In 2012, Operation Noah issued ‘Climate Change and the Purposes of God: A Call to the Church’ which is also known as the ‘Ash Wednesday Declaration’.
More than a decade later, the following declaration still holds up as a powerful and poignant reminder of the challenges we face and the call on the Church to address the causes and impacts of the climate and nature crises.
Climate Change and the Purposes of God
A Call to the Church
The likelihood of runaway global warming, which will diminish food security, accelerate the extinction of huge numbers of species and make human life itself impossible in some parts of the world, raises questions that go to the heart of our Christian faith. What should our relationship be with God as both the origin and the end of all things? How do we balance our energy and material consumption with the needs of the poorest communities, and of future generations and other species? How do we sustain hope in the midst of fear and denial? How can we encourage global cooperation, challenge unsustainable economic systems and change our lifestyles? These fundamental questions prompt this urgent call to the Church.
Find Joy in Creation
Listen
Repent
Take Responsibility
Seek Justice
God is just and requires justice in response from us. This justice applies to poor communities already suffering the devastating consequences of climate change, to future generations, and to all other creatures. The prophets put economic behaviour at the forefront of their call to justice. The primary driver of human induced climate change is the belief that prosperity depends on limitless consumption of the earth’s resources.
Today, the challenge is to seek a different, sustainable economy, based on the values of human flourishing and the wellbeing of all creation, not on the assumption of unlimited economic growth, on overconsumption, exploitative interest and debt. To seek justice for all, for present and future generations, our authorities must encourage and enable all people to live fairly and sustainably. Acting justly requires us to hold our governments and corporations to account.
Love Our Neighbours
Christ teaches us to love all our neighbours, not just our own family and friends. This love extends to our grandchildren and future generations. People in poor communities are mostly innocent of any role in causing climate change, whilst the nations that pollute the most, refuse to accept their responsibilities. Loving our neighbour requires us to reduce our consumption of energy for the sake of Christ, who suffers with those who suffer.
To live simply and sustainably contributes significantly to human flourishing. As the nations fight over dwindling energy resources, Christians need to bear witness that the way to life, and not death, is the way of non-retaliation. In the future, Christians may also be called to receive into their communities refugees forced to leave their lands through climate change.
Act With Hope
Hope in God motivates us to take action that can lead to transformation, for by God’s power at work within us, God is able to accomplish more than we can ask or imagine. Despite the strong probability of very serious effects from global warming, for Christians despair is not an option. It is when we follow Christ and the way of the Cross, in response to his grace, that we experience the God of hope who gives us joy and peace. We are called to faith and action in trusting response to the God made known by the Holy Spirit in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Lord of all life.
As Christians we can live in hope, despite the dangers that threaten us. Through God we hope for new life for all creation (Romans 8:19-25). Our planet, made new by the meeting of heaven and earth, will have an abiding value in the purpose of God (Revelation 21:1-5). We are called to live and work with hope in response to God’s gift, and in the light of God’s future: the promised coming of Christ’s reign over all.
Why does climate change matter to Christians?
A Theological Reflection
by Revd Dr Hannah Malcolm, Operation noah trustee
Is the Church’s response to climate change a distraction from what really matters? I’ve certainly been told it is on numerous occasions: ‘Climate change is a serious issue, but the Church should really be focusing on the things which are even more important; our worship, our evangelism, being a witness to Jesus in a world so easily distracted by other things. How can we justify this investment of our time and energy and money when the Church is shrinking, when we don’t have enough clergy to run services, when our neighbours have so many immediate and pressing needs? What does climate change have to do with the gospel?’
It’s true that there isn’t anywhere in the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount that says ‘you must maintain a stable level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere’. But if we’re looking for that kind of evidence, we’re approaching this problem from the wrong direction. Human caused climate change is, quite simply, a physical manifestation of a spiritual problem, and it’s not a new problem at all. It’s right there in the first chapters of the Bible.
Adam and Eve weren’t content with being creatures dependent on a loving creator. They wanted more – more power, more for themselves, more than their creaturely nature could offer. That was the first sin that led to death. Since then, we humans have invented and reinvented myriad techniques for feeding our discontentment and desire to dominate and control. And invariably these techniques have come with a big side-order of death for other creatures, and, in the end, death for us. Climate change is only the latest example of the destructive power humans carry within us. But it just so happens that it may also be the largest-scale destruction that human greed has ever achieved. It’s not coincidental that the more money you have, the larger your carbon footprint. This isn’t a new story. It’s the oldest one in the (good) book.
So why does climate change matter to Christians? It matters because its effects in the world are our sins coming home to roost. The mass collapse of once healthy ecosystems, increasingly extreme weather events, and the hunger and thirst and violence they produce – all these things are the product of sinful, restless, human hearts, endlessly looking to satisfy our insatiable appetites for more.
Climate change matters to Christians because we have an answer to offer a world whose greed is spiralling out of control: if your actions cause death, it is because you act in opposition to the author of life, the one through whom all things are made, the one in whom all things hold together. If you come to Him, He will offer you life in all its fullness. If you come to Him, you will find rest for your restless soul.
And if we’re honest, climate change matters to Christians because at least in my part of the world we members of the Church have participated in this deathly work, either on the large scale of corporate and government policy or in the everyday indifference of our lives. We have plenty of need to ask for God’s forgiveness for our greed. It is no surprise that self-restraint, fasting, and simplicity have been spiritual practices for the Church as long as we have existed. Perhaps we have to practise them so much because they don’t come easily to any of us. But we also believe that if we ask for it, we will receive the grace we need to find contentment and to live more generously. At Operation Noah, this is our prayer for the Church: that in receiving all of creation as a gift, we might learn that the world is not there to be consumed, but to be loved.
