Climate Anxiety and Liturgy
From Eco-Theology to Eco-Emotions
I am currently engaged in international research on emotions evoked by environmental issues, sometimes called eco-emotions.1 I came to the topic via my work in eco-theology. Before I was the leading Finnish spokesperson in matters related to eco-anxiety, I was a young and active eco-theologian. Together with others, I developed materials for congregations around environmental themes and Christian nature spirituality. We wrote books, gave speeches, and organized various events.2
Sometime around the year 2009, in workshops that we facilitated for church workers and volunteers, we started noticing the difficult emotions that people felt in relation to environmental damage. We also observed the usual silence around these feelings. This silence is still noteworthy, even though there is much more talk about eco-anxiety these days: people may find it very challenging to be in touch with their eco-emotions and to reveal them to others. People need safe spaces and some kind of containment to do so. They need something that they can emotionally trust to carry them in their vulnerability.3 At its best, liturgy is such a space and time.
People make intuitive estimations, however, of whether a certain congregation and its worship life is truly such a safe space. People ask: Can I trust others in my congregation to understand the climate anxiety I feel? Do the worship leaders seem to get it, or do they bypass it or offer too-easy solutions to it? The trust and safety which is needed can be built by commitment, recognition, and validation.4 To better understand the needs of people, I will share a bit more about people’s climate anxiety before moving on to discussing the possibilities of liturgy in more detail.
“It Feels Like Humanity Is Doomed”: The Depth of Climate Anxiety
In 2021, I joined an esteemed team of international scholars in producing what would become a groundbreaking study on young people’s climate emotions and their views of governmental climate politics. Ten thousand young people aged sixteen to twenty-five years from ten different countries were interviewed. The study, “Climate Anxiety in Children and Young People and Their Beliefs about Government Responses to Climate Change: A Global Survey,” made the news around the world. Seventy-five percent thought that the future is frightening, and 59 percent were very or extremely worried about climate change. Thirty-nine percent felt hesitation to have children because of climate change and the generally highly uncertain future, and 56 percent believed that humanity is doomed.5
Adults generally have a deep desire for their children and the future generations of the world to flourish. It can be very difficult to face the truth that the majority of young people in the world feel highly unsure about the future, and some feel deep distress because of the threats. The psychosomatic impacts of climate anxiety include sleep difficulties, stress symptoms, and various fear reactions. Many adults still wish that the situation could somehow be explained away. Some people go into literal denial and defend themselves by ardently trying to believe that the crisis is not as bad as it is. Reactions of denial and disavowal make climate anxiety worse for people who have been brave enough to face reality. But true leadership, which acknowledges climate anxiety and engages with climate injustice, encourages people and gives them meaning—sometimes even hope.
It is also not just the young people who feel climate anxiety. They have the future ahead of them, and they speak more of climate anxiety among themselves than many other age groups, but older people have similar feelings, too. The older one is, the fewer the opportunities for social validation of climate anxiety, and the contradictions between having lived in a fossil fuel-intensive culture and the current climate awareness can be highly difficult to navigate. Intergenerational sharing and connection are very important, but they require a lot from the various participants. Practical action, such as doing something together on environmental matters, can be a means to enable verbal and emotional sharing.
The First Task for Worship Leaders: Reflecting on Emotions
Leaders, such as pastors, need a willingness and intention to do their own inner work. We cannot truly help others in relation to climate anxiety if we are not in touch with our own climate emotions. That does not mean that everyone needs to feel a similar kind of climate anxiety—no, people’s emotions have variations! But unless we engage more deeply with climate change, we are prone to offer only partial help.
A practical tool for reflecting on climate emotions, both for oneself and in work with others, is the Climate Emotions Wheel (see p. 27). This visualization was created in 2023 by an organization called Climate Mental Health Network, with the lead of Anya Kamenetz, and I contributed to it both via my research and by being a member of the working group.6 The idea is that people can see some of the many possible emotional responses to climate issues.
The wheel has four segments. The fear segment includes threat-related emotions, and one way to think of climate anxiety is to see it as a spectrum, a continuum of various levels of worry. For threat-related emotions, what is needed is an ability to fear well—a combination of courage and fear—and enough safety.
The sadness segment includes emotions which are close to grief but not exactly the same, such as guilt and shame. This segment is highly important, and I will discuss many aspects of it later. Sadness and guilt can be paralyzing, but they also include deep energy for change, as the Bible testifies.
The anger segment shows that not all anger is problematic: there are profound injustices related to climate change, and moral outrage is an energy to keep fighting against them. This segment is challenging and crucial for Christians, who have often had complicated feelings around anger in their religion. Climate injustice calls for nonviolent, righteous anger, something like the Prophets manifested in places in the Old Testament, or Jesus in the temple with the money changers.
Finally, the vaguely named “positivity” segment refers to emotions which more easily feel good. Many of these emotions are evoked by joint climate action, or any action which increases adaptation and/or mitigation in relation to climate change. It is magnificent if these emotions can be evoked and strengthened—for example in worship—but the whole spectrum of climate emotions requires attention, and the “negative emotions” should not be despised, for they also can serve life.
The Climate Emotions Wheel can be used in many ways; for example, in the preparation of sermons and other aspects of worship life, and with discussion groups in the congregation. Some pastors have printed it and displayed it in congregational spaces. The website of the Climate Mental Health Network offers some practical ideas for this kind of work.7
Implicit and Explicit Possibilities in Liturgy and Worship
If people who feel climate anxiety have the feeling that the congregation and its leaders—or at least some of them—understand what they are feeling, the common elements of liturgy also can be deeply moving in relation to these themes. The cries of despair and trust in the Psalms can speak to feelings of ecological despair. The immersive soundscapes of Bach’s music can carry and transform climate distress. Hymns of sorrow can speak to climate grief, and hymns of joy amidst the creation can testify to the possibilities of “radical joy for hard times,” as the environmental author Trebbe Johnson puts it.8
In addition to these implicit aspects of how liturgy and worship can serve, there is a need for explicit work with climate anxiety and other climate emotions. Some Christians have already worked in this space for quite some time, often taking inspiration from the pioneering activities of the Work That Reconnects movement, spearheaded by Joanna Macy. Sometimes the framing can be more generally about eco-emotions or even emotions about the state of the world, and sometimes it is good to give explicit attention to climate emotions. If this kind of explicit recognition of climate emotions is present in the worship life at least occasionally, it can further help people to connect with the implicit aspects.
Climate Grief and Eco-Spiritual Grief
Themes of sorrow are present in many ways in liturgy, not to mention in the lives of pastors who lead funeral services. These themes can now be linked with climate grief and broader ecological grief, and those connections can help also in relation to climate anxiety. A part of the more difficult manifestations of climate anxiety arises from the lack of engagement with necessary grieving processes. Unprocessed and unmet grief can manifest in distress and various problematic reactions, such as escape behavior like substance abuse.
It is well known that grief and sadness are often shunned in contemporary, industrialized societies. This is called disenfranchised grief: grief is not given recognition, and mourners are therefore bereaved also of social support. There is not as much disenfranchised grief among congregations as in societies in general, but disenfranchising of ecological or climate grief is a real possibility. It can be difficult for people to face climate grief, at least in all its seriousness.
In a recent research article, I explored “eco-spiritual grief,” a combination of ecological grief and sorrow about disruption with one’s spirituality.9 Grief researchers Laurie Burke and Robert A. Neimeyer have studied “spiritual grief” with three aspects: insecurity with God, estrangement from spiritual community, and disruption in religious practices.10 These difficulties can take place also as result of ecological grief and anxiety, which can lead to profound crises of faith and renegotiation of theological beliefs. Various degrees of estrangement may happen, sometimes causing the person to leave one’s spiritual community and perhaps join a new, more environmentally oriented one. And different religious or spiritual practices may become disrupted. For example, the person may find it difficult to pray as one is used to.
There are films and books which testify to such crises, and engaging with them is one opportunity for increasing understanding and empathy. The movie First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2018) tells of a Reformed minister who meets young adults with severe eco-anxiety in the midst of his own crisis of faith. Anglican pastor Frances Ward tells of her personal climate anxiety journey in the book Like There’s No Tomorrow: Climate Crisis, Eco-Anxiety and God (Sacristy Press, 2020), and the narrative is woven to a riverboat journey in Britain. For global perspectives, the edited collection by Hannah Malcolm, Words for a Dying World (SCM Press, 2020), testifies to experiences of climate grief and other emotions among Christians in various continents.
Engaging with Various Losses and Sorrows
Leaders of worship can provide means to engage with both local and global types of ecological loss and grief.11 Knowledge about various possible forms of eco-spiritual grief helps people to respond to processes that they may be going through. The practical liturgical possibilities include, for example, the following:
- Engaging with ecological losses and grief through psalms and music
- Interceding on behalf of those creatures and ecosystems that suffer, and also on behalf of all those who mourn ecological losses
- Providing opportunity to light candles to commemorate and witness ecological losses
- Integrating embodied, creative movement in parts of worship where climate grief is engaged with; for example, skillful dancing, which can be deeply moving
- Holding a liturgy outside, at a wounded place
All these work against disenfranchised grief. Recommended further reading includes an adaptation of contemplative tradition into ecological grief by Douglas Christie titled The Blue Sapphire of the Mind (Oxford University Press, 2013), and Nature as Spiritual Practice and A Field Guide to Nature as Spiritual Practice by Steven Chase (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2011).
Climate Guilt
It has been argued that guilt is a keystone emotion in environmental communication and rhetoric (Tim Jensen, Ecologies of Guilt, Palgrave Pivot, 2019). Since the ecological crisis is human-caused, dynamics of guilt and responsibility are inherently present. Religious communities have voiced ecological guilt and even used the concept of “ecological sin” for quite some time. While these speeches and confessions can provide important occasions for engaging with related emotions, care is needed to pay attention to the complexities of environmental culpability and the possible feelings of ecological shame, and this has implications for climate anxiety.
One issue is it is very possible that a congregation includes both persons who struggle with overly strong burdens of guilt and persons who do not take enough responsibility. Many people who experience eco-anxiety have reported that they constantly feel like they are not doing enough: there is a feeling of inadequacy, often combined with feelings of powerlessness and sometimes also with feelings of shame. Some of these people actually do a lot for environmental and climate causes, but because the ecological problems are so immense, it is easy for them to still feel inadequate. For these people, there is a strong need to be able to alleviate the burdens of culpability in liturgy. However, this need may require holistic messages and experiences of acceptance, and simply confessing one’s sins and receiving absolution or pardon may not be enough psychologically.
On the other hand, there may be people who don’t actually do much (yet!) for the environment, but they use some aspects of their behavior as a psychological defense against culpability. At least in Finland, a very common example of this is people who proudly say that they recycle very well, but in fact they do not pay attention to more environmentally damaging parts of their lifestyles. These people may feel fine after absolution in liturgy, but they actually need more exhortation to metanoia, to a change in lifeways.
Worship leaders are thus in a tricky position in relation to climate guilt. Some people have too much of it, and some too little. But is this not the same situation that Christians have had for ages in relation to any ethical issue? Fundamentally, this difference in individuals’ sense of responsibility is a reflection of similar issues around humanity that the Reformers wrestled with, and church fathers before them. Theology around sin, justification, repentance, and grace finds its manifestations also in ecological and climate matters.
In practice, worship leaders can articulate different possible situations and be cautious of a universal “we” in confessions of environmental guilt, in part because major fossil fuel companies and petro-states have produced such enormous amounts of climate emissions.12 For example:
We confess that we, too, have participated in lifestyles which damage the creation and produce climate emissions. For those who almost collapse under their burdens of environmental guilt, we pray for mercy and strength. For those who do not yet see the full impact of their lifeways, we pray for awakening to consciousness and repentance.
Lament: A Way to Engage with Many Climate Emotions
One of the major liturgical possibilities in relation to many climate emotions is the ancient practice of lament, which can take many forms. The Old Testament gives us many laments. People shouting their indignation at injustices. People expressing their guilt for their participation in wrongdoings and asking for mercy. People letting out their grief and sorrow. People voicing their despair, but also their desperate hope.
Lament can be a way to give powerful space to combinations of climate emotions. Several theologians have written insightfully of the use of lament, such as Timothy Hessel-Robinson in his 2012 Liturgy article “‘The Fish of the Sea Perish’: Lamenting Ecological Ruin” and Hannah Malcolm in her 2020 article “Grieving the Earth as Prayer” in The Ecumenical Review. Hessel-Robinson takes the Mexican Gulf disaster caused by Deepwater Horizon as a starting point and asks: “How do shattering events like the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe resonate liturgically? That is, how do the anger, grief, fear, and shame evoked by the oil spill—and all the threats to creation that it represents—pray? Where do we find opportunities to wrestle with the meaning of ecological destruction for our sense of human vocation and the presence (or absence) of God in worship?”13
His answer is lament, and he provides an insightful theological history of it, before offering ideas for practice. Lament can resonate both with local and global dimensions of ecological threats, and as such it can ground climate change into something which can be voiced.14
What could ecologically sensitive laments sound like in your congregation? Have there already been such laments? If not, what group of people could write and voice those in the worship life of the congregation? Lament can be a way to validate many climate emotions, give voice to people’s contextual experiences, and to resist, again, disenfranchised grief. It is also a rare Christian occasion of integrating righteous anger in liturgy and worship.15
Music
The connections between music and emotions are very strong. Music and emotions move us; after all, in their essence, they are movement.16 Music has been found to reduce symptoms of anxious states, and now researchers are interested to study music in relation to climate anxiety.17 The possibilities of church music have been briefly mentioned above, but they should be emphasized.
Many forms of music can be helpful: listening, singing together, or even creating music together. A moving (literally) example of this is the recent project of Stephanie Schuurman-Olson, called “Singing in Dark Times: Improvisational Singing with Children amidst Ecological Crisis,”18 Making music together can release energies of many different emotions and combinations of them. It also testifies to the relationality which is at the heart of life (and indeed of the Trinity, too).
The practical possibilities of using music in this context deserve an article of their own, and the new book by Mark Porter, For the Warming of the Earth: Music, Faith, and Ecological Crisis (SCM Press, 2024) tells more of them. However, I do mention the option of combining preaching and music, since that has been so helpful for me. When giving sermons or other speeches which engage with deep themes around climate anxiety, I have often used music to help to carry the emotional and existential load. Sometimes a church musician has played the organ or sung in a couple of places inside the sermon, building a dialogue between the words and the music. It should be noted that these kinds of occasions that include music can be helpful for the climate anxiety felt by musicians, too: people gain feelings of efficacy when they can use their skills.
Ideas for Prayer and Congregational Space
Some further ideas are mentioned here, as well as links to more resources. First, prayer altars. A liturgical practice which is used comprehensively by the Finnish contemporary order of service called the St. Thomas Mass is to offer a longer period of intercessory prayer with the possibility for people to visit various thematic “altars” in the worship space. The themes in these altars can include more general spiritual themes, such as despair, and more specific themes such as current global concerns. Often there is an opportunity to light a candle and to write a prayer. In St. Thomas Masses in Helsinki, we have set up altars for ecological grief and ecological guilt, offering people a low-threshold opportunity to meditate on these themes and to personally and physically engage with them.
The St. Thomas Mass, named after the apostle who showed disbelief, makes a special effort to be welcoming to people who feel unsure in their faith, who feel at least partly like outsiders. That aim can find resonance in efforts to welcome those who feel lonely in their climate emotions.
Furthermore, the Climate Emotions Wheel can be used to inspire prayers, perhaps by showing it on a prayer altar. Examples include voicing gratitude for all those who work in climate matters, validating those who feel deep disappointment at the world leaders’ climate inaction, and praying on behalf of those who feel “climate depression” and/or anxiety. Questions to be reflected on with the wheel include:
- What climate emotions have we validated in our worship life, and what have remained in the shade?
- On a yearly basis, how could we validate the wide spectrum of them?
- What kind of embodied means to engage with various climate emotions could our worship life offer?
Several Christian organizations have produced highly useful resources for worship life and climate emotions. For example, the Borrowed Time project of Green Christian offers guidelines and examples of various worship activities around climate grief,19 and Christian Climate Action has published prayers and liturgies around climate change, emotions, and action.20 Ideas and insights can be applied also from more interfaith networks on environmental matters, such as the Work That Reconnects network.21
Action, Emotions, and Rejuvenation
Naturally, the level of environmental commitment and action in the congregation has an effect on climate anxiety levels. If the members feel that they are part of a body which tries to do its part in environmental ethics, this helps with distress. However, action cannot be the only antidote, because people have to learn skills of living with the environmental crisis. A recent process model of eco-anxiety and grief distills dimensions of coping and changing to three key ones: action, grieving (including other emotional engagement), and distancing (including both self-care and avoidance).22 That last dimension can include those times of calm in the midst of storms which liturgy can provide. The focus in this article has been on the more difficult emotions, but living together the joy of the gospel naturally has its potential effects on climate anxiety, too.23
As regards action, the ancient connection between liturgy and diakonia becomes evident here: Christians are called to serve in the world. A special part of that service can be the application of worship for constructive engagement with climate emotions, as this article has suggested.24
Notes
1. For some of my work in this field, see Panu Pihkala, “Anxiety and the Ecological Crisis: An Analysis of Eco-Anxiety and Climate Anxiety,” Sustainability 12, no. 19 (2020), 7836, https://doi.org/10.3390/su12197836/; and Panu Pihkala, “Eco–Anxiety, Tragedy, and Hope: Psychological and Spiritual Dimensions of Climate Change,” Zygon 53, no. 2 (2018): 545–69.
2. Most of that material is available only in Finnish. However, for my academic work on eco-theology, including study of North American eco-theologians in the first half of the twentieth century, see Panu Pihkala, Early Ecotheology and Joseph Sittler, Studies in Religion and the Environment (Zürich: LIT Verlag, 2017).
3. These are major themes in the field of climate psychology. For perspectives, see e.g. Judith Anderson, Tree Staunton, Jenny O’Gorman, and Caroline Hickman, eds., Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown (Oxon & New York: Routledge & CRC Press, 2024).
4. For literature about encountering people who feel eco-anxiety, see e.g. Ryan LaMothe, Pastoral Care in the Anthropocene Age: Facing a Dire Future Now, Emerging Perspectives in Pastoral Theology and Care (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022); and Panu Pihkala, “Eco-Anxiety and Pastoral Care: Theoretical Considerations and Practical Suggestions,” Religions 13, no. 3 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030192/.
5. Caroline Hickman et al, ”Climate Anxiety in Children and Young People and Their Beliefs about Government Responses to Climate Change: A Global Survey,” The Lancet Planetary Health 5, no. 12 (2021): e863–73, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00278-3/.
6. A major source for the wheel was Panu Pihkala, ”Toward a Taxonomy of Climate Emotions,” Frontiers in Climate 3 (2021), https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2021.738154/.
7. https://www.climatementalhealth.net/wheel/.
8. See https://radicaljoy.org/ and Trebbe Johnson, Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth’s Broken Places (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2018).
