by Lowell Bliss
I coined the term “The Unemployed Climate Activist” (or UCA) to refer to that creation care advocate who feels stymied here in 2020. You can read my confessional in Part 1, but sometimes I come up to my office at 9:00 AM, sit down with a cup of coffee, and just stare at my computer screen. On more than one occasion during the summer I thought that I would be of more benefit to the world if I just shuffled across the street in my pajamas, sat on a park bench and fed bread crumbs to the pigeons. It is easy to feel “unemployed” for two reasons:
The COVID-19 lockdown/slowdown has cancelled or postponed numerous of our regular activities, including for example, the next climate summit, COP26, originally scheduled for November in Glasgow. We write articles (hence this blog), but I’m no longer speaking anywhere, at churches or conferences. I’m not meeting with my colleagues or visiting any projects.
Concern for the environment, and climate change in particular, has slipped in society’s list of concerns, falling not only behind the pandemic and systemic racism (for glaring reasons) but actually plummeting toward the bottom of the list, at least according a Harris Poll published in Forbes Magazine. Meanwhile, the Western United States is having its worst “start of wildfire season” in recorded history, Phoenix has experienced 50 days where the temperature exceeded 110°F, the last intact Canadian Arctic ice shelf has collapsed, Greenland’s ice has reached a tipping point in its melting, and NOAA is adding Greek alphabet letters in preparation for the busy hurricane season that it anticipates.
These factors can lend themselves to a feeling of unemployment, and you can read how I deal with them in Part 1 and Part 2, but today I want to add a third factor. The UCA can feel stymied because of a conclusion that he or she may have reached: namely, that the number one activity to engage in here in 2020 that holds the greatest promise for leverage in contributing to the care of creation in the immediate future is . . . to help defeat the incumbent in this year’s US presidential election.
In this article, I am not going to argue for or against the validity of this statement, but I want to recognize that many of my colleagues have reached this conclusion and that it does have its effect in how we approach (or avoid) our work. This conclusion about “the best use of my time” need not be a stultifier. For millions of people it can feel like a glorious call to action. But the UCA has got to navigate at least three things:
If she is operating in the name, and with the funds, of a non-profit organization, the IRS prohibits campaigning “on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”
If she normally has a conservative Christian constituency, then even if she finds a way to campaign in her own name and “off the clock” and using her own funds, there is no guarantee that her constituency will grant her that freedom. She will likely suffer the cost of lost donations and relational backlash.
The missions arm of the evangelical Church is in a period of uncertainty and transition. Good old’ fashioned proclamation evangelism, content-based discipleship, and number-counting church planting has held us in good stead since the early days of the evangelical movement in the early 1900s—but now, coming to grips with our role in “expressing the fullness of the Kingdom of God” is proving uneasily difficult. Environmental Missions was a hard enough sell—and trust me, I’ve been promoting this new category since 2009—but the call for missionaries, ministers, and all Christians of good faith to get involved in politics as a means of “loving their neighbor as yourself” can be a big stretch. (And of course, it’s even a bigger stretch when your conviction includes campaigning AGAINST the Republican.)
Working back through these three factors will bring us, I believe, to two ways to resolve our feelings of unemployment: we can choose courage, and we can choose to play the long game.
The International Revenue Code (according to IRS.gov) is so explicit, it’s hard to imagine how Franklin Graham, First Baptist Church of Dallas, or Liberty University have gotten away with the endorsements they have made. (Or for that matter, certain liberal clergy, churches, or non-profits as well).
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
The IRS does allow “voter education activities” such as hosting public forums or publishing voting guides, but they must be “conducted in a non-partisan manner.” Voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote drives are also allowed. And yet, the IRS immediately clarifies: “On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.” I have rarely encountered voter education or registration activities, particularly in the past four elections, which have successfully avoided evidence of bias. There are some non-profits out there—the League of Women Voters, for example-- who are passionate about objective voter education and about universal participation in our democracy as ends in themselves. This is their mission. But for others, voter education and registration drives are just means to an end, that is, to advancing the particular mission of their organization. And they are so passionate about their missions, it is hard to imagine them achieving the qualifying absence of bias. If they do manage to toe the line, there is likely still some underlying disingenuity to resolve: for example, if our UCA in question decides to employ herself in a thoroughly open voter registration drive, she still hopes that her (partisan) constituency will be mobilized, and that likely-voters for the incumbent will ignore her offer.
What is the strength of your conviction about the effects of the outcome of this election on God’s creation? Courage might dictate an act of non-violent civil disobedience whereby you openly “violate this prohibition” and endure the possible consequences: “denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.” Of course, if you are part of a larger organization, as I am, or if you answer to a board, this is not your decision to make. Other options include: 1) going through the legal process of dropping your 501(c)3; or 2) just sloughing off the whole thing, and pretending that the IRS rules don’t exist or don’t apply when you are “doing the Lord’s work.” (As I’ve said, that sentiment seems to work in many famous cases.)
A more likely scenario is that your organizational work will take the form of non-partisan voter education and registration drives that make a good faith effort to uphold the letter of the law. The League of Conservation Voters is the perennial example of this work. In our circles, I’m impressed by Young Evangelicals for Climate Action’s partnership in the campaign: We Are Enough 2020. Since I doubt this will satisfy your passionate conviction about the 2020 election, this scenario also allows you to campaign boldly for or against a candidate, but only in your own name, on your own dime, and in your own free time. You must be careful to create firewalls. For example, I post freely on social media but only on my own Lowell Bliss accounts. I blog as I do here at Eden Vigil (now merged with Creation Care Missions). Eden Vigil is now part of Frontier Ventures, a 501(c)3 organization based in Pasadena, CA. If I want to blog anything overtly political, or something that might potentially blow back on Frontier Ventures, I post on a different website, The Liberator Today. I own this website. I pay for it out of my wages, not out of my ministry funds.
But here’s the thing, at least in my experience: for the most part, the conservative evangelical Church doesn’t care much for your firewalls; once you take the identity of missionary or minister, they rarely allow you to “take off that hat,” even momentarily; they perceive of your wages as just part of their donation and so you dare not bite the hand that feeds you; and, you are NEVER off the clock, because you don’t have a job, you have a vocation. If you raise donation money to specifically cover your own salary (however “pooled” your organization may have arranged things), then YOU are the brand. If you have built your brand, and your donor base, among white conservative evangelical Christians, then you are taking a risk in coming out politically against the current incumbent, even if you do so after 5 PM on your own Instagram account. I, and my family bank account, know all about evangelical cancel culture. So, count the cost, and cultivate courage. You’ll need it. But then again, so does this moment need courage. How many ministers are complicit in their silence? How many ministers have kept people in the pews (and in their donor lists) but have abdicated the shepherding of their flocks to wolves who are leading their sheep off to destruction?
The third factor in the politically convicted UCA’s sense of “unemployment” is the messiness of this missiological moment. Is it legitimate or wise for Christians to be involved in politics, let alone ordained pastors or missionaries? Luminaries such as Augustine, Kierkegaard, and Ellul have weighed in on this question long before Jerry Falwell, Sr., Ralph Reed, or Wayne Grudem did. I remember the second climate change presentation I ever did as a newly minted “environmental missionary.” It was at a Life Group Meeting in our church and immediately afterward one person cornered our pastor in the kitchen and asked, “Why is Lowell going all political on us?” Political?! I was just talking about the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil we cultivate. I was quoting from Genesis, and the Psalms, and Colossians. Political?! The number of times in the past ten years that I have wanted to scream: “All I wanted to do was minister the gospel to least-reached peoples affected by climate change. I haven’t made climate change political; YOU did!” I didn’t paint myself into a corner; you pushed me into one.
In the end though, I am grateful for this pushback because it was feedback. It has taught me to understand more fully that there is NOTHING in our lives that isn’t at the same time political, or social, or spiritual, or emotional, or physical. We’ve been fooling ourselves to think that traditional proclamation evangelism, discipleship, or church planting is done in a bubble. That has frankly been the colonialist’s privilege. Last month, at Frontier Ventures’ regular company-wide Missiological Huddle, we heard from an indigenous theologian from New Zealand, Jay Matenga. I was immediately struck by his reluctance to use the words “integral mission” or “holistic mission,” which I thought were the agreed-upon terms by which we missionaries could get some elbow room out beyond strict proclamation evangelism. It seemed that Matenga, Maori Christians, and other indigenous theologians find even those terms too limiting and compartmentalized. They prefer the term “whole person ministry.”
A “whole person” perspective on being a UCA in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election would certainly encourage us to count the costs and get boldly involved, but it would also, it seems to me, encourage us to take a long-term perspective (both from the past and into the future.) We know from history that demagogues have their season and then they pass. We know that dark times come with great destruction but that healing and recovery can follow. We know that empires arise, often by destiny, but then they collapse, often by moral necessity. We know that people survive, even when civilizations do not. Most immediately, consider Donald J. Trump. He may lose in November; in which case he will vacate the Oval Office with its extensive executive privileges, whereupon the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Paris Climate Agreement, and the renewable energy industry will no doubt breathe a sigh of relief. (Check your voter education guides!) Donald Trump may win in November, in which case his removal from office must wait for another four years. Donald Trump is 74 years old, so he has already exceeded the “three score years and ten” that Psalms 90 seems to have promised him. He will one day be gone from this earth. However, what has greater longevity than Donald Trump—either his administration or his lifespan—is the worldview that has sprung up around him, what is often called Trumpism. There is no “re-set” button for Joe Biden to push on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021. Senator James Inhofe, or Fox News, isn’t going to suddenly reverse their position on the existence and urgency of climate change. The fossil fuel industry is not going to suddenly agree to strand their assets and leave the oil or the oil sands or the frackable natural gas in the ground. A majority of the white American evangelical church is not going to suddenly see creation care as “whole person ministry,” so long as AOC, the Green New Deal, and the DNC platform lay claim to it.
The UCA needs to remind herself to look past November 2020 and see February 2021. If her preferred candidate—in this current scenario—wins, then arguably a tremendous amount will be won, but not everything will be won, and in fact, maybe not even a sufficient amount will be won. There is SO MUCH WORK TO DO regardless of who wins. The Trump Administration may have put us further in the hole when it comes to building a sustainable, clean energy future, but it is not true that we as a society were out of the hole before the Republicans pushed us back into it. For those of us who remember, the Obama/Biden years were a steep arduous climb, and we are naïve to think that Biden/Harris would be the downhill slope.
I have tried to live my adult life, and my environmental missions ministry, according to a saying of Thoreau’s: “For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root." For most elections, I feel that campaigning overtly is simply hacking at a transitory leaf. I don’t feel that way about this election, not at all. There seems to be a woodiness to this election, the root of evil seems to have extruded above ground. Nonetheless, the root of evil sinks deep and will still be lethal for the least-reached and for the least-of-these and for those I love even if this one woody tendril is severed. Striking at the root of evil is good work. Those who strike and strike again may grow weary, but they will never lack for good employment.
Next time: I believe I will conclude the series on “The Unemployed Climate Activist” by exploring how the UCA follows Dallas Willard’s lead and “abandons the outcome” even in the face of collapse.