“Something’s broken,” I said out loud. I was used to a few days with triple-digit temperatures over a typical summer in Houston, but we were experiencing the strange phenomenon of seemingly endless consecutive days in an unbearable swelter—45 days, according to a recent report.1 In my heat-induced frustration, I wanted to blame somebody, but I knew that fingers were pointing at my own city—Houston, the energy capital of the world. Climate activists rail against the industry that has benefited my home city with jobs, growth, development, medicine, philanthropy, the arts, and overall quality of life. And yet here we are suffering in the heat we’ve created ourselves.
Has the energy industry given us far more evil than good?
This is an honest question I have had to wrestle with as I’ve studied the 150-year-old history of oil. From its beginnings in providing a “clear, strong, brilliant light of day, to which darkness is no party,” extending the work day and exponential increase in productivity sparking the Industrial Revolution, to its impacts on transportation and mobility, oil has become the lifeblood and circulation system of the world, resulting in greater connectivity and globalization.2 It has connected us, empowered us, kept the lights on for us, and improved the quality of life for countless humans over the last century, even as it has had its checkered past as well.
So how do we reconcile the historical good produced by oil with its impacts for ill? And how do we, as Christians, respond to inexorable global growth and development while holding on to the value of stewardship of the earth and creation?
Over my many years in Houston, I have befriended more than one engineer. In fact, the city is full of them, to the point where, in my view, it takes on the character of engineers. I have speculated that if Houston were on the Enneagram, it would be a 5. We are a city that, when posed with a problem, innovates and builds a solution. This is why Texas has been given the “can-do” moniker. To vilify an industry, and implicitly a region, as the culprit for our current climate woes can potentially marginalize a necessary and essential ally in the fight against climate change. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our challenge is not exclusively a scientific problem nor a problem of ideals but rather an engineering problem to solve.3 I would combine that with economic policy. In other words, you need us to be part of the solution.
It’s the power piece that people don’t like. Big oil is synonymous with big power. And that smacks of all that we as Christians are suspicious and wary of. Rather than engage the problem at scale, many of us would favor instead an individualistic approach, like choosing an EV, or switching to solar. Strange, that while our theological proclivities on other matters are more inclined toward communal solutions and less favorable toward individualism, in the case of climate change we seem to prefer the view that the aggregate of our individual actions will result in the sum of reduced carbon emissions on a global scale. Some disagree.4 Why do we eschew the corporations and mechanisms that can attack the problem at scale, moving the needle at more than the imperceptible drop of clear water in a salty ocean?
At Fuller Texas, we are working toward creating a Doctor of Global Leadership program focused on these solutions, an Energy and Environment cohort, designed for Christians in the energy, science, and policy sectors to come together in pursuing non-industry-skeptic solutions. We are already building relationships with people at mid-level companies as well as the majors and learning about solutions built at scale, such as direct-air capture, something that can’t be accomplished without large corporations and government fiscal policy. It requires an engineering mind, or rather many tens of thousands of them put together, to facilitate solutions that make more than a tiny fraction of an impact. Solutions at scale. One can accuse such large corporations of “greenwashing.” But one cannot deny that without them
solutions cannot be engineered at the scale needed to make a sizeable and noticeable reduction in global emissions and CO2 in the atmosphere.
What would it look like if Christians eschewed reactionary responses and led the way in solution-building toward God’s mission of hope and healing in the world? I am of the view that we can fix what’s broken. But it requires all of us—individuals and corporations alike—galvanized with a sense of agency. We don’t have to vilify or disparage one or the other. It takes individuals to dream big and corporations to make those dreams a reality
Wayne Park (DMin ’21) is chancellor of Fuller Texas and assistant professor of congregational and marketplace leadership. Before his appointment to the chancellorship, Park served as program director for Fuller’s De Pree Center (2020–2022) and as director of operations for Kingdom City Houston (2019–2022), a collective of more than a dozen churches and ministries that meet collaboratively in Houston’s Energy Corridor. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in leadership positions for local, state, and national boards, commissions, and associations.
“Something’s broken,” I said out loud. I was used to a few days with triple-digit temperatures over a typical summer in Houston, but we were experiencing the strange phenomenon of seemingly endless consecutive days in an unbearable swelter—45 days, according to a recent report.1 In my heat-induced frustration, I wanted to blame somebody, but I knew that fingers were pointing at my own city—Houston, the energy capital of the world. Climate activists rail against the industry that has benefited my home city with jobs, growth, development, medicine, philanthropy, the arts, and overall quality of life. And yet here we are suffering in the heat we’ve created ourselves.
Has the energy industry given us far more evil than good?
This is an honest question I have had to wrestle with as I’ve studied the 150-year-old history of oil. From its beginnings in providing a “clear, strong, brilliant light of day, to which darkness is no party,” extending the work day and exponential increase in productivity sparking the Industrial Revolution, to its impacts on transportation and mobility, oil has become the lifeblood and circulation system of the world, resulting in greater connectivity and globalization.2 It has connected us, empowered us, kept the lights on for us, and improved the quality of life for countless humans over the last century, even as it has had its checkered past as well.
So how do we reconcile the historical good produced by oil with its impacts for ill? And how do we, as Christians, respond to inexorable global growth and development while holding on to the value of stewardship of the earth and creation?
Over my many years in Houston, I have befriended more than one engineer. In fact, the city is full of them, to the point where, in my view, it takes on the character of engineers. I have speculated that if Houston were on the Enneagram, it would be a 5. We are a city that, when posed with a problem, innovates and builds a solution. This is why Texas has been given the “can-do” moniker. To vilify an industry, and implicitly a region, as the culprit for our current climate woes can potentially marginalize a necessary and essential ally in the fight against climate change. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our challenge is not exclusively a scientific problem nor a problem of ideals but rather an engineering problem to solve.3 I would combine that with economic policy. In other words, you need us to be part of the solution.
It’s the power piece that people don’t like. Big oil is synonymous with big power. And that smacks of all that we as Christians are suspicious and wary of. Rather than engage the problem at scale, many of us would favor instead an individualistic approach, like choosing an EV, or switching to solar. Strange, that while our theological proclivities on other matters are more inclined toward communal solutions and less favorable toward individualism, in the case of climate change we seem to prefer the view that the aggregate of our individual actions will result in the sum of reduced carbon emissions on a global scale. Some disagree.4 Why do we eschew the corporations and mechanisms that can attack the problem at scale, moving the needle at more than the imperceptible drop of clear water in a salty ocean?
At Fuller Texas, we are working toward creating a Doctor of Global Leadership program focused on these solutions, an Energy and Environment cohort, designed for Christians in the energy, science, and policy sectors to come together in pursuing non-industry-skeptic solutions. We are already building relationships with people at mid-level companies as well as the majors and learning about solutions built at scale, such as direct-air capture, something that can’t be accomplished without large corporations and government fiscal policy. It requires an engineering mind, or rather many tens of thousands of them put together, to facilitate solutions that make more than a tiny fraction of an impact. Solutions at scale. One can accuse such large corporations of “greenwashing.” But one cannot deny that without them
solutions cannot be engineered at the scale needed to make a sizeable and noticeable reduction in global emissions and CO2 in the atmosphere.
What would it look like if Christians eschewed reactionary responses and led the way in solution-building toward God’s mission of hope and healing in the world? I am of the view that we can fix what’s broken. But it requires all of us—individuals and corporations alike—galvanized with a sense of agency. We don’t have to vilify or disparage one or the other. It takes individuals to dream big and corporations to make those dreams a reality
Wayne Park (DMin ’21) is chancellor of Fuller Texas and assistant professor of congregational and marketplace leadership. Before his appointment to the chancellorship, Park served as program director for Fuller’s De Pree Center (2020–2022) and as director of operations for Kingdom City Houston (2019–2022), a collective of more than a dozen churches and ministries that meet collaboratively in Houston’s Energy Corridor. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in leadership positions for local, state, and national boards, commissions, and associations.
Andrea Cammarota, Fuller Seminary chaplain, shares about opening ourselves up to encountering God in the unknown and the unexpected, as she draws from her own vocational journey.
