While appreciate the author's work on this article, I am not convinced they were able to provide a sound justification for the work or discussion that is congruent with the purpose of the study. I would recommend a rejection of the manuscript. The following are my comments as I read through the paper.

Abstract - There is no sound justification of the work. I found myself asking several times, "why does this matter? Why would anyone care about this?" While simplistic, the answer to these questions is the first thing author's must demonstrate and justify. I am not convinced. Introduction - The authors say scientists are sounding an alarm of environmental degradation. While the alarm sounding is true, there is strong debate about whether environmental degradation is truly taking place and in what manner. It may be important to provide at least a mention of the debate. The writing here indicates that this is the only opinion on the environment. - Near the end of the page you discuss speaking with evangelical leaders and laity. Earlier you said you interviewed 20 congregants. It is important that you be consistent in your writing, else the reader is confused. - You then state the two congregations have been strategically chosen but do not tell the reader how or why until much later in the paper; which is also vague. Provide at least a sentence on why the strategic choosing of these 2 specific congregations is important to the study. - By the end of the introduction, I was not convinced of the study's importance. Literature Review - In the literature review the authors say the study of Evangelicals is of primary importance but do not provide a convincing argument for this. Why is the study of Evangelicals more important over other denominations? Why not provide some insight into how Evangelicals differ from Protestants, for example? Then provide some discussion of how those views differ especially in terms of the environment. - It is important to note there is a difference between Protestant and Evangelical. On page 5 the authors discuss a Baptist congregation and African American Protestants. I found in general a lack of consistency in the use of denominational terms. Here, I was first led to believe your discussion was about 2 Evangelical congregations, now one is Protestant. Data & Methodology - Overall the section needs to provide more detail about the methodology of the study. - The very first line of this section leads the reader to believe the data used for this study may be secondary and quantitative. Later in the paragraph the writing leads the reader to believe the data was collected specifically for this study. Consistency is an issue with this article. - Again, the use of the term Evangelical is confusing in this article as the authors are not consistent. Sometimes the congregation is Evangelical, sometimes it is Evangelical Protestant, and sometimes it is Evangelical Pentecostal and sometimes it is Protestant. I found this frustrating throughout the article. - It is not until near the end of the section the reader gets any indication of the type of qualitative study this is. While the authors never specifically say what qualitative method they are using, the indication is the study is ethnographic, because the researchers attended services for a year in order to "gain entrée into congregational life". The authors do not describe how the data were made. How were participants interviewed? Did field researchers use structured or unstructured interviewing techniques, recorded, audio, video, etc.? How was the important data identified; i.e., field notes, observations, etc.? - The researchers do not describe their stance. Ethnographers are typically integrated as much as possible into the lives of the people they are studying. How did the researchers immerse themselves into the culture they were studying? - We also do not know how the data were analyzed or coded. How many researchers were there? Was there agreement between the researchers concerning analysis? - The author's need to provide a very clear picture of their qualitative method and analysis. As it is written, the reader knows nothing of the method and assumes there is a methodological incongruence with the analysis and findings. - Other than saying 40 people from 2 different congregations were interviewed, there is very little congruent discussion of qualitative design. I would recommend the authors locate some literature on different qualitative methods, situate this article in one of them as best they can, and discuss their methodology in a clear manner. Findings - In general the findings are difficult to interpret as there was no real discussion of the qualitative design, methodology, and analysis. I would further question the validity of the findings as it appears there was a stark difference in terms of how many AAB interviews were conducted compared to SBC interviews (located in endnotes). This paper was about the differences between 2 congregations but very few interviews seemed to be conducted in the African American Congregation or at least their interviews were not included in this manuscript.