Don’t Look Up: how climate change and Christianity are pretty similar

 Over Christmas, I watched Don’t Look Up, and loved it. If you haven’t seen it, it is all about how the world fails to take seriously the threat of a massive asteroid heading towards earth to their peril, with the aim of showing the foolishness of our world’s similarly apathetic attitude to the threat of climate change. But funnily enough, I thought it was a brilliant film in showing the foolishness of a similarly apathetic attitude towards Christianity. Here are two big ways that Christianity parallels climate change shown in this film:

Belief because of evidence

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play two astronomers who know their stuff when it comes to asteroids. They don’t think an asteroid is coming because of a hunch or because they are deeply pessimistic; they know it is coming because of their scientific evidence. The parallel to climate is clear – it is evidence that underpins climate change, not just hunches or mindless doom mongering.

The same idea is true when it comes to Christianity. I am often surprised by how common it is for people I meet to think that Christian belief is something that comes independent of evidence, or actively in spite of evidence – “Christians believe what they do because it is nice, or because it is what they were told when they were young, not because it is true”. This is very far from the belief described in the Bible, which advocates belief because of evidence, not in spite of it.

This idea is all over the Bible – but we can look at the gospel of John as one example. John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, decided to write a biography of Jesus, using his eyewitness testimony as well as that of other eyewitnesses to show others who Jesus was and what he did in history back in the 1^st century AD. Towards the end of his biography, he writes this: ‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’ (John 20:30-31). John thinks that belief comes from reading/hearing his collection of eyewitness historical evidence, seeing how in history Jesus showed himself to be God, rather than just a human like the rest of us. John would think it idiotic for someone to call themselves a Christian without having reason or evidence to do so – Christian belief is because of evidence.

Issues of gravity in an age of levity

One of the most painfully funny strands of the film is seeing Leo and Jen try, and largely fail, to get across the serious reality of an asteroid heading to earth that will kill everyone. Jen goes in hard and gets memed as a response; Leo tries the softly softly approach for an audience that wants things to be light. Perhaps my favourite scene in the film is him reaching boiling point on ‘the daily rip’ chat show. He gives up on the soft approach because it is utterly stupid – with something so serious as a world-killing asteroid, why not act like it is a big deal? Why still pretend that everything is basically okay?

Again, the parallel to climate change is clear – things in the future could be utterly disastrous, so why does no one care? Why is no one doing anything? Why are people more interested in the relationship status of a celebrity they have never met before? Our culture is fine-tuned to maximising fun and minimising serious worry.

In a way, this is what we want: after a long day at work, I know I often feel like switching off and watching some light-hearted TV, rather than have to engage with heavy subjects or uncomfortable truths. But taking a step back, issues of gravity do need to be engaged with. It is foolish to give all our time to trivialities whilst ignoring things that are far more important in life. Ignoring the climate crisis because it is heavy and serious is stupid.

And I would say the same is true with Christianity. Not only does it engage with the big things in life – purpose and meaning, life after death, knowing our Creator – but it also makes hugely significant truth claims about all of them, based on evidence from history. And yet we can easily give more time to videos of puppies riding chickens or Arsenal’s lead over Man City in the table or the state of the royal family than we can to issues that last into eternity. Of course, even starting to talk about eternity can sound far-fetched and wacko, just like talking about a world-destroying asteroid – which is why it is important to engage with the evidence and weigh it up for yourself. But to put such serious issues to one side in favour of lighter things is stupid, and Don’t Look Up puts this on display.

The difference between climate and Christianity: God does the heavy lifting

There was only one hope for asteroid survival in the film: for humans to nuke it enough to nudge it away from its collision course. It wasn’t a certain solution, but there was a chance, which in turn was spurned in favour of greed from a tech giant supported by the US president. The climate crisis idea again is clear: (a) the problem needs to be solved by humans; (b) there is a chance we can solve it; (c) it relies upon humans (particularly big institutions and governments) doing the right thing.

This is where Christianity diverts from its parallel to climate. There is a big problem according to the Christian worldview – one all rooted in us humans choosing the path of evil, doing evil against God and against others for selfish purposes. We are the cause of the problem, and there is no hope of a solution coming from us. That is where God comes in – he came to earth in Jesus to provide the solution: to bring forgiveness and justice in equal measure; to give the certain hope of a world fully put right in the future. Rather than looking to humanity, God in Jesus is the source of help and of hope, which is why I love being a Christian. Rather than the onus being on humans, it’s God that does the heavy lifting.

Conclusion: Don’t read John’s gospel

The title of the film captures the attitude that kills the world – ‘don’t look up’ at the evidence up there in the sky, just keep living your normal life. ‘Don’t read a gospel’ is an attitude that the majority of our culture buys into now – don’t bother thinking about the Jesus stuff, just keep living your normal life.

If you are interested in looking into the evidence that makes Christians believe, then reading John’s gospel (his biography of Jesus) is a great place to start. If you want to know more about what it is before you read it, ‘Can we trust the gospels?’ is a good short book explaining why Christians think it is reasonable to trust the gospels (including John’s gospel) as history – I’d be happy to lend a copy of it to you if you’re interested.

In keeping with the Don’t Look Up style, I hope this blog provokes thought. If there is anything you disagreed with, or questions you have on the back of it, or areas you want me to be clearer on – please let me know, as I would love to discuss it with you. Thanks for reading!