Climate and Creation: A Theology of Caring for the Planet

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Climate and Creation: A Theology of Caring for the Planet

Creation is “good”

One of the prime legacies of post-Enlightenment thinking is the tendency to play down any holistic view of the world and re-establish religious thought inside its own distinct sphere. Other areas of human thinking and reflection in areas of science and ethics and the environment are treated as autonomous. This is not an option for the Christian, since all of creation comes under God’s rule and any considerations of our right relation to the natural world flow from God’s reign and lordship. The earth is not ours to dispose of as we wish.

“The Earth is the Lord’s and its fullness thereof.” (Psalm 24)

The starting point, then, for any reflection on climate change has to be Genesis Chapter One. Creation, even without humanity, is intrinsically good. By verse 3, “God saw that the light was good” and this formula of goodness is repeated four more times before the creation of man. The trees, oceans, plants and animals have their own intrinsic merit independent of and wholly separate from mankind. The importance of this cannot be overstated. It counters much of the dominion argument (examined later) and also flatly challenges any dualist tendency. Dualism is a heresy that has dogged aspects of Christianity’s 2000 year history and asserts that the earth, because it is physical matter, is inherently flawed and likely to be a trap which will distract and ensnare humans in their endless search for communion with God. The Genesis account is a clear riposte to such errant thinking.

However, Christians in their urge to praise creation’s wondrous beauty have to be aware of the dangers of idolatry. Unlike pantheists and animists, we do not worship nature as being divine in it own right, but we are invited to see in the forces of the natural world, a pointer to a deeper reality of God’s unfathomable power and creativity.

Praise him, sun and moon

Praise him, shining stars,

praise him, highest heavens,

and waters above the heavens

Let them all praise the name of Yahweh,

At whose command they were created

Psalm 148 v 3-5

This insight is picked up by St Paul in Romans 1.20:

“since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”

The threat of climate change threatens not only millions of human beings, but thousands upon thousand of species of plants and animals. The extraordinary climate stability which has been a characteristic of the Holocene period now threatens an unravelling of God’s’ creation. Our response to this challenge is clear. We are not to transform our lives and tread more lightly on the earth because are afraid of what might happen or because we might be made to feel bad by others if we don’t mend our ways. Fear and guilt are poor and unsatisfactory motivators here. As people of faith, we respond simply because this is what God asks of us. Our behaviour is driven not by fear of consequences, but because we want our actions to be in total conformity to God’s will for his magnificent creation. Engaging in activities which threaten the bounteous diversity of the natural world is nothing short of a blasphemy against the Creator, though whom all life “moves and lives and has its being.”

Dominion Theory

“Be fruitful, multiply. Fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth”: Genesis 1 28-29

The anthropocentric view that, because man is made in God’s image, he has the right to plunder the earth for his own ends, regardless of the consequences, is at the heart of one of the most damaging legacies that the Judaeo-Christian worldview has bequeathed to the human story. The depth of this ignorance is not limited to religious mindsets, it has permeated much of human thinking, certainly since the Industrial Revolution. But it is founded on a profoundly mistaken reading of scriptures.

Adam, in Genesis 2:15, is instructed to “till the land and to cultivate it.” The Hebrew words are “abad” and “shamar” and carry with them the sense of “care and protect “or “look after.” This passage is probably what most people have in mind when they invoke the word “stewardship.” These early passages show an intimate relationship between the earth and humanity. Man is formed from the soil. But mankind also has a vocation to nurture the land and join in the process of creation that God has started. These very specific Hebrew verbs, “tilling” and “nurturing” are only found on one other occasion in the whole of the Bible. After the giving of the Torah (“law”) to Moses on Mount Sinai, the Israelites are called upon to protect the scrolls of their holy statutes in the Ark of the Covenant which is to reside inside the Holy Temple. The protection and safeguarding invoked here, is the same as Adam’s vocation to act as keeper of the land.

The essential key to understanding man’s responsibilities lies in understanding the deeper meaning of the word “dominion.” God too has “dominion” over creation, because he is Lord of all. The term does not mean mastery or control, but lordship. When one exercises lordship, one is asked to behave in service and humility. In most cultures of the time of the Old Testament, the land was owned outright by a king under whom the rest of the population subsisted as tax-paying tenant farmers. But this was not so with Israel. For the Israelites, God was sole owner, all people were tenants and the land was distributed so that everyone would have access to natural capital to create a socially cohesive society. Moreover, the Sabbath and Jubilee laws outlined in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, made it very clear that land was sacred. It was to be left fallow every seven years for regeneration and the poor were to be allowed easy access to it. Every fiftieth year – a so-called Jubilee year, slaves were freed and debts were cancelled.

This was the logic behind Micah’s vision of the last days in which “every man will sit down under his own vine and under his own fig tree.” If men have been called to become “children of God” they must relate to their environment (in right relationships with fellow neighbours and the natural world) like God does. Because we have been invested with an abundance of God-like qualities, more is expected from us.

The Story of Noah

Normally sentimentalised into the tale of the floating zoo for adoring schoolchildren, this tale contains uncomfortable elements of an angry and vengeful God who brings about death and destruction in response to the wickedness and violence of humankind. But the deeper insights of the Noah story have much to offer us as we face the ecological crisis. Noah, indeed, is the human who truly practices dominion, in his obedient response to nurture the earth’s biodiversity.

First the symbolism of the Ark: often seen as a metaphor for the Church, or even the planet Earth. The forty days and nights of rain reveal that the fate of both humanity and the animals are all bound up together. Just as man in Genesis is formed from the same creative breath (“ruach”) as the rest of creation and made of dust, so we discover that man’s fate is shared with that of his fellow creatures. Whether it is through our study of eco-systems or the complexity of food chains, the interdependency of our relationship to that of our surroundings cannot be denied. We are all part of a web of creation. Every time our lungs take in oxygen, we confirm the interdependency between ourselves and the God-created world. We do not observe nature from a distance: we are an integral part of that story.

In this sense, Christians have a vital role to play in attempting to recover a sort of lost tradition. In the eastern theology of the Orthodox tradition, everything holds together. The human being is part of Creation. God’s grace is given to people, but also to the abundant diversity of the natural world. In the Western tradition, during the mediaeval period, thinking took a different course. Nature and grace came to inhabit two separate domains. Nature was seen as a creation of God which has to follow rules given by God. These rules can be found out and explained by scientists. A rational universe is unveiling which is seen as autonomous, knowable by reason but somehow not infused with divine grace. Scientific thinkers and philosophers like Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes began to talk of the importance of “controlling and mastering” nature and becoming its “possessor.”

More interest was given to the kingdom of grace, the Church. Since only man, not creation can be a sinner, grace can only be given to humans: Christ and the Holy Spirit came to be seen in some quarters as separated from Creation, which was in danger of becoming secular, non-sacred and non-holy. Creation and salvation came to be seen as dwelling in separate spheres. If we feel no connection to the intimacy of the natural order, it is much harder for us to fashion an ethic of caring for it.

But this is precisely what Noah did. Noah was singled out for this mission because he was a rare thing. We are told that “he was a man of integrity among his contemporaries” and that “he walked with God.” His response is to exercise true dominion over the creatures he takes with him: he cares for them and shelters them. But significantly, as the waters recede and the dove brings the olive branch, we hear of God’s desire to make a Covenant. He promises he will never resort to use the floods again to “destroy all things of flesh.” This new concord is extended to humanity and “every living creature of every kind.” In other words, in the whole framework under God’s reign, humanity and the animals are treated as a collective. And as though we might miss the point, the Genesis writer repeats the phrase “every living creature” no fewer than four times. The rainbow which appears at the end of the flood is a sign of God’s enduring fidelity to his creation and to the colourful diversity that lies at the very heart of it.

When we see the threats that global warming brings to large swathes of the natural world and the background extinction rates already occurring as a result of our plundering the planet for short term gain and profit, we have to ask ourselves: “Is this unprecedented gamble with the earth’s atmosphere that we are taking commensurate with the noble ethic of care, obedience and responsibility practised by Noah?”

Global Warming and the Book of the Apocalypse

There are some Christians who look to the Book of Revelation and point to the wild weather events which they say will presage the end of the world prior to the Second Coming. Such believers often believe in the “Rapture”, asserting that they are unafraid of what may happen to the planet since they believe that God will intervene and save them at the critical moment when Armageddon is upon us. Such thinking is particularly prominent among some US evangelicals or “dispensationalists” as they are known. What should we make of such views?

First, the point that should be made is that this is a very controversial book! Martin Luther considered Revelation to be "neither apostolic nor prophetic" and stated that "Christ is neither taught nor known in it." Also, there is more than something of the “I’m alright Jack” feel to an outlook that stresses personal salvation so blatantly at the expense of the rest of Creation. That said, after much consideration, the Book of Revelation was included in the canon of sacred scriptures and must therefore be taken seriously.

Most scholars outline the importance of seeing it in the context of first century Jewish Apocalyptic writing. The text was aimed at a number of communities in Asia Minor at a time of turbulence and upheaval. It may genuinely have appeared to the writer of this book that humanity was indeed living in the end times. Moreover, the text is a polemic against Roman rule. For example, the seven headed beast in Revelation 13 is interpreted as symbolic of Roman rule (Rome had seven emperors up to this point and was seen as the city with seven hills.) At the end of the day we have choices to make about whether we interpret such texts literally or symbolically.

But what about wild weather and the will of God? The simple point to make here for those that assert that global warming will be God’s revenge on humanity for its wickedness is that it is not God, but men and women who are charged with disturbing the equilibrium. The whole basis of climate science in the IPCC reports is that this is anthropogenic and therefore cannot be laid at God’s door as a “revenge” motif for our straying from the true path. God may have said in Genesis, after the Covenant with all of creation, that he would not flood the earth again “to destroy all flesh”, but that does not rule out our bringing about this on ourselves. At the heart of God’s love for us is freedom. As rational, intelligent animals made in God’s image, we are in a position to choose different courses of action. And what the vast majority of scientists are now saying is that we cannot continue stealing from future generations by running up ecological debt.

Jesus

We can search the four gospel accounts for references to carbon footprints in vain, but the Son of God teaches us much about how to live in right relation with creation. That notion, captured in the Psalms, about how the beauty of creation is a window into God, is echoed in Matthew 6. Jesus draws attention to the effortless work of the sparrows and points out how the naturally created world is catered for under God’s rule and then focuses on the lilies of the field, pointing out that not even Solomon in all his glory “was arrayed like one of these.”

In St Paul, we are told that Christ “is the firstborn of all creation.” What does this mean? Some have interpreted it to mean that Christ, as the eternal “logos” or word of God, was the first element to be created by God. But this cannot be since Jesus is God and cannot be “created” any more than God can. “Firstborn” has more a meaning of “first in rank” or “seniority.” He is a prism through which all of creation must be seen. He is the incarnate testimony to what God looks like when the Creator takes on human form and to follow him, is to follow in God’s ways. To be conformed to Christ is to live the perfect life.

In his book, “Jesus and the Earth,” the Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, draws our attention to the intimate relation between Jesus and his environment. He refers to himself as “Son of Man” – the word for “man” being “adam” from “adamah” which means “soil.” Jesus is quite literally, “the Son of the one hewn from the earth.”

And of course, Jesus instituted the Eucharist. At the last supper, the incarnate God takes the bread and wine and makes them the central images of his total self-giving which will transform all of Creation. As the Swedish eco-theologian, Rev Per Larsson writes of the huge significance of the Last Supper:

In the centre of the Eucharist, Christians lift up the gifts of creation, share them and sing “Holy, holy…” this is the beginning of the heavenly song here on Earth. But it is also to join in with nature itself in its songs of praise. These songs have been going on since the first morning of creation. This is why the gifts of creation must be there, bread from the grains of the fields and wine from the grapes, which should remind us of our belonging to the same creation.”

What can we conclude about Jesus’ life and teachings that make us more whole when we look at the mess of our current ecological/spiritual crisis? Jesus’ relationships are non-exploitative and non self-centred. His warnings are constantly about how the pursuit of material wealth and covetousness block the path to God, because they are idols that deflect us from our true goal. “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is there also is your heart.” (Matt 6:20) When we’re told that camels have better chances of passing through narrow gates than rich men entering heaven, Jesus is not being a puritan. The Creator has created a world in which humans can enjoy the abundance of riches provided: but it must be done justly (benefiting the marginalized) and in such a way that we don’t lose sight of the big picture. This ethic of simplicity has a huge amount to say to a world which, in its bondage to consumption and debt, is losing sight of the overarching perspective and living beyond its environmental means.

Creation, we are told by St Paul was made through Christ, but so also will be the new creation which finds its transforming power through him. The risen Jesus is the new Israel. Through our turning to him, acknowledging that we have gone astray like lost sheep and marred his image in creation we can be made new. Through recognising our disordered desires, which are enslaved by addictive
consumerism, and surrendering them to the One who satisfies all desire, we can again become whole. In this way we are reconciled with Christ and take up our part in enabling Christ to reconcile creation to himself.

The Gospel is a call to conversion. This means nothing less than a total overhaul of the way we have become used to dealing with the world.

Greed, Debt and Discounting the Future

Long before the advent of Jesus, the Old Testament laid down clear ethical principles about how God expects us to behave with regard to how we relate to his Creation and distribute its benefits among the human community. We have seen how the early books of the Old Testament advocate the essentials of allowing the land to lie fallow every few years, so that it may be replenished and so that the poor may have access to it for their own use. Jeremiah makes a link between humanity’s greed and the environmental ruin that ensues using language that is eerily redolent for life in the twenty first century:

“They have become rich and powerful…fat and sleek” and “do not plead the case of the fatherless or the rights of the poor,” (5:24)

“The nobles send their servants for water,

They go to the cisterns but find no water…

The ground is cracked because there is no rain in the land,

The farmers are dismayed and cover their heads.”

In other words, care for the Environment is also a matter of justice. When we despoil the earth, who is it that lives nearest to the landfill sites and the rotting dumps on the margins of our cities? The poor. Who are the peoples of the earth who stand to suffer the worst effects of the forecast droughts, floods and sea level rises predicted by the United Nations Panel on Climate Change? The answer should be unpalatable to a Christian or any person of a decent ethical standing: those who have polluted the least.

In the contemporary world, the machine of powerful rich elites, which seeks to enslave billions on the planet to its vision of all-consuming desire, renders the mass of humanity unfulfilled. This process is an addiction which eats away at the Earth, the very womb that sustains us. In the words of Herman Daly:

“The infinite hunger of man, his moral and spiritual hunger, is not to be satisfied, is indeed, exacerbated by the demonic madness of producing more and more things for more and more people. Afflicted with an infinite itch, man is scratching in the wrong place and his frenetic clawing is drawing blood from the life-sustaining circulatory systems of his spaceship: the biosphere.”

So back to Genesis 1. We are failing our vocation to be in right relation with God’s creation. In running up huge ecological debts now, we are borrowing from the lives of those who will follow us and selling them into slavery. We are also deceiving ourselves if we think this leads to fulfilment. But all is not doom and despair. The Judaeo-Christian legacy is one that tells the story of a God who is always the God of the second chance.

“Come back to me with all your heart,” (Hosea)

“Give me the heart of stone within you and I will give you a heart of flesh.”(Ezekiel 36:26)

This is a God who takes his people out of slavery in Egypt, who constantly sides with the weak and those without voice, and a God who snatches victory from the darkness of the tomb on the third day. His eternal love is undying, but he demands a transformation of heart, the true meaning of the word, “repentance.”

The climate crisis is, as is frequently said, a uniquely menacing challenge that demands, in Al Gore’s words, “moral imagination.”

We need to rediscover that Biblical tradition and ponder more its central truths of so-called “wisdom literature.”

Humanity needs these age-old truisms and insights into the unchanging human condition and his relation to the natural order more so now than ever before.

Climate and Creation: A Theology of Caring for the Planet