A prayer for mothers

God from whom we have all received life,
    Thank you for mothers: for the women who gave each of us birth, and for the women who preceded us in the faith.

Thank you for Eve, the mother of all the living.
    You love all her children: those who came before us, those who will come after us, those who are (or seem to be) our enemies, those whose suffering is distant to us, those whose lives are harmed by the systems from which we profit and prosper. Teach us once more that we all belong to you, that we are one family. Forgive us when we forget that we are still called to be our brothers’, our sisters’ keeper. Give us today our daily bread, that we may learn to share it generously and justly. And let us not neglect the bread, the land, the respect and honour that we have stolen from Australia’s first peoples. Forgive us our trespasses.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Thank you for Sarah, mother of Isaac, who laughed at your crazy promise and then laughed again in joy when she held it in her arms.
    You are patient with all of us who struggle to see your goodness in the pain and misery of the world. You hear the cries of those suffering crippling drought in Zimbabwe, drought and famine in Ethiopia, drought and heat waves in Vietnam, Thailand and India, those thousands who have lost homes in the heat wave and fires of Alberta, those still rebuilding after cyclone Winston in Fiji, those slowly losing their homeland in Bangladesh and low-lying Pacific islands, those reliant upon bleached coral reefs for food and livelihood, and all those whose future seems to have dried up, who cannot imagine how you could be faithful to them on a planet getting dangerously warm. Give us a renewed trust in your goodness, and an eager desire to embody that goodness in your world, to be living symbols of your care and delight in all your children. Thank you for those around the world taking peaceful direct action today and this week to break free from dirty energy and the dirty politics it engenders. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Thank you for Tamar, mother of Perez and Zerah, a woman abused, exploited, shamed and threatened with death – all due to the failures of men in her life – yet whose resilience and creativity turned the tables on her abusers.
    You cherish all your daughters: including all those bearing scars of the body and of the soul. Too many of those wounds were inflicted by men: fathers, brothers, husbands; bosses, pimps, priests. Break the entitlement, heal the bitterness, dissolve the disdain and dismantle the systems that teach our sons to scorn their mothers and to mistreat the mothers of their own children. Rescue women trapped in cycles of violence and abuse, liberate the enslaved and empower the voiceless. Provide resources to domestic violence services, wisdom to policymakers and humility to your people to learn afresh your gentleness. Deliver us from evil.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Thank you for Jochebed, the mother of Moses, who gave birth in secret then entrusted her child to the waters in order to escape Pharaoh’s murderers.
    You embrace all mothers living under tyrants, and all who entrust their children and even their own lives to the waters. Guard and protect them. Raise up those who will take them into new homes. As we hear of tens of millions fleeing war and persecution, fill our hearts with compassion towards all those in desperate need. You love the mothers of those trapped and suffering on Nauru and Manus Island. You know their fears, the withering of their hopes. Comfort those mourning the death of Omid Masoumali. Preserve the life of Hodan Yasi. And as our government’s policies have faced condemnation in multiple courts this week, bring fresh vision and deep wisdom to our national imagination, that we may share more fully your heart for all who cry for help. Make our churches places where hospitality is practised and practised and practised until it is second nature for your people to extend protection and care. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Thank you for Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, who became like a mother to her when they were both widowed.
    You welcome all those whose family lives have been fractured and reformed, with bonds formed not by blood but still with great loyalty and love. Be with all those estranged from their mothers, and with mothers estranged from their children. Bring healing, perseverance, insight and even (we dare to ask) the usually-slow often-imperfect miracle of reconciliation. Provide extra nurture and care for those whose mothers have recently died, or for whom today is a fresh reminder of old grief.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Thank you for Hannah, mother of Samuel, who for year on year was deeply distressed at not being able to have children and who faithfully brought her tears to you.
    You care for all those without children who mourn (often in secret): the involuntarily single, the infertile, the ones wounded by broken dreams. Hold close today those who have lost children: whose babies were carried but never met, or who were held but couldn’t be taken home, or who came home but didn’t stay. Build us into a body that is attentive to our members who need particular honour and tenderness.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Thank you for Esther, an orphan who became queen, without recorded children, yet who is known today as the mother of all Persian Jews on account of her thwarting a genocidal plot through her courage and boldness.
    You delight in all who stand against injustice and are not silent in the face of wickedness. Thank you for the examples and legacies of so many women throughout history whose contributions to your people and your world have involved so much more than raising children. Remind us all that we are first your children and that you bless your church with all kinds of gifts. May we cultivate, encourage and equip one another for every act of service without enforcing stereotypes or implying that motherhood is the epitome of femininity.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Thank you for Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus.
    You love her and all those like her who receive your grace, obey your command, wait for your promise, and heed your Son. May your church follow her example and walk in his true and living way. Give us here in this place humility and patience as we listen to one another and reach out to our neighbours with the message and love of Christ.
    Lord in your mercy,
        Hear our prayer.

Let us pray together the family prayer that Mary’s son taught us.
    Our Father in heaven,
        Hallowed be your name…

Solidarity is more fundamental than stewardship

Two young fish were swimming along when they came across an older fish swimming the other way. “Isn’t the water lovely today?” the older one remarked. The youngsters nodded politely and kept swimming. When the old-timer was out of earshot, one fish turned to the other and whispered, “what’s water?”

Some things are so close to us that we can’t see them, so normal that most of the time they are effectively invisible. Often, it is only when the normal goes wrong that it comes suddenly into focus. This was certainly true for me a few years ago when I received some life-threatening health news. Suddenly, the good health that I had taken for granted jumped into focus. By being threatened, what had always been true suddenly became visible to me. I had been swimming in the water of good health without really noticing how much of a blessing it can be.

One of the realities as necessary and ubiquitous to us as water is to fish, yet which is so obvious we rarely consider it, is our relationship of utter dependence upon the proper functioning of the rest of creation. Every breath we take and every mouthful of food and every sip of water relies on a complex web of relations. The fusion of hydrogen atoms in the heart of the sun radiates energy at the right wavelengths and amplitude to reach us in a form that can drive photosynthesis and the water cycle, having first been filtered of dangerous frequencies by stratospheric ozone. This solar energy strikes the surface of the planet and heads back towards space as long-wave radiation; on the way, some of is trapped by asymmetrical trace gases, ensuring that our planet is not a frozen ball, but that most of it contains liquid water – water that is everywhere in motion and necessary for plants to produce the oxygen we breathe and the carbohydrates we eat – water that is prevented from stagnating by the tug of the moon, the spin of the earth and the warmth of the sun, and which can be carried on the winds so that life-giving rain falls even far from the ocean – water that flows and carves rocks, gradually smoothing the pebbles I threw as a child into Ladies Well, and which carries nutrients out into the oceans, where they are needed by the microscopic phytoplankton that not only supply half the world’s atmospheric oxygen but which also form the basis of the marine food chain.

And on it goes. In any direction we look, we quickly discover that we are very much part of this creation, that we are tied in myriad uncountable ways to the planet on which we find ourselves. Our shelter, clothing and everything we use to make life more comfortable and liveable are derived from what we find around and under us. Indeed, all the atoms that we are and use, from our eyes to our iPhones, all are the scattered debris of long dead stars, reformed and refashioned over countless millennia into the complex structures we recognise today. We are, quite literally, star dust.

Perhaps we may sometimes think of ourselves as so clever as to have risen above non-human creation. We think of ourselves as masters, as being in control, as having outgrown our dependence upon the fickleness of nature. Yet even at the peak of our technical knowhow, even at the best of our rocket science, when we put a human being on the surface of another world, we are thrown once more upon our utter dependence upon and participation in the created world. For go and ask any astronaut: they are more aware than most of us just how precious and vital simple things like oxygen, water and somewhere to put our bodily waste truly are.

So when we approach the concept through which most evangelicals focus their understanding of the relationship between humanity and the rest of creation – that is, the concept of stewardship – we must come to it mindful that it is a secondary concept. It only makes sense when placed within a broader framework, a wider vision of humanity’s relationship to the rest of creation that emphasises our membership of a whole community of creation. Our primary relationship to other creatures is as fellow creatures together, recipients of all that we are and need and can be from the hand of a generous Creator. Whatever else we may go on to say about the place of humanity within creation does not override this fundamental interdependence and solidarity we share with our co-creatures. We do not approach the rest of creation as though we exist prior to and outside of or above it. If we read the creation accounts, we see that God proclaimed creation “good” six times even before humanity enters the scene. There is no hint that the rest of creation was made simply for humans to use. Indeed, such a view is idolatrous, as numerous places in scripture make it clear that if creation has a purpose beyond itself, it exists for God rather than for us. Thus, other creatures have their own relationship to God that is prior to and more important than their subsequent relationship to humanity. And we share with them this fundamental origin in God and orientation to God. No account of human stewardship truly makes sense until we grasp this.

Psalm 148 takes this reality and places it in the context of worship. As we listen to the Psalmist’s praise of the Creator, notice how most of the psalm takes the form of invitations to all the other creatures to join in a universal chorus of praise. The picture is of a massive and diverse choir, all singing in harmony: the angels (who after all are creatures too), the sun, moon and stars, the waters, the weather, the trees, the animals and, finally, the humans. This picture is an excellent antidote to two mistaken approaches: the first, adopted by some extreme environmentalists, is to treat nature as itself divine. The scriptures affirm that through the created order we do indeed catch all kinds of glimpses of God, but we’re most in tune with the universe when we join with it in praising our Creator. The second mistake, and one that is far more common in our society and amongst our churches, lies not in overstating the importance of creation, but in understating it, taking it for granted, treating it as though it is mere raw materials to be mastered by our technology and used for our projects without consideration of any broader context. By the way, humans are not the only creatures to use other creatures. In making use of other creatures, we are not exercising our particularly human role but are merely being creaturely. And scripture places clear limits on the ways that human may use other creatures, especially other living beings. We look at creation and see only resources for our economies, failing to see that the world is charged with the grandeur of God. But once we really get the reality that other creatures are our co-worshippers, then we can no longer worship creation nor treat it like dirt.

We shouldn’t even treat dirt like dirt, since from dirt we came and to dirt we will return. The first man ‘Adam was made from the dirt ‘adamah, in Hebrew. ‘Adam from ‘adamah – it’s a Hebrew pun. It works in English too; the word “human” has the same root as the word “humus”, soil, dirt. The human from the humus. It’s the same root as the beautiful word “humility”. Being properly humble, being close to the dirt, not thinking of ourselves as demi-gods or outside of creation, but rather seeing ourselves as dependent upon and bound together with the rest of creation is central to what it means to be properly human.

Benedict on responsibility

"Human beings let themselves be mastered by selfishness; they misunderstood the meaning of God’s command and exploited creation out of a desire to exercise absolute domination over it. But the true meaning of God’s original command, as the Book of Genesis clearly shows, was not a simple conferral of authority, but rather a summons to responsibility."

- Benedict XVI, Message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace 2010.

Since he is sure to be much in the news today (becoming the first Bishop of Rome to abdicate his See in almost 600 years), I thought a quote might be apposite.
H/T Liz Jakimow.

Do rivers have rights?

I spawn fish and I vote
A New Zealand court has recognised that a river has personality sufficient for it to have legal representation in order for its interests to be considered and its rights respected. The move is made in a deliberate echo or parallel of the legal "personhood" of corporations.

In both cases, corporations and natural entities, the personhood that is legally recognised is not identical with that of a "natural person", though it was the idea that corporations are persons that lay behind the 2010 US Supreme Court decision Citizens United that effectively removed any spending cap on corporate political "speech".* This is not the place for a detailed consideration of the history and myriad implications of this legal metaphor. My usual brief reply to this idea is that as long as the US starts applying the death penalty to corporations who commit grave offences, then they can continue with this somewhat odd word games.
*Also lying behind the decision was the equation that campaign money is a form of speech and so falls under the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech. I find both assumptions dubious.

In truth, I don't really know what to make of this development in New Zealand. It seems like an extension/application of the move made in 2009 by the new Bolivian constitution, which acknowledges that nature has rights. There may have been other ways of doing it, but I do think it is imperative that the ecological damage we are doing is brought more clearly and fully into our legal system. There are all kinds of difficulties with this task and I doubt there is a perfect solution. I would be very interested to hear reflections from lawyers (and anyone else) on the possible pros and cons of this precedent.

A variety of theological observations support some kind of legal recognition of creatures (and I'm not confining this word to living beings, but include rivers, mountains, atmosphere, oceans, etc.). The created order is declared "good" in the absence of humanity (Genesis 1); it is sustained and designed for goods that are not exhausted by human projects (Psalm 104); God cares for it simply because he made it (Matthew 6 & 10). In short, non-human creatures have intrinsic, not merely instrumental, worth and cannot rightly be appropriated by or subordinated to human projects without this being given due weight.

Assorted opinions

The Conversation: Celebrating 150 years of captivity. I am increasingly uneasy about the ambiguities involved in most zoos. This piece articulates a number of them succinctly.

NY Mag: Sugar Daddies. Sugar Daddies are "private donors or their privately held companies writing checks totaling $1 million or more (sometimes much more) in this [US] election cycle." Some profiles on those spending most to influence the 2012 US presidential election.

Biologos: Thinking aloud together (part 2, part 3). Scot McKnight ponders how to get scientists and pastors talking about the implications of evolutionary biology and human origins.

Rachel Held Evans: 15 reasons I left church. Though many are quite US-centric, these are worth pondering. I'm sure I could add a few more.

Stephen King: Tax me, for F@%&’s Sake!. Multi-millionaire horror writer joins Warren Buffet and numerous other super-rich figures in calling for much higher taxes on themselves. King brings his own (very profitable but not always highbrow) blend of narrative shock and awe to the argument.

ABC: Why we hate Gillard so much. "[T]here are three pertinent distinctions between this government and the Howard Government: it is a Labor Government, it is a minority government, and the current prime minister is a woman."

Brad reflects on economies of deception - "When the pursuit of profit becomes a self-justifying end, truth becomes a readily dispensable commodity, because truth will not maximize profit" - and reviews the important book Merchants of Doubt.

Bauckham on Bible and Biodiversity

In 2010 theologian and biblical scholar Richard Bauckham published a book called Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the community of creation. It is short (178 pages) and covers the surprisingly (to some) strong scriptural bases for taking our responsibility and privilege to care for creation seriously. I highly recommend it. Around the same time, he gave this talk on biodiversity, which summarises some of the main themes of his book. The book covers more ground than this, but the talk might give you a taste.
H/T Mike.

Below are my notes on the talk, which are generally the parts of it that struck me as interesting, new and/or put well, without trying to be comprehensive:

----

Introduction: We are confronted by mass extinction of species today, likely to keep getting worse. What do the scriptures have to say to this situation?

1. OT recognises biodiversity
The poetic account in Genesis 1 repeats the formulaic phrase "of every kind" or "according to their kind".

2. God delights in biodiversity
God saw that it was good. The sheer abundant diversity is one of the major focuses of the passages and God delights in that. Also in Job. Final chapters of Job are a panoramic tour of the creation in the imagination.

3. All creatures live to glorify God
Whole of creation worships God. This is the corollary of God's delight in his whole creation. Animals don't have words, or even consciousness in many cases. Simply by being themselves, they bring glory to God. Other creatures are fellow-worshippers.

In the ancient world, many people worshipped creatures. Creatures are creatures, not gods who should be worshipped. On the contrary, the creatures themselves worship God and our proper response is to join in their praise of God.

This is thus a de-divinised creation, but not a de-sacralised creation. Non-human creatures are not divine, but they are sacred to God. Creatures are our fellow-worshippers (Psalm 148), therefore don't instrumentalise them, reducing them to merely a tool to use in the satisfaction of our desires.

4. Various creatures have specific habitats
Psalm 104 is a picture of interdependence. Some creatures depend on others for their life. A first step in the direction of recognising ecosystems. Can't consider each species independently of others.

5. Human kinship with other creatures
Humans have sometimes been elevated above the natural world as though we didn't belong to it. We've tried to relate as demi-gods, rather than fellow creatures. Catastrophic results. Humans are distinctive among the creatures, but the creation narratives make our kinship with other creatures quite clear. Genesis 1 places creation of humans on the same day as creation of all other land animals. We don't get a day of our own. Genesis 2 offers a more vivid and emphatic depiction. Ontological relation signified by a play on words: 'Adam (man) from 'Adamah (ground/dirt/soil). We are earthy creatures. We belong with the earth and with the other creatures of the earth. Other creatures are not dispensable.

6. Humans and other creatures are fellow creatures in the community of the earth
A community of creatures is worth highlighting as a useful model for thinking about our place in creation. Term is not from scripture, but like many of the terms we use to talk about what the Bible teaches, I think it encapsulates a way of thinking which we do find in scripture. Most potent expression of this concept is in Genesis 9, which records a covenant between God and the earth's creatures. All the creatures of earth are interested parties. With them, we form the community sharing a common home. We have no right to evict others from the home that God has given us. Let us have no illusions about this community, which contains much conflict and violence. These are not eradicated in the Noahic covenant, but they are restrained; a price is put on life. God doesn't surrender his intention that his creatures should share the earth that he has given. This covenant is the first step towards renewing and perfecting.

7. Adam as the first taxonomist
Genesis 2: unlike Genesis 1, animals come after Adam. Naming them is not an act of authority but of understanding.

8. King Solomon as naturalist
The embodiment of wisdom. And he spoke of trees.

9. Subdue the earth
The double blessing/command at the end of Genesis 1 implies two distinct relationships: relationship to the earth vs relation to other living creatures. Humans are to subdue the earth, exercise dominion over other creatures.

In understanding these words, first note that it is not only humans which are told to multiply and be fruitful and fill, birds and fish are too. We can assume that creatures of the land are also to be fruitful and multiply.

However, only humans are told to fill the earth and to subdue the earth. Only by means of agriculture were humans able to fill the earth (to live in large portions of available land). To subdue is to take possession and till the soil to make it produce more food than it would otherwise do.

Are humans to supplant other animals? Humans are told that the produce of the earth is not intended to feed them alone, but also the living species of the earth. We are not to fill the earth and subdue it to the extent of leaving no room for the other creatures. Other creatures have a right to use of the soil. Human right is not unlimited but must respect the rights of other creatures. We are one creature among others.

10. Dominion
This second command in relation to other creatures tempts us to forget our own creatureliness and to set ourselves over against the other creatures. This is only possible if we take it out of context. Dominion is a role within creation, not over it. Other creatures are first and foremost our fellow creatures. Our distinctive role can only take place once we appreciate that. Dominion is not the only way we relate to other creatures. Dominion means a caring responsibility, not exploitation. This is widely agreed. We have a responsibility for our fellow creatures. This is a royal function and so it is worth recalling the only passage in the Law of Moses that refers to the role of a king within the people of Israel and there it is emphasised that the king is one amongst his brothers and sisters, one amongst his fellow Israelites (Deuteronomy 17.14-20). The king is not to be exalted above his subjects, and in the same way humanity is to wield authority for the benefit of other creatures.

11. Dominion begins from appreciating God's valuation of his creation.
This is an implication of the Genesis 1 six day creation account. Before we humans read of our responsibility for other living creatures, we are taken through a narrative of creation that stresses God's delight in each stage of his work. We are invited to share God's appreciation of his creation before we learn of our distinctive role within it. Our approach to exercising dominion should be rooted in that fundamental appreciation of the created world as God has made it.

12. Dominion is to be exercised in letting be just as much as in intervention
We are used to thinking of dominion as activity. In modern period, human task conceived as constant ongoing activity to transform the world into one that would suit us much better. Dominion seemed to require from us constant interfering with creation and constant attempts to change and transform it. Now, there is little left that hasn't been affected by human activity. There is a lot we would really like to preserve as it is. It is vital that we re-conceive Genesis dominion as letting be. This is clear later in the Mosaic Law in discussions of how to relate to the land and its creatures. Notice the Sabbatical institutions. First a weekly Sabbath: no work even by domestic animals. Also a Sabbatical year: fields, vineyards and orchards left to rest. So that the poor of your people may eat and wild animals. Even within the cultivated part of the land of Israel wild animals are expected to live. This is a symbol of respect for nature.

UPDATE: I took these notes some months ago while listening to the talk online at the link above. Some proportion of the above text is verbatim quotes from Prof Bauckham, though I now don't remember which parts are summaries of his message and which are his exact words. I think that all the titles at least were his own, and many of the phrases are likely to be either precisely or somewhat close to his words. If anyone has a problem with these notes as they stand, then please let me know so that I can adjust them.

Twenty-two reasons to love the earth

Why Christians take the extra-human creation seriously:

1. God declares all things good; he made them and blessed them. Even before the arrival of humanity, God declared his handiwork "good" and blessed it (Genesis 1).

2. God sustains and cares for all life, not just human life. Psalm 104 and Job 38-41 celebrate the created order in its bounty, complexity and divine providence outside of reference to human affairs. In Matthew 10.29 and Luke 12.6 Jesus teaches that not even a single sparrow escapes the caring notice of God. Why should we disparage or dismiss that which God cares for?

3. God's plan (intimated and initiated in the resurrection of Christ) is the renewal of all things through their liberation from bondage to decay. Why would redemption be of anything less than the scope of creation? We hope not for redemption from the world, but the redemption of the world.

4. "The earth is the LORD's and everything in it!" (Psalm 24.1). How we treat the creation is a reflection on what we think of the Creator. My parents built and own the house where I grew up; if I decided to ransack it to make a quick profit, that would reveal something deeply broken about my relationship with them.

5. Human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. We depend on natural ecosystems for every breath we take, every mouthful of food, every sip of clean water. The "environment" is not simply the background to our everyday activities, the earth is our home. Even if we thought our obligations ended with humans, we would have pressing reasons to care for life beyond humanity. This is basic prudence. (Proverbs 8.12)

6. Our livelihoods are a fraction of our current lifestyle. That is, we can easily thrive on far less than we presently consume, indicating that our culture generally accepts idolatry in the form of consumerism, where our purchases define our identity. We can easily repent of our idolatrous over-consumption without any threat to our livelihoods (though there may be some industries that need to shrink significantly or die altogether). Natural ecosystems are not a necessary victim of our flourishing; there is no ultimate competition between our well-being and that of the rest of the planet's living systems.

7. Human beings are not souls trapped in bodies, but embodied lives. Our future is resurrection like Christ's and any spirituality that ends up hating the body (and the natural world upon which it relies) is an expression of what Nietzsche correctly diagnoses as ressentiment. True spirituality is earthy. (Matthew 6.10)

8. We are members of the community of creation, not demi-gods without obligations towards our fellow creatures. Anthropocentric domination is a misreading of godly human authority as caring service. (Genesis 1-2)

9. We need the extra-human creation in order to fulfil our role (and they need us) in joining together in praise of the Creator (e.g. Pss 96; 148).

10. God has filled the world with beauty and only the hardhearted and blind ignore it.

11. God's saving purposes are not limited to humans. If God has not limited his gospel to one particular race, age, gender, culture or class, why would he limit it to one species? Jesus' death was for all creation (Colossians 1.15-20). In the archetypal salvation narrative of Genesis 6-9, Noah and his family are saved along with representatives of the rest of the community of creation.

12. Wisdom requires paying attention to the world beyond the human. Jesus enjoins us to consider the sparrows and lilies (Matthew 6.26, 28). Wise king Solomon spoke of trees (1 Kings 4.29-34) and Proverbs 12.10 points out that "The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel". Remember that the world's first animal welfare organisation, the RSPCA, was founded by William Wilberforce, the same man who helped lead the campaign to abolish modern slavery.

13. The journey of becoming a neighbour involves the ongoing expansion of our horizon of love. When we are gripped by God's love, we are freed from the echo-chamber of our own concerns into caring for our neighbour. But just who is our neighbour? The answer to that question can never be delimited in advance but must be discovered as we come across those in need. Are other creatures also (in some sense) our neighbours? In the end, I believe so. For instance, Deuteronomy 24-25 places concern for the needs of oxen amongst concern for poor labourers, the widowed, orphans and aliens. Compassion is not circumscribed by the human.

14. Our neglect is having dire consequences, but the freedom to repent is the first and most foundational freedom.

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

15. The earth is our mother. Remember, anthropomorphism is distinct from deification and this particular one is ancient and scriptural (Genesis 1.24; Romans 8.22).

16. God has promised to "destroy the destroyers of the earth" (Revelation 11.18). Divine justice is not limited to our mistreatment of him and one another. God's transformative evaluation (otherwise known as his judgement) embraces all the deeds done in the body (2 Corinthians 5.10), not just those that directly relate to human interactions.

17. Failure to attend to the needs of the more than human creation causes real and serious harms to our human neighbours. Ecological injustice is a major cause of human suffering. (Romans 13.10)

18. Throughout the holy scriptures are examples of idolatry (the worship of creatures rather than the Creator) leading to negative ecological consequences. (e.g. Leviticus 18)

19. Mistreating other animals is a failure of compassion. Wisdom embraces more than human needs. (Proverbs 12.10)

20. Greed, hubris and fear are major motives behind the systems, cultures, actions and inactions that are degrading the Earth. (Luke 12.15)

21. There are demonic powers that destroy life, oppress people and seek to deceive us all that are operative in the desecration of God's good world. (Ephesians 6.12)

22. And finally, because God calls humanity into the care of this place. Stewardship is a much-abused concept, but within a broader theological vision of creation and humanity, it has its place. (Genesis 1-2; Ps 8)

Which of these do you find most compelling? Least plausible? What have I missed?

Evangelicals ought to be greener than the Greens

Guest post by Mick Pope

What does the gospel say about caring for creation?
Evangelicals should be at the forefront of creation care, regardless of the issue. The Bible is far greener than the Greens can ever be precisely because we don't "hate humanity" (as the Greens are sometimes accused of doing) but should have a proper biblical anthropology in which humanity is made by God from the good dirt and called by God to the noblest of tasks. However, one of the problems with some strands of Evangelicalism at various points of history is that it hasn't taken biblical anthropology seriously enough. Because we belong with the dust from which we were made and will be bodily resurrected, matter matters, including matter that isn't human.

Genesis 1 makes it clear that the Earth is the divine temple and that humans are the idols/images in that temple (interestingly, the word used for "image" in the ancient Greek translation of Genesis 1.26-27 is the same word elsewhere used for pagan idols), representing God to the rest of creation. This rules out any negative views towards the dominion mandate, since it is in God's image that we are to rule.

Psalm 104 is oft neglected and makes a couple of things clear. Firstly, God cares for creatures that (at the time) lay outside of the human economy, indeed for creatures like lions that were often harmful to the human economy, because he took delight in them for their own sake. It is a Psalm in praise of God's own creative wisdom. Notice too how the Psalmist places human economic activity alongside that of his care of the rest of creation. It is a small step to see that if God cares for and tends the wild places, we have no right to interfere with that, and as we carry out dominion in his name we should be also caring for wilderness, not to our own detriment but not to its neglect either.

The third important passage is Romans 8:19-25, which shows how intimately our future and that of the non-human creation are tied together. Creation groans for its own liberation as it has suffered under human misrule because of our idolatry. Note a solid biblical critique of materialism and paganism - we can't afford to leave creation care to atheists or pantheistic Greens since it is our calling. Still, when those groups take caring for creation more seriously than us they shame us. Note too that if creation waits for liberation we don't "save the Earth" but we do act in hope for the future. Just as when we seek to be more holy we don't save ourselves but live in hope of our final sanctification.

So caring for creation matters for Evangelicals.

What about climate change? Is it disingenuous for Christian organisations like Ethos to support the mainstream scientific view without giving equal time to those who are sceptical? As a meteorologist and a PhD who has followed the debate I'd say the science is pretty sound, and that we at Ethos are following the understanding laid down by one hundred and fifty years of direct observation of temperatures, at least a thousand years of proxy data from various independent sources, the best models of the day that can only reproduce the twentieth century trends with greenhouse gases included in the model, and a whole slew of research based on various observations of temperature extremes, changes in rainfall patterns, melting glaciers, spreading tropical diseases and so on.

Addressing climate change is part of a much larger project. Evangelicalism has much to repent of (in my opinion) and has and continues to miss its mission of creation care and opportunities to live out the gospel.

Dr Mick Pope is a meteorologist and coordinator of Ethos Environment. An earlier version of this post appeared as a comment on the Ethos site.

Ecological responsibility and Christian discipleship II: The Community of Creation

Part two of a three part series blogging a sermon preached at St Paul's and St George's 9 am service on 30th January 2011.

I. Human planet: Welcome to the Anthropocene.
II. The Community of Creation: Genesis 1.
III. Recycle or repent? Our response.

The Community of Creation: Genesis 1
The opening chapters of Genesis are a rich poetic myth, not a literal quasi-scientific chronology. I’m simply going to assume this today,* since our focus is on the theological meaning of this passage for our discipleship. Let us notice the highly structured symbolic nature of the text and explore what it means for us in a world that is changing so rapidly and profoundly under human influence.

First, the earth and all its life find their origin in God. We are talking not simply of "nature" but of creation, a much stronger and richer term implying the personal handiwork of the Creator. God is the main actor in this narrative. He speaks and things happen. "Let there be light. And it was so." The image of majestic ordering through the divine word stands in contrast to almost all other ancient creation myths, which are usually dominated by violence and conflict. There is no competitor to God, no original hostility or tension. Creation is not fundamentally opposed to or insignificant for God's interests and purposes. It is fundamental to them.

Second, there is both great diversity and internal order to the creation. Notice that on the first three days God separates out various domains and then on the subsequent three days God fills each of these domains with their appropriate residents. Living things are ordered into their various kinds in all their stunning variety. And these elements of creation are related to one another. God doesn't simply plonk things down, but by the fifth and sixth days, he is calling upon the waters and the land to bring forth life appropriate to those locations. Although Genesis does not offer a full-blown theory of ecology and biodiversity, it gently encourages us to notice diversity and interdependence in the created order. The natural sciences are not doing something odd or artificial, but have a noble task in paying attention to the details and structure of this ordered diversity.

Third, God takes pleasure in this order and diversity. Another refrain throughout the text is that God saw that it was good. We are not simply to notice the diversity and interdependence in which we find ourselves, the passage invites us to join in God's appreciation for it. This is particularly important for us urbanites, I suspect. So much of how we structure our lives separates us from the rhythms, the mysteries and the delights of the non-human world. How do you ensure that your life remains connected to the fundamental goodness of life and the richness of our situation? How do we keep wonder, awe and a sense of enchantment alive?

Notice God calls the world good even before there are humans in the narrative. Creation is not dependent upon us for its goodness, but God cherishes it for itself. It is precious prior to and outside of any consideration of human benefit or usage. Something I have been re-learning from my daughter is that a pig is not simply so much as-yet-unbutchered ham, pork and bacon; a pig is a joy and can inspire laughter and squeals of glee simply for its piggyness.

Despite what is coming in Genesis 3 and all that follows, the foundational goodness of God's creation is never erased or entirely suppressed. Sin doesn't obliterate creation; it disorders things that remains themselves good.

We've noted three basic points: That God is the origin of all that is, hence we speak of creation, not merely nature. That creation is both structured and varied, so we speak of a created order. And that the created order is fundamentally and irrepressibly good.

So what then of us humans?

Three more basic points:** we are not the climax of this story; we belong first and foremost with the other creatures as members of the community of creation; and we are called to a special and often misunderstood role.

First, despite what is often claimed, we are not the climax of the creation narrative, that honour belongs to the Sabbath, the seventh day on which God rested from all his work, the day in which things are simply to be themselves before God (Genesis 2.1-3). Much more can be said about this image, but for the moment, let's just notice that we're not the centre of the universe, we're not the final point of the show.

Second, we are members of the community of creation. In the parallel creation account in Genesis 2, this is vividly depicted through the man (ha'adam) being fashioned out of the ground (ha'adamah). Adam is not so much a name as a pun, a play on words to remind us that humanity comes from humus, from the soil. We are made from dirt and we belong to the earth. In Genesis 1, we see that humanity doesn't get a day to ourselves, but we share the stage with the other land creatures. We are blessed by God and told to be fruitful and multiply. But then so are all the other creatures. The blessing of fruitfulness is not something we are to pursue at the expense of other creatures; we flourish or wither together. If our filling the earth pushes out other species, leaves no room for the fish and the birds and the plants and the other animals to also flourish, then we're doing it wrong. God directs the humans to their sources of food in verse 29, but then in verse 30 he reminds the humans that other creatures also need food. We are not fundamentally to be in competition with other species. We stand or fall together as a community.

And third, as a member of the community of creation, humanity is given a special task: to be the image of God, to be a visual representation, a constant reminder of the divine presence and pleasure in creation. This task is not a privilege we are to exploit, as though we were the only species that matters, but it is a weighty responsibly we are to shoulder. We are to treat the created order as God treats it, to care for it, to nurture it, to bless it and guard it, to coax it into greater fruitfulness so that the earth continues to bring forth living creatures of every kind. The uncaring exploitation of "natural resources" to feed the mouth of industrial economies to ensure ever upward and onward growth of national or global GDP is a cruel perversion of this task. May we seek God's forgiveness for ever assuming that the pursuit of economic growth is what is meant by being made in the image of God.

Instead, we see what it means to be made in the image of God by observing Jesus, whom the New Testament says isn't just in the image of God but is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1.15). This is what human dominion is meant to look like, not lording it over the rest of creation, but being the servant of all (Philippians 2.5-11).
*Ironically, my previous sermon to this congregation was also on Genesis 1 and was titled "Genesis or Evolution?" . This was not a title I chose and my point was to question the implied exclusivity of the "or" in it.

**Do you like how I sneakily took the usual three point sermon and doubled it? Once we get to part three, you'll see that I actually tripled it. Of course.

Ecological responsibility and Christian discipleship I: Human planet

This will be the first in three posts giving a slightly modified version of a sermon I delivered a few weeks ago based on Genesis 1. The three posts are as follows:
I. Human planet: Welcome to the Anthropocene.
II. The Community of Creation: Genesis 1.
III. Recycle or repent? Our response.

Human Planet: Welcome to the Anthropocene
We no longer live on the same planet on which we were born. I’m not just talking about the internet and globalisation, or trends in fashion and music. The chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere, the stability of the climate, the diversity and health of ecosystems are all very different to what they were. Human activity over the last handful of decades has altered the face of the globe in ways so profound that it will be visible in the geological record millions of years into the future. The Geological Society of London, which is the UK national society for geoscience and the oldest geological society in the world, is currently considering a serious proposal to declare that we have now left the Holocene and entered into a new geological epoch, called the Anthropocene, named after anthropos, which is Greek for human, because we humans are having such a extreme effect on all the ecosystems and even geology of the planet. I hardly need to tell you that most of it isn't a positive effect.

Think of the most remote places on the planet, places so wild and desolate that none live there. No matter where you picture, human fingerprints are all over the landscape.

You are probably aware that Arctic summer sea ice is in terminal decline and many of us in this room are likely to live to see a largely ice-free Arctic in summers to come. This winter, while we shivered through a December that was 5ºC below average, parts of the Canadian Arctic averaged 21ºC above their long term mean. Permafrost is no longer looking so permanent and some now call it "tempfrost". As it melts, not only are roads and buildings sinking and breaking, but it is releasing more and more of the methane and carbon dioxide that have been locked away for millennia and which will, of course, only make the melting worse.

If the Arctic isn't pristine, then perhaps the mountains, the high Andes and towering Himalayas? Well, again, you're probably aware of the accelerating glacier melt occurring on 95% of all glaciers, including the most remote. And in many places the melt is accelerated when soot particles land from cooking fires and factories land on the ice, darkening the surface and absorbing more solar energy. Indeed, thanks to Julian Assange, we know that the US State Department was told by the Dalai Lama that addressing climate change is a higher priority for Tibet than independence from China.

What about the deep Amazonian rainforest where there are still to this day dozens of uncontacted tribes? Yet first contact for these indigenous groups is most likely to be with loggers. Although deforestation rates have declined from a decade ago, tropical rainforests continue to be bulldozed at a rate of a football field every few seconds. Eighty percent of the world's ancient forests have been destroyed or degraded, half of that has been in the last 30 years.

What about bottom of the ocean? Even there the human fingerprints are everywhere. Deep sea trawling by commercial fishing fleets drags heavy metal beams over the sea floor, crushing and scattering slow-growing deep corals and other creatures and kicking up plumes of underwater dust that can be seen by satellites. And each year, an area twice the size of the continental United States is bottom trawled, scooping up more fish than the ocean can replenish. Four-fifths of commercial fish species are considered by marine biologists to be fully-exploited, over-exploited or have collapsed. On our current trajectory, no commercially-viable fish stocks will be left by the time my daughter turns 40.

Feeling stressed? Breathe in – breathe out – breathe in – breathe out. Every second breath comes from phytoplankton, microscopic plant-like organisms in the oceans that are the basis of the marine food chain and which are the source of over half the planet's oxygen. And yet, there is evidence that the number of phytoplankton has declined by 40% since 1950. I've already alluded to climate change, but did you know that all the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also changing the chemistry of the oceans? The planet's oceans are on average 30% more acidic than pre-industrial times, more acidic than they have been for millions of years and changing faster than any known previous shift. And they are getting warmer too. Climate change is first and foremost oceanic change, since oceans absorb more than 93% of the extra energy trapped by our greenhouse gas pollution. Oceanic currents are shifting. Sea levels are rising. The climate is warming: 2010 was the equal warmest year at the end of the warmest decade, which followed the previous warmest decade, which followed the previous warmest decade on record. The last 311 consecutive months have all been warmer than the 20thC average.

Seasons are changing. Plants flowering earlier in Spring, migrations and hibernations patterns are shifting. Our actions are shifting rainfall patterns: stronger droughts, more intense rain and snow.

Human actions are responsible for the extinction of about a thousand recorded species. They are just the ones we're aware of. Our best estimates of how many we've actually bumped off falls between twenty thousand and two million. And this is rising rapidly, causing most biologists to judge that we are currently causing the start of the sixth great extinction event in earth's four and a half billion year history.

Since 1970 we have reduced animal populations by 30%, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20%, the coverage of living corals by 40% and large African mammals by more than 60%.

Over 60% of major rivers in the world are dammed or diverted. There is five times as much water stored in dams and reservoirs as all the world's rivers put together. We have directly modified three quarters of the ice-free land surface of the planet and currently move more soil each year than the natural cycles of wind and water.

And I haven’t mentioned heavy metal toxins, soil degradation, aquifer depletion, ocean eutrophification, introduced species, desertification, or the trillions of floating plastic particles found in all the world's oceans.

We no longer live on the same planet on which we were born.

And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea. And over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

- Genesis 1.28 (NRSV).

Our passage this morning has been used to justify the patterns of exploitation and acquisition that in our lifetimes have reached such an extent as to have permanently altered the face of the planet. Can we read it again with fresh eyes and see whether it might have good news for us today?
I haven't had time to include links for all these claims, though it's worth noting that they were not first published by Greenpeace or WWF; they are not the scare stories of eco-extremists out to rob you of your fun or set up a world government. These claims appear in highly respected scientific journals – Nature, Science, Proceedings of the Royal Society and so on. Some are still quite fresh and subject to ongoing debate. Most are widely agreed as our best knowledge of our present situation. If there are particular ones you are interested in, I can try to provide relevant citations.

Why I'm not going to heaven

Heaven's above!
Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the earth, is reputed to have said upon his return, "I looked and looked but I didn’t see God". God is not in heaven; we have now been there.

This anecdote may make us smile. Heaven is indeed well-known as the dwelling-place of God, yet when Christians pray to "our Father in heaven" we do not mean that God is literally to be glimpsed by cosmonauts up above the ionosphere in the heavens. The Scriptures do frequently speak of "the heavens" in this literal sense of what you see when you look up on a clear night. But the term gains extra layers of meaning as we follow the biblical story from the creation of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1-2 through to the marriage of heaven and earth in Revelation 21-22. Heaven comes to mean a reality far deeper, richer and more overarching than merely the sky.

For many Christians, "heaven" has come to serve as a shorthand for everything we hope for, for the ultimate goal of our salvation, for the blissful land of rest at the end of our journey. We populate this realm with images from cartoons and movies, in which white robed figures with haloes play harps on clouds, or perhaps play rugby against the angels. Even where the content is left more vague, much Christian piety assumes that going to heaven when we die is the content of Christian hope. This theme is found in many of our songs, mentioned at many funerals, serves as a focal point in evangelism, and is frequently discussed in wistful or anguished conversations late at night.

Heaven: the origin, not the goal, of our salvation
However, a closer reading of the biblical narrative would suggest that such conceptions are significantly wide of the mark. The good news of Jesus certainly does hold out a stunning hope in the face of death and for a dying world. But it is not that we will go to heaven. It is that heaven will come to us. It is not that we will pass into a higher realm at death, but that, one day, God will transform this world so that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. It is not that there is life after death for an immortal soul, but that at some point after our death, God will raise us bodily as he did for Jesus. Although there are a few passing references to the fact that those who have died in Christ are not lost, but are now with him, this is never held out as the primary content of our hope.

This is worth pausing over. We are indeed "citizens of heaven", but this doesn’t mean we hope to end up there. Instead, it is from heaven that we await a Saviour who will raise us to have glorious bodies like his (Philippians 3.20-21). Our inheritance is indeed in heaven, but that is because Jesus is our hope, and he is hidden until the day our living (i.e. resurrection) hope is realised (1 Peter 1.3; see also Colossians 1.5). We seek to enter “the kingdom of heaven”, but this is Matthew’s way of speaking of what is elsewhere called "the kingdom of God"; "heaven" here is simply a reverent way of referring to God without directly mentioning him (see also Luke 15:18). We could go on and on, but nowhere does the New Testament teach that going to heaven when we die is the focus of Christian hope.

The truly Christian hope, based on the experience of Jesus, is for resurrection, not merely an otherworldly existence after death. Resurrection is a powerful act of God to vindicate and transform our lowly bodies to be like Jesus’ glorious body, for us to be raised as he was raised, not simply back from the dead into mortal bodies to die again, but raised in glory and freedom.

"Your will be done on earth"
And it doesn’t end with our bodies. Our hope is for God to say "yes and amen" to the creation that he declared good, very good. It is for the earth to be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea, for death to be swallowed up in victorious new life, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In short, our hope is not to escape this place and these bodies and go elsewhere, it is for God to heal and bring new life to his broken creation, conquering death and decay forever.

Thus, Christian hope is not for redemption from the world, but for the redemption of the world. Jesus’ resurrection therefore has implications not just our bodies, but also for the entire created order of which they are a part. In Romans 8 Paul pictures the created order as a woman giving birth, waiting and straining for a future joy, despite pain and distress at the moment. Switching metaphors, he says that creation is like a prisoner, in bondage to decay. So while everything currently falls apart, God has something surprising planned: a gaol-break! And creation is yearning, groaning for that day. And so, says Paul, are all those who have gotten their first taste of God’s future in the Holy Spirit. We too groan and yearn for that day when our bodies will be redeemed, that is, raised into glorious freedom.

Matter matters
That heaven is not the end of the world has all kinds of implications. Here, briefly, are four.

God has not abandoned his good creation.
The God who has the power to call things which are not into existence is the same God who raises the dead (Romans 4.17). Therefore, redemption is not fundamentally opposed to creation and the created order, but vindicates it. And that means that the church is not the opposite of the world, but an imperfect foretaste of the world’s true future.

God says "yes" to life.
His "no" of judgement is only to be understood within an overarching "yes" to Christ, to humanity, to his world, to life. He opposes that which opposes the flourishing of his creation. God is unashamedly positive about all that is good in the world: he says "yes" to love, to laughter, to sharing, to sex, to food, to fun, to music, to matter. It is because he loves the world that he will not put up with its present disfigurements.

Humanity as humanity matters.
Jesus was raised, and remains, a human (1 Timothy 2.5). We await resurrection as humans. Nothing that is truly human will ultimately perish (though all must be transformed). This makes human endeavour and relationships noble, even while they remain tragically flawed. Christians remain humans, with much still in common with our neighbours. Secular work in God’s good world is not to be despised or treated merely instrumentally. Neither is art, or education, or healthcare, or agriculture, or science. There is much about these activities that will not endure, and much that requires reform; yet these tasks all participate as part of what it is to be a human creature.

What we do with our bodies and the planet matters.
Not because we can create the kingdom of God or sculpt our resurrection bodies now, but because God cares for them. Bodies and the broader environment in which they find their place are good gifts, worth caring for. Just as our obedience will never be complete in this age, yet we keep thanking, trusting and loving God, so our care for creation is presently an imperfectible, yet unavoidable, responsibility and privilege. We must therefore also reject any dualism that opposes ‘spiritual’ to 'physical' concerns. To be truly spiritual is to be enlivened, empowered, cleansed and directed by the Holy Spirit of life, who is the midwife our birth (Job 33:4) and our rebirth (Titus 3.5), and the midwife of the world’s birth (Genesis 1.2) and rebirth (Romans 8.22-23). To be a friend of God is to be a friend of creation, of humanity, of life - the kind of friend that hates what is evil, clings to what is good, that is not overcome by evil, but overcomes evil with good (Romans 12.9, 21).
This article was originally published in Salt magazine with the title "Heaven: It's not the end of the world" in Autumn 2009 and then online by WebSalt. Long time readers (or those who browse the sidebar) may recognise that it is a condensed version of my sixteen part series on heaven from the early days of this blog in 2006. I thought I would repost it here (with permission from the Salt editor) in order to provide a more accessible and convenient form of the argument in a single post. Those looking for a little more detail are referred to the full series.

Climate displacement

“The frequency of natural disasters has increased by 42 percent since the 1980s, and the percentage of those that are climate-related has risen from 50 to 82 percent. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates that in 2008, climate-related calamities drove 20 million people from their homes—more than four times the number displaced by violent conflict.”

- Scientific American, Casualties of climate change.

If the floods in Pakistan were related to climate change, then there is twenty million displaced in a single country in 2010, before we've considered anywhere else in the wettest year on record. The whole article is worth reading. Interestingly, it starts by pointing out that the patriarch Jacob/Israel was a refugee, moving his family to Egypt due to drought (Genesis 42-47).
H/T Bryan.

Struggling to breathe underwater

"Unless we find a way to rein in our carbon emissions very soon, a low-oxygen ocean may become an inescapable feature of our planet."

- Carl Zimmer, "A Looming Oxygen Crisis and Its Impact on World's Oceans".

Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are destabilising the climate under which human civilisation has developed. That is well known and widely discussed. They are also acidifying the oceans ten times faster than during a mass marine extinct event 55 million years ago. That is less well-known, but possibly just as serious. But there is yet another global threat from rising carbon dioxide levels: a decline in oceanic oxygen levels. Not simply the local devastation caused in an increasing number of sites from fertiliser run-off creating marine "dead zones" starved of oxygen, but a global issue. Warmer water can hold less oxygen and warmer water is more stratified, making the mixing of surface oxygen with deeper water slower. Although the absolute drop in oxygen may seem slight (single digit percentages over many decades), this could have severe effects on many marine creatures for whom oxygen intake represents a primary limiting factor. The winners? Jellyfish and certain bacteria that thrive in oxygen-depleted conditions. The former are presently experiencing a population explosion (largely due to overfishing removing competition, amongst other causes). The latter are a source of yet more potent greenhouse gases.

Take a deep breath and read the full article.

"And God said, 'Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.' So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.'"

- Genesis 1.20-21.

Are we undoing creation and denying the blessing of God?

Why be green? Ecology and the gospel II

A series in three parts
Part One: God the materialist
Part Two: The renewal of all things
Part Three: Three steps towards heaven on earth

Part Two: The renewal of all things
However, we are not simply one creature amongst creatures (though we are not less than that); humans are particularly blessed. Humanity was entrusted with dominion over other creatures (Genesis 1.28), but we have sadly abused this. It is not until Christ that we see the intended relationship exemplified and perfected (Psalm 8; Hebrews 2.5-9). In Jesus, we discover that true dominion consists in loving service, not selfish grasping; in humility, not hubris (Mark 10.35-45; Philippians 2.5-11).

And about Jesus we sing each Christmas, “Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb”. The incarnation of the Word demonstrates God’s commitment to his good but broken creation (John 1.1-14). Fully human, Jesus was “God-with-us”, and as such he sanctified and re-dignified bodily existence, entering into all the struggles and joys of creaturely life. His death broke the hold of destruction, ending the reign of the evil one, who is opposed to life (Hebrews 2.14-15). His resurrection was God’s triumphant “yes” to his creation, the first fruits of a liberation from bondage to decay for which we and all creation groan (Romans 8.18-23). Indeed, even the Spirit groans, and so we join in the Spirit’s yearning for God’s future. What God did to and for Jesus, he has promised to do for all in him, and for the entire created order. And so God’s promised future, far from rendering creation irrelevant or superfluous, will involve us receiving glorified bodies like Jesus’ (Romans 6.5; 1 Corinthians 15.20-23) and will include the renewal of all things (Matthew 19.28; Acts 3.21; Revelation 21.5). God is faithful to the creation he has made and is not going to discard or replace it, but will restore and transform it as he did to Jesus’ body and as he has promised to do for all in Christ.

Made from dust, we are bound to the earth and share its destiny. Clinging to the cross and the empty tomb grounds us in the here and now as we await Christ’s return. We are not to stare up into the heavens (Acts 1.11), but to set our vision on the neighbours whom God has invited us to love amidst the world that God has ordered and we are disordering.

But aren’t our hearts to be set on things above, where Christ is (Colossians 3.1-4)? Are we not to store up treasure in heaven (Luke 12.33)? Is not our inheritance kept in heaven (1 Peter 1.3-4)? Indeed are we not citizens of heaven (Philippians 3.20-21)? Yes, yes, yes and yes, but this is not because heaven is our final destination or because the physical world is irrelevant. Far from it! Our treasure, inheritance, citizenship and heart are in heaven because that is where Christ is, and from where he will return to bring resurrection and the renewal of all creation.

Why be green? Ecology and the gospel I

A series in three parts
Part One: God the materialist
Part Two: The renewal of all things
Part Three: Three steps towards heaven on earth

Part One: God the materialist
Australia's ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd famously described climate change as “the greatest moral challenge of our generation”. It was an exaggeration, of course, and one that has already come to haunt him.

The greatest moral challenge of this and every age is whether we will trust the God and Father of Jesus Christ or an idol of our own construction, whether we will love our neighbour as ourselves, or love ourselves to the harm of our neighbour, whether we will hope in the Spirit who raises the dead, or submit to the spirits of denial, despair and desperation in the face of death.

Within this moral challenge, what place do the real threats found in today’s massive and wide-ranging ecological degradation have for a disciple of Christ? Not just climate change, but biodiversity loss and extinctions, fresh water stress, deforestation and the destruction of other habitats, resource depletion, desertification, soil degradation, ocean acidification, overfishing, disruption of the nitrogen cycle, invasive species: the list goes on and on and investigating any of these issues in greater detail is a task that is both alarming and depressing. Many honest observers despair for the future of life as we know it. Is concern about such matters a distraction from the gospel or even a dangerous false agenda proposed by pantheist environmentalists?

The short answer is that Christian discipleship cannot be reduced to ecological responsibility, but nor can it be divorced from it. The good news of Jesus remains good news even in the face of ecological catastrophes, and is good news to those anxious about a world under increasing strain from the effects of our collective activities.

Let us take a quick walk through some key scriptural and theological concepts here.

God is a materialist. Matter matters to God. He made a physical world teeming with all kinds of life that he declared “good, very good”, and which he blessed so that it might become even more abundant (Genesis 1). The pinnacle of creation was not humanity, but the seventh day of rest (Genesis 2.1-4). He made humanity not to plunder the riches of the earth, but to serve and keep it (Genesis 2), to share with all the living beings in his blessing of fruitfulness and to join with them in praising the Creator (Psalm 148). If our “filling” of the earth undermines God’s blessing on other creatures, then we’re doing it wrong.

Being creatures amongst a good creation means that we belong with the dirt: from dust we came, and to dust we will return (Genesis 2.7; 3.19; 18.27; Ecclesiastes 3.20). Like all living things, we are dependant upon the Spirit of life and so members of the community of creation. Being a creature amongst creatures means acknowledging that the world, though stunningly bountiful, is not infinite, and its ecosystems, though remarkably resilient, are not invulnerable; to claim it is so would be to deify the created order, since only God is truly inexhaustible. And it means acknowledging the goodness of life beyond humanity, and indeed our shared dependence upon the provision of God; we flourish or wither not just like the flowers of the field, but with them. Israel learned the hard way that the land’s bounty or scarcity was connected to their faithfulness to God’s good instruction (Deuteronomy 28).