When a torrential rainstorm hit the U.N. Climate Negotiations pavilion in Belém, Brazil, last November, one reporter joked that the scene of flooding and pelting rain was “like the apocalyptic biblical book of Revelation.”  

He was kidding, of course. Revelation doesn’t predict violent weather events. Nonetheless, it does place its audience at a crossroad, and the U.N. climate conference frames our moment in much the same way. Like the book of Revelation, it’s a wake-up call. 

I traveled to the negotiations in Brazil’s Amazon region as a Bible scholar and ELCA Church Council member, with a longtime concern about the climate crisis. The experience filled me with both gratitude and urgency. 

The year 2025 marked 10 years since the signing of the Paris Agreement, the 2015 treaty that committed 195 nations, including the United States, to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.   

Besides the torrential rain, Belém was extraordinarily hot and humid—a reminder that extreme heat kills more people than any other aspect of global warming. 

There has been some progress since the Paris Agreement, but so much more must be done. Negotiations among nations’ official delegations set policy for continued implementation of the Paris Agreement’s terms. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump withdrew our country from it on his first day in office. Nevertheless, significant U.S. voices were present in Brazil: mayors, governors and elected officials. Faith leaders, scientists, business leaders, environmental organizers and activists were all involved. 

While the United States nationally has pulled out of “Paris,” an ad hoc organization called We Are Still In has formed. 

Yehiel Curry, ELCA presiding bishop, issued a strong message supporting the Paris Agreement on Dec. 9, naming our moment with the biblical word kairos. “It is not too late to protect our climate,” he wrote. “With God, it is never too late. Kairos means that this is an opportune and urgent time to address earth’s climate crisis.”  

 Many Indigenous groups brought inspiration and vision to the negotiations. Some traveled for days by canoe to speak out for recognition of Indigenous lands and rights, and for the protection of the Amazon rainforest.  

 Marching with almost 70,000 others in the People’s Climate March was glorious. Indigenous communities carried banners and living symbols of the Amazon’s biodiversity. A giant inflatable Earth bobbed above big puppets of world leaders, and huge signs called on the world to stand up to fossil fuel corporations. 

I was heartened by young people and churches in the march, including the Lutheran World Federation. Anglican Brazilians carried large quilted placards, each with a photo of an environmental activist who had been killed defending the Amazon. The next day, as the Sunday worship service got underway at the Anglican cathedral, those placards picturing martyrs led the very moving liturgical procession. 

During the worship service, Angelique Walker-Smith, strategist for pan-African, Orthodox and ecumenical faith engagement at Bread for the World, introduced us to the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action as a spiritual journey from 2025 through 2034. She called on member churches to engage in prophetic witness, repentance and practical actions in joyful care for God’s creation. 

The council has sponsored previous decades of solidarity with women and against racism and violence, “and now we say climate justice brings all that together for this moment,” she said.  

I am excited about all the ways the WCC decade can deepen and expand our church’s climate work. 

Keeping the climate safe 

In Genesis 2, God gives Adam and Eve the charge to “keep” creation. Now this biblical charge falls to all of us: we must ensure that fossil fuels remain in the ground, where God safely sequestered them in rock layers millions of years ago. We can and must transition our world’s energy economy to clean, renewable sources—solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage—the cheapest energy there is. 

 Time is short. We must not lose this moment. 

 When negotiations threatened to stall, Pope Leo issued a dramatic call for more ambition to implement the Paris Agreement, joining with Brazilian cardinals and bishops. 

 The next day, I spoke on a panel about how U.S. faith communities can implement the Paris commitments, along with Christine Moffett, ELCA program director for environment and energy policy, and grassroots groups who work with vulnerable people. Trigg Talley, a former U.S. climate negotiator and leader of We Are Still In, underscored that faith communities bring an important ethical perspective to climate negotiations.  

 I drew on Revelation’s framing of that ethical urgency. The final two visions in the text show contrasting futures. They call on God’s people to make an ethical choice—to turn away from a dangerous status quo trajectory and choose instead the world-healing future path.  

If we continue burning more fossil fuels, we will have chosen a toxic pathway not unlike what Revelation nicknamed “Babylon,” the hated Roman Empire system fueled by slavery. People must exit that path before it’s too late. 

We must choose the other path, the life-giving path: God’s renewal for the Earth, the path of protecting people and the climate, the river of life and tree of life for healing for our world. 

Joining with Lutherans Restoring Creation and with ELCA creation-care advocates, I am inspired by all the ways the Decade of Climate Justice Action can be a spiritual journey for our church, giving us moral imagination for that pathway of climate justice action. 

For more information:

• World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action: search for decade’s name at oikoumene.org.