Because He Lives: Exploring the Resurrection of Jesus as the Root Belief in Theologically Conservative Christians' Resistance to Climate Policy

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the ongoing and constantly evolving investigation into Christian attitudes about environmental issues generally and skepticism about climate change and climate policy specifically. This purpose is achieved primarily in two ways. First, it seeks to distinguish and disambiguate between skepticism about climate change among theologically conservative American Christians and skepticism about climate change policy. The study contributes to the academic literature by synthesizing two bodies of literature: that dealing with American Christians’ beliefs and climate change and that dealing with the nature of climate skepticism. Using the insights of Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory and a conceptual framework of Christian apologetics, theologically conservative Christians are defined by their beliefs related to the resurrection of Jesus. Skepticism about climate change is the independent variable. Skepticism about climate policy define the two dependent variables. This study was conducted as a quasi-experimental, cross-sectional survey of Americans of eligible voting age. Data was collected using an anonymous online survey. Participants were solicited using social media. Data was analyzed using logistic and ordered logistic regression to test for a statistically significant relationship between the variables. The hypothesis tested is that belief in climate change among theologically conservative Christians will be statistically correlated with skepticism about climate policy. This study’s hypothesis advances both the literature of religion and climate change and the application of Social Systems Theory to contemporary problems of public policy research. Final analysis found that a belief in climate change was a necessary but not a sufficient precondition for support of popular climate policy proposals.