The Theology of Climate Change, a talk at Brecon Beacons Filling Station 30 th June 2017.

Transcription

1 The Theology of Climate Change, a talk at Brecon Beacons Filling Station 30 th June For 13 years I was full-time Agricultural Chaplain and Rural Life Officer for Hereford Diocese. Today I am still an Agricultural Chaplain in Hereford Diocese but I belong to something special, a shared ministry called Borderlands Rural Chaplaincy involving colleagues from both the Anglican and Methodist traditions. I earn my living as the Director of the Brightspace Foundation, a charity that is trying to enable the County of Herefordshire to become a sustainable County, which means that we promote society s health and well-being in ways that protect and enhance the natural environment. It ensures that future generations will be blessed as we are blessed with clean air, pure water, healthy soils and an amazingly fertile and beautiful landscape. That link, between human and environmental health, has been a key driver throughout my ministry and lies at the heart of what I want to say this evening. Before I do, just a brief word on Borderlands Rural Chaplaincy. There are currently five Chaplains, but we are about to increase to ten. Only one of us is paid, David Gwatkin, our youthful and energetic leader; the rest of us are volunteers but with experience of pastoral ministry and of the land-based economy. We define our role in four ways. First, pastoral care and outreach to the farming community. Farmers are human and they get the plethora of issues that all of us face: perhaps with the added impetus that breakdowns in relationships, for example, also have huge repercussions for the business. They live on the job, the family are usually the labour, and the economic assets are held in partnership - you can t just walk away. Our biggest headache are elderly farmers who can t or won t retire, but who can t cope either with the physical demands of looking after livestock. A typical scenario is where vets or Trading Standards Officers (who deal with animal health issues) are called in to deal with sick animals and realise that what lies behind this is not deliberate cruelty but a human being who is struggling to cope, so they deal with the animals and they call us in to support the humans. Working in partnership is very important for us Secondly, we also act as advocates for the farming community for their social and welfare needs. We can raise issues through the church nationally, or directly with government and government agencies. There is a scourge in farming called bovine tuberculosis, TB in cows. Badgers and other mammals can carry the disease but when it is found in a herd of cattle it has huge implications for the farm. Cattle are not permitted to be bought or sold, there are restrictions on movements and it has a massive effect on how the farm is run. But the outcomes are not just economic, the family suffers, the stress can lead to marital breakdowns. Our ability to gather evidence and articulate those stresses to government has led to support being made available. Thirdly, we support the wider ministry of the church amongst rural communities through education and training. A fortnight ago was the Royal Three Counties Show at Malvern and we have traditionally led parties of clergy around with farmers to enable them to get a feel for what the industry is about, and what issues they might have to respond to pastorally. Our mantra is that ignorance is your greatest asset. We know that the farmers we use love to talk about what they do, they won t sneer at simple questions; if you don t know what a suckler cow is or the difference between a catch crop and a cover crop this is the time to ask.

2 Finally, and of relevance to tonight - we provide a theological resource. Our role is to be that part of the Church which is asking What is God doing in farming and the natural environment? I have friends who are very confident about saying this is what God is doing. I have never been one of those. I really struggle with that sort of direct question, What is God doing in your life and it often takes a long time for the penny to drop. But what I want to say tonight is something that I genuinely do believe that God is saying and doing on that I will pin my colours to the mast. One of the things we have been wrestling with in the Chaplaincy is the theology of climate change. How to explain climate change in less than five minutes? The sun s energy bathes the earth providing enough power for just over 30 low energy lightbulbs for every single square metre of the earth s surface, all of the time. That energy makes the earth hot. To stop us from overheating there are three important mechanisms. The first is evaporation, where liquid water absorbs the energy and turns to gas, the gas then rises in the air taking the extra heat with it and eventually condenses releasing the heat into the atmosphere. If you re underneath when that happens you feel the rain dropping on your head. The second is convection. The closer you get to a fire the hotter it becomes and so the heated earth has most impact on the atmosphere that is closest to it. As this becomes hotter the gas expands and rises taking the heat away from the surface, to be replaced by cooler air coming back down. This convection current is part of the movement of atoms that drives the atmosphere, if combined with water vapour you get both wind and rain. Thus, it s easy to see how both of those mechanisms help to keep the earth from overheating, and provide us with our weather. The third mechanism is a property of all matter. Every single atom emits energy, even a stone wall is emitting energy because it is made of atoms. That energy is long wave radiation and some of that energy will be lost into outer space, but some of it will be captured by molecules in the atmosphere called Greenhouse Gases, of which Carbon Dioxide is the most significant. Without Greenhouse Gases the earth would be uninhabitable as we would be an average of 15 degrees Centigrade colder than we are. That doesn t sound much but the difference between today and the last ice age, when there was no liquid water on the surface of the land, was a difference of only five degrees. However, since the onset of the Industrial Revolution we have been significantly adding to the quantity of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, it has increased by almost 50%, so we are capturing more energy and the earth is getting hotter as a result. That is what global warming refers to. That extra energy is driving the atmosphere and across the globe it is leading to more storms taking place, greater intensity of storms, more extreme weather events, melting ice, rising sea levels and ocean acidification. Those impacts, measured over a period of time, are what is referred to as climate change. In spite of what Donald Trump believes the science is absolutely rock solid. Human activity is leading to an increase in Greenhouse Gas concentrations so that more energy is being kept in the atmosphere. As a result, average global temperature has increased by ¾ of a degree Centigrade since the start of the Industrial Revolution and this extra heat is driving the process of climate change. What the international community is trying to do is to limit the effect, the Paris Agreement of 2015 asks nations to act to ensure that global temperature rise is limited to 2 degrees Centigrade or less by the end of this century. That will still have an impact: some coastal towns and villages will become uninhabitable, famine and desertification will spread, some species of plant and animals will be lost for ever, but it will mean that our grandchildren will have a habitable planet. Do the Scriptures have anything to say in response to this? They certainly do, but the message is not an easy one to digest. In responding to this we are forced to look again at our understanding of the covenant relationship with God and how it is to be lived out as disciples.

3 Our starting point is to note the breadth of the covenantal promises. Thus Gen 9:12 (the covenant with Noah), states: And God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds. In this passage note that the covenant is not simply between God and humanity; creation (every living creature) is both a partner to, and a sign of (the rainbow), the covenant relationship. The Covenant with Abraham (Gen 17:1-8) was effectively a blessing in fertility, I will make of you a great nation. The outcome of the covenant was to live in the land that God was to provide for him; it was not something that was divorced from creation but which found its fulfilment in creation. Hosea 2:18 will refer to the Day of the Lord (when God s reign is experienced as reality) as: A covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Once again, this denotes a covenant that is universal in scope encompassing all of creation not just humanity. Finally, the gift that was given to Moses as a sign of the covenant granted on Mount Sinai was also the gift of a Promised Land, a land described as flowing with milk and honey. Remaining in the land depended on maintaining the covenant; when the Israelites failed to do so the judgement that was enacted was their removal from the land into exile in Babylon. Nowhere in the Scriptures is the breadth of the covenant relationship confined to humanity alone, it is always inclusive of, and experienced within, creation. What of the New Covenant? The New Testament continues that life-affirming triad of God, humanity and nature. We can read of that in Paul s famous Christological hymn in Colossians 1:15-20, but let s put the emphasis on words that I think we need to rediscover: He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Therefore, human life and flourishing is bound up not only in our relationship with God but also in the health and wellbeing of the planet. It s not one or the other, it is both together. One might add that the fulfilment of history envisaged in the Book of Revelation is of a new heaven and a new earth, not of a heaven that is divorced from earth. The covenant, to which by the grace of God we belong, is therefore between the incarnate Lord and all creation. We have a particular role to play, but the beneficiary is creation in its totality. It begs the question, if creation is an integral part of the covenant relationship is it likely to be affected if the covenant becomes dishonoured. This was certainly the understanding of Hildegard of Bingen ( ) a medieval writer who wrote: When Abel s blood was shed, the entire earth sighed and at that moment was declared a widow. Just as a woman without the comfort of her husband remains fixed in her widowhood, the Earth was also robbed of its holy totality by the murder committed by Cain. She understood that human morality had a direct effect on creation s efficacy.

4 The question that is being posed by climate change is to ask whether what is taking place it is being caused not primarily because of technology, but because we have ignored the demands of our covenant relationship with God. After all, we live as if we had the resources of three planets at our disposal, rather than one; we organise our economic strategies to put ourselves first, rather than to pay attention to our neighbour s needs; our theology has quite frankly almost completely lost any understanding that God s love extends beyond the human to all of creation. If you don t believe me, look at any website of any Christian denomination, at least within Western Christianity, and see what attention is being paid to climate change and environmental health. Does that sound far-fetched? Listen carefully to the words of the Old Testament which maintains that there is a very important correlation to be found between human morality and ecological health. It is an argument put forward by Isaiah (Isaiah 24:46): The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish. The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore the earth s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left. Isaiah is arguing that the reason the earth withers is because we have disobeyed God s laws, violated his statutes and broken the covenant. If that was the only Biblical passage that said this one might struggle to construct a consistent theology, but it isn t, it s found again and again throughout the prophets. Hosea 4:1-3 similarly expresses the outcome of broken relationships as affecting all of creation: Hear the word of the Lord..There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying. Amos highlights the transgressions developing between the rich and the poor and the powerlessness caused by poverty and social injustice. He comments on the inability or unwillingness of religious institutions to act. In this case, the broken relationships that affect both ecology and human wellbeing are presented as a warning to be observed (though one that the people chose to ignore): I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water, but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord. (Amos 4:7-8) And what of the New Testament? As St Paul understood, the boundaries of the New Covenant extend far beyond the human to include the cosmos in its totality: The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Rom 8:19-21) What climate change is doing is to challenge the narrowness of our understanding about God and our emphasis on individualism. It challenges our theological focus on humanity alone and is leading us to rediscover the truths of the Scriptures that we share the benefits of the covenant with all of creation. If we break the covenant relationship, all of its beneficiaries are affected. Conversely, to be the people of covenant is to be the people who cherish and honour all that God has made and therefore to extend this reverence to our planet. We appear to be destroying the very place given by God which was designed to enable us to experience the riches of the covenant relationship. It is not to say that people don t matter, it is to say that these other things matter to God and therefore they should matter to us. If Christians don t take climate change seriously how can we expect others to do so?

5 In spite of the challenges we remain a people of hope, and it is fitting to end with praise. Psalm 148 (the Benedicite) talks of how creation praises God alongside humanity. The Psalmist draws no distinction between the praise given by nature, and that of human society, it is a seamless robe. I want to suggest that the final phrase Let them praise the name of the Lord.. is actually one of the critical challenges for our age in which our role as disciples is to ensure that creation is both enabled and protected so that it can continue to praise its maker, just as we are privileged to do. Praise the Lord from the earth, You great sea creatures and all ocean depths, Lightning and hail, snow and clouds, Stormy winds that do his bidding, You mountains and all hills, Fruit trees and all cedars, Wild animals and all cattle, Small creatures and flying birds, Kings of the earth and all nations, You princes and all rulers on earth, Young men and maidens, Old men and children Let them praise the name of the Lord, For his name alone is exalted. Amen Nick Read June 2017