‘This Is About Our Lives’

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap is the national organizer and spokesperson for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. He spoke with Sojourners' Jenna Barnett.

“IN 2017, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action marched in the People’s Climate March. [The next day] we invited God’s spirit to go with us into the halls of Congress. After we shared why climate change is important to us as young Christians, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s staffer asked, ‘How many of you identify as conservative or Republican?’ Nobody raised their hand. The staffer smiled, like he suspected this was a Trojan horse kind of deal where we were bringing young progressives in here and pretending like we were evangelicals. One by one the young people told the staffer how they had grown up in conservative Christian households and that many of them still held those values. But because the party had left them behind on climate change, they could no longer claim the party.