The water in the Mediterranean Sea has been breaking temperature records year after year, and it will do so again in 2025.

In countries bathed by the ‘Mare Nostrum’, the consequences are very visible. Sleepless nights with minimum temperatures not falling below 25ºC, power cuts due to the unusual use of air conditioning, new health issues for outdoor workers caused by heat waves that start earlier and last longer.

Maybe the most serious consequence is that the sea temperature causes extreme weather events on land, like the floods that swept through 75 towns in Valencia in autumn 2024, killing 227 people.

Read the first and second reports in this series on the warming of the Mediterranean Sea.

Michael Wickham in Spain and Gianluca Piccirillo in Italy are among those whose Christian faith has prompted them to follow climate developments closely in their own countries.

 

What the biblical worldview has to say about the debate

Wickham explains his own journey so far. “I have been teaching about the reality of climate change for many years in secondary education and contributing to books and publications (such as Protestante Digital), giving talks and workshops in churches and local community centres”.

He is encouraged to see that “many of these are young people, something so refreshing to see, bringing new ideas and ways of communicating the message of creation care to all around us”.

He and other Christians in Spain aim to model more responsibility about “how and what we consume, how we travel, and how we dispose of rubbish and use water and energy”.

“We need to avoid the extremes of panic and apathy”

On a global scale, “the effects of this warming are particularly felt in those countries which are not the main producers of greenhouse gases, with droughts, floods, rising temperatures and changes in the seasons”, Wickham says.

He sees therefore “an important element of social justice, as the countries affected are not the ones that have caused the warming. This is one of the reasons that motivate me to take action”.

Christians, he continues, “do this not just because we are concerned about the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren, and in that we agree with secular NGOs, but in particular because it is a mandate from God for us to look after a world which is His, not ours”.

 “From the 1970s onwards there are various Evangelical documents with a unique and truly Bible- and gospel-centred that should be more widely known”

So how does a Christian approach look distinctly? “We need to avoid on the one hand the extremes of panic and extreme anxiety, increasingly evident in our society, and on the other the other extreme of inaction due to apathy, self-interest, disbelief or ignorance”, Wickham believes.

“God is in control of His world. The Bible indicates a more responsible relationship with the world and its resources: to administer God’s earth and its resources responsibly, showing compassion for those who suffer the effects of man’s ravenous consumption of resources for personal enrichment and comfort. I am challenged to look after God’s people, animals and plants with the same love that he created them and declared them as good (Genesis 1 and 2)”.

 

Much evangelical reflection since the 70s

Gianluca Piccirillo wrote his Master’s dissertation in Theology on some twenty evangelical documents that address the need to care for the environment.

“From the 1970s onwards there are various Evangelical documents, statements or books connected to creation care. Their contribution is so unique and truly Bible- and gospel-centred (unlike Pope Francis’ Laudato Si) that they should be more widely known”, he thinks.

Piccirillo identifies around 20 of these evangelical works, including, to name a few, the Resolutions on Creation Care of the National Association of Evangelicals (1970-71), An Evangelical Commitment to Simple Lifestyle (1980), On the Care of Creation: An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation (1994), An Urgent Call to Action: Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation (2007), Creation Care & The Gospel - Call to Action (2012), and The Evangelical Call to Action on Biodiversity (2020).

A distinctly evangelical motivation, hope and action

“Since the world is the Lord's, our care for creation should have a threefold framework,” says Piccirillo.

“The motivation for creation care, from an evangelical perspective, should not be dictated by fear of environmental upheaval, the sense of guilt, nor the utilitarian perspective of creation (that is, addressing the ecological issue makes sense insofar as it is useful for human progress), but is and should be ultimately dictated by love for God and His honour. The world is His and bears witness to His greatness. We should care for creation even if we were not in a time of environmental crisis.”

“This hope of cosmic restoration in Christ should fuel the search for justice, peace also in the ecological field, accompanied by prayer”

On the other hand, “the hope for a worthy care of creation, from an evangelical perspective, should not lie so much in man’s creative ability to adapt, nor in the technology that can and should be developed, nor in the legitimate efforts to create a perfect society by human effort alone, but is founded on God and His intervention in Christ. This hope of cosmic restoration in Christ should fuel the search for justice, peace also in the ecological field, towards service and social action, accompanied by prayer”.

Finally, “the action of ecological commitment, from an evangelical perspective, does not replace or even stand in opposition to the task of evangelising the world, but is closely connected to it; it is its litmus test, in that a coherent faith always urges action according to God's purposes. In doing so, it should be part of a co-belligerent effort: we cannot work alone but need to collaborate to achieve larger systemic goals and intervene effectively in local contexts, e.g. by lobbying politically on common issues while exerting attitudes of proximity (e.g. towards climate refugees). However, co-belligerence and collaboration must never be at the expense of the gospel”.

This is the last part of a series of articles on the consequences of the heating of the Mediterranean Sea and its visible consequences. Read the first and the second article.