On this season of Sacred & Profane, we explore how religions have shaped the climate crisis -- and how they offer ways to imagine a different future.

In the United States, Christianity and oil have been entangled since the industry's beginning. Our guest Darren Dochuk says Pennsylvania's oil fields gave rise to "two gospels of crude;" competing versions of Christianity that would have a profound effect on politics in the U.S. and around the world. But both versions viewed the prosperity oil brought as a blessing, and downplayed the negative impacts on local communities and the climate at large. Will the beliefs that see America's abundant hydrocarbons as a sign of divine favor survive as younger white evangelicals embrace a different standard of creation care in an era of climate change?

This episode was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.