The battle between ?evangelical Christians in the US over whether climate change is a call to protect the Earth, the work of God to be welcomed, or doesn’t exist at all. Evangelicals in the US have traditionally been the bedrock of conservative politics, including on climate change. But a loud debate is happening across the country, with some Christians protesting in the name of protecting the Earth, seeing it as a duty to be done in God’s name. ?One group has even built a chapel in the way of a pipeline and a radical pastor encourages his flock to put themselves in the way of the diggers. A firm supporter of Trump criss-crosses the country promoting solar power.

But there’s still the traditional resistance – a climate scientist who denies the world is warming and a preacher in Florida who sees the fact he was flooded out as a good sign of divine presence. With stories from across the country featuring pastors and churchgoers, and showing conflict between generations, races and classes, could it be a surprising section of Christian Americans who might show hope for the country’s attitude to climate change?

After dominating much of American politics for the past 40 years, white evangelical Protestants are now facing a sharp decline. Nearly one-third of white Americans raised in evangelical Christian households leave their childhood faith.2 About 60 percent of those who leave end up joining another faith tradition, while 40 percent give up on religion altogether. The rates of disaffiliation are even higher among young adults: 39 percent of those raised evangelical Christian no longer identify as such in adulthood. And while there is always a good deal of churn in the religious marketplace — people both entering and leaving faith traditions — recent findingssuggest that membership losses among white evangelical Protestants are not being offset by gains.

As a result, the white evangelical Protestant population in the U.S. has fallen over the past decade, dropping from 23 percent in 2006 to 17 percent in 2016. But equally troubling for those concerned about the vitality of evangelical Christianity, white evangelical Protestants are aging. Today, 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants are at least 50 years old. In 1987, fewer than half (46 percent) were. The median age of white evangelical Protestants today is 55.