not be ruled out that they interact – for better or for worse – with practical attitudes adopted towards all sorts of ‘worldly affairs’. In fact, that this is the case has already been hypothesized more than a century ago when Max Weber formulated his famous thesis about the causal connection between Calvinism and...