Press release: The church has to take a stand
11/15/2011
PRESS RELEASE: 15th November 2011 Operation Noah lecture: Climate change: a confessional issue for the church?A leading theologian speaks out about the connection between climate change and the global economy and called the church to repentance. Professor Tim Gorringe gave the Operation Noah annual lecture on Monday 14th November at St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, close to St Paul’s Cathedral, and asked 'Is climate change, and its connection with the global economy, a matter for church confession?' Speaking to a packed church, Professor Gorringe challenged listeners, in a wide-ranging lecture, to make connections between climate change and other moral issues on which Christians have previously taken a stand. In the context of a 'confessing church' that has questioned itself on issues such as Nazism, nuclear weapons and apartheid, Prof Gorringe asked whether climate change is also a confessional issue: something that touches the very heart of faith. The three hallmarks of church confession, he said, are firstly 'a response to an emergency'; secondly, a decision, based in a particular time and place 'that the church, if it is going to be the church, has to take a stand'; and thirdly 'an acknowledgement of guilt or complicity': the church itself is called to repentance. His analysis of the causes took a hard look at the economy: fittingly, as the venue is close to St Paul's Cathedral, where the Occupy London protests have raised questions about the relationship between the church and mammon. Drivers of growth, he argued, are firstly the very proper desire to raise living standards for all, but a desire which fails to recognise that 7 billion cannot live at that standard in a finite planet; second competition and third debt. And an economy based on these factors is a driver of climate change. He argued that climate change is a confessional issue for at least three reasons: firstly because it excludes certain members of society (those countries which are the immediate victims of climate change, and coming generations); secondly because it threatens to destroy many aspects of God's good creation; and thirdly because it raises the question of idolatry, giving a higher value to an economic system than to human life and creation. Using the analogy of the Barmen Declaration, a response to Hitler's National Socialists (and the institutional church's subsequent failure to act), Prof Gorringe asked how the church should now respond to climate change. If climate change is a confessional issue, what would follow? Carbon accounting should become part of Christian discipleship. Discipleship would also include campaigning for a different economy. And there should be repentance on the part of the church, 'examining our complicity with, and reliance on, the present financial system and doing something about it. For the sake of God's creation the church has to set its own financial house in order and develop different investment and economic strategies.' Prof Gorringe ended with a note of hope, arguing that 'a low carbon society would be a happier and a more just society' and adding: 'This is effectively a recognition of creation as grace.' Finally, he challenged listeners: 'Can we live up to the example of all those confessors in our history? Can we learn from them? Or will we just remain quiet? A decision is required of us.' Further informationOperation Noah Annual Lecture 2011: Report Operation Noah is a Christian charity which provides leadership, focus and inspiration in response to the growing threat of catastrophic climate change endangering God’s creation. Tim Gorringe is St Luke’s Professor of Theology in Exeter University and a member of Operation Noah’s Theology advisory group. His academic interests focus on the inter-relationships between theology, social science, art and politics. Gorringe is the author of more than twenty books, the most recent of which, The Common Good and the Global Emergency, addresses the issue of climate change and the built environment. |
