Thursday, June 05, 2008

Going green: rituals and repentance

Philip Freier, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, warns against superficial change in responding to ecological crises. True care for creation begins with repentance, not recycling.

5 comments:

Benjamin Ady said...

"repentance, not recycling"

a false dichotomy?

byron smith said...

Yes, it is a false dichotomy to be asked to choose between the two. My point is that we must begin with a change of heart, not simply the addition of a few token behaviour changes while we maintain the same basic attitude of consumption. Of course, having repented, it is crucial to produce fruit in keeping with repentance - but this will IMHO be far more than simply recycling.

Jane and David said...

Byron, I couldn't agree more. A real commitment to changing the way we abuse the environment comes from a true understanding of our connection with it and responsibility for it. That's going to have far longer lasting consequences for our behaviour than simply accepting the three r's of reduce, reuse, recycle.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure there's one more 'r' word you could fit in, to make the required trinitarian number: Resurrection... I think the fact that we're not looking forward to simply a heavenly destination, but a resurrected creation, should give us cause to think carefully: If "the kings of the earth" are going to "bring their glory" into the new creation, then what we do now, in real bodies, in a real environment, is far from irrelevent.

byron smith said...

Matthew - great point. This is so important to all our ethical thinking and has been a theme of many previous posts.