On having dirty hands: Clean Up Australia Day

Sermon preached at St Matthew's Anglican, West Pennant Hills
On 1st March 2015, St Matt's held a joint service for all congregations after many parishioners had spent the morning cleaning up local parks and streets as part of Clean Up Australia Day.

Scripture readings: Psalm 104 and Romans 8.18-27.

When I was growing up not far from here, I had zero interest in my parents’ garden. For me, it was too much hard work - tending, watering, weeding - for too little payoff. With the impatience and selfishness of youth, I expected my efforts to result in immediate tangible personal benefits.

But now, I have a garden of my own: citrus trees, a blueberry bush, passionfruit vine, basil, tomatoes, zucchini, silver beet, basil, kale, leeks, capsicum, various herbs (including basil), a compost bin, a couple of worm-farms, some basil and a beehive. I love it! And I'm trying to inculcate an interest and appreciation in my two little kids that I never managed to gain until I was almost 30.

Some things take time to recognise. The patience, attentiveness, humility and willingness to get my hands dirty that I spurned as a youth are now things I cherish and seek to foster in myself, ever mindful of how fragile my grasp on them is.

Soil is now something I have learned to love. The opening chapters of the Bible speak poetically of humans being fashioned out of the soil. Indeed, even the name ‘Adam is a Hebrew pun, being the male form of the female word ‘adamah: soil, dirt, ground. ‘Adam from ‘adamah. The pun even (kind of) words in English: we are humans from the humus, a slightly unusual word for topsoil.* We are creatures of the dirt, relying on dirt for almost every mouthful of food.
*Technically, the dark organic matter in it.

And so I’ve come to love my worm-farms and compost: watching dirt form in front of my eyes. Seeing my food-scraps return again into the nourishing foundation of life from which they came.

But my garden in Paddington is apparently built on a rubbish dump. It seems like every time I dig, I come across broken glass, plastic, old bits of metal. My two year delightedly finds bits of glass and comes running excitedly to show me and I am caught between anxiety that he’s going to cut himself and pride that he is learning to cherish the soil and wants to keep it free of rubbish.

I often find myself wondering: what were they thinking, these people who apparently smashed their bottles into the soil and dumped random bits of plastic? Were they neighbours chucking things over the fence? Was it a former resident who was particularly careless? Was it the result of some long forgotten landscaping that brought in rubbish from elsewhere?

When we moved in, the house hadn’t been lived in for almost 12 months, and the backyard was overgrown. Gradually, as the garden has taken shape, we’ve been cleaning up the mess. And it feels good to be part of setting things right, even if it is in a small, very localised way. This little patch of dirt from which I’ve removed a few dozen bits of glass and plastic, is now cleaner and healthier than it was before.

And I bet some of you have had something of a similar experience this morning: taking a small patch of land and improving it, removing rubbish, cleaning it up, making it a little bit more healthy, more right, less polluted. Maybe you’ve wondered at those who dumped stuff – whether out of carelessness, apathy or haste. Maybe you’ve even got a little angry – it can feel good to be fixing something, and when you don’t know who was responsible for breaking it, it is easy to indulge in a little self-righteous harrumphing.

It also feels good to be working with others, doing something useful as a team, making the local area a little better for everyone. This is an act of service, an act of commitment to a place, an act that affirms that as creatures of the soil, it is right and fitting that we seek to take care of our little patch of it, even trying to clean up the mess that others have made. Both gardening as well as cleaning up the land, are very human acts – they are a kind of work that affirms our connection to the humus.

And when we turn to our passages this morning, we see that they are not just human acts, affirming our creatureliness, they are also, in an important sense, God-like acts. Cleaning things up out of care for others is to be a bit like God.

Our first reading, Psalm 104, is a wonderful poem celebrating the creative and caring concern God has for all of creation. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is here revealed as being the creator and sustainer of all creatures, great and small. God’s care extends not just to humans, but to the great family of life, the community of all creation. Written long before modern ecological science or the development of the concept of biodiversity, nonetheless, this psalm celebrates the diversity and abundance of the more-than-human earth. The psalmist notices the various habitats of animals, both domestic and wild, the times and seasons of their existence, and asserts in faith that Yahweh is the source and provider of all life, feeding and watering birds of the air, beasts of the land and even the monsters of the deep that so fascinated and frightened the inhabitants of the ancient near east.

And the striking thing is, there is no hint here that God’s care is exclusively or even primarily for humans; this psalm does not give us a human-centred view that assumes everything really belongs to us and exists to be used in our projects. No, God cares for humans in their labouring during the day, but the same land is then the abode of wild beasts at night that are also in divine care. God causes grass to grow for the cattle, but God also feeds the wild lions, the wild donkeys, the creeping things innumerable that scuttle under the waves. These animals were not only outside of the human economy, but at least in the case of wild lions, actively a hindrance to it. God’s providential care embraces even creatures that make life more difficult for people.*
*This point, and the language of the community of creation, is indebted to Richard Bauckham's Ecology and the Bible: Rediscovering the Community of Creation. Highly recommended.

Now, within this community of creation we do have a particular human vocation, a weighty responsibility placed upon us to reflect the image of God, to show forth God’s own caring concern for other creatures, to manage and steward the land in such a way that the blessing multiplies and grows. We are indeed invited to be gardeners. But Psalm 104 keeps us from getting too cocky, too ambitious, too self-obsessed in this task. We are to reflect and participate in God’s loving authority, which is always directed to the good of the other. Yet this authority is to be exercised as creatures. We are not demigods, halfway between God and the rest of creation, we don’t float six inches above the ground. We are pedestrian creatures, creatures of the dirt and to dust we will return. Fundamentally, we belong with all the other creatures, under the care of God, and if we are then invited to join in that task of caring protecting, it is precisely as creatures. We care for the soil as those who are deeply dependent upon it.

And this is a good reminder to us on Clean Up Australia day. It is so easy, especially in a modern industrial society, to act as though we are above or outside of the rest of life on the planet, rather than intimately connected to it in a vast web of life. Getting our hands dirty today hopefully did some local good, helped make a little part of the world somewhat better. But as we look at our dirty hands, this can also re-ground us as creatures of the soil and we can remember again our dependence upon crops growing, rain falling, soil remaining healthy, biodiversity remaining robust, pollutants being minimised, climate being stable. We have never before in history been so powerful, never before had such amazing technological wonders; but never before have we had such a massive, and largely detrimental, effect upon the habitability of the planet as a whole. There isn’t time this morning to recite the familiar litany of statistics, but they are indeed dire. I’ll just pick one: that as best as we can calculate, the number of wild vertebrates living on the planet has declined by about one third during my lifetime. There are all kinds of factors contributing to this: habitat destruction, hunting, overfishing, climate change, but our stewardship is failing if we are squeezing out these creatures, who are also dear to the one who created us.

And so there is a darker side to today. Our second passage hints at this. In Romans 8, the apostle Paul paints a vivid picture of creation groaning, as though in childbirth, in great pain, in bondage to decay.

If you have the passage in front of you, you’ll notice that there are actually three things groaning. First, there is creation itself, waiting with eager longing, yearning for the day when the current conditions of frustration and decay are no more. Just pause there for a moment and notice the content of Christian hope in Paul’s vision: “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God”. The creation itself: this is not a salvation that is purely for humans. We are not to be whisked off a dying planet away to a heavenly realm somewhere else. The creation itself is groaning, yearning, hoping. The creation itself is to participate in God’s great renewal, of which the resurrection of Jesus was the first taste. The Christian hope embraces earth as well as heaven – which ought to be no surprise to those of us who regularly pray for God’s will to be done "on earth as it is in heaven".

The second thing groaning is “we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for […] the redemption of our bodies”. Again, the Christian hope is bodily – we hope for a bodily resurrection, just like Jesus'. But more than this, groaning is a normal, healthy part of the Christian life. Paul is no triumphalist, who thinks that discipleship consists of ever-greater thrills and bliss. No, we follow a crucified messiah and our fundamental experience is of frustration, which is the necessary precondition for hope, for who hopes for what is already present, already manifest? Groaning is spiritual – not grumbling, mind you – but groaning, a deep yearning desire for all that is wrong to be set to rights. And that deep desire is inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, since it is those who have tasted the first fruits of that Spirit who groan. There is way in which being a Christian ought to lead us to being less content, less satisfied, less ready to make our peace with a broken world as though such brokenness is acceptable.

But if we keep reading our passage, we find that not only is creation groaning, not only are we groaning, but the Spirit also groans. In verse 26, where the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words, it’s the same Greek word Paul used earlier for our groaning: this discontented yearning for the renewal of all things, this deep desire for the resurrection of Jesus to be expanded and applied to all creation, extends into the heart of God. God too groans.

We are again, therefore, invited to be godly. If Psalm 104 helped us to be a little like God in caring for a community of life that extends beyond human projects, Romans 8 teaches us to be a little like God in yearning for the renewal of all things. These two passages give us a way of looking at the world in which the rest of creation is not merely a backdrop to an exclusively human drama. We discover wider horizons as we come to see ourselves as creatures in a community of life, as sharing with all life a fundamental dependence upon God’s provision and interdependence with other creatures. And we are invited to see ourselves as sharing with all creation a fundamental frustration, a desire for our brokenness to be healed, our pollution cleaned up, a desire grounded in God’s own desire that all things be made new in Christ.

Because the pollution degrading our lives isn’t just the rubbish dumped in a local park, it isn't even just the rubbish we’re collectively dumping into the oceans and atmosphere, largely out of sight and not as easily cleaned up with a pair of gloves and some elbow grease, pollution that is altering the very chemistry of the air and water, changing the climate, acidifying the oceans. Even more than these, the pollution degrading our lives is also the rubbish we allow into our hearts when we place ourselves at the centre of our own lives, when we live as though we were something other than creatures in a vast web of life, when we pretend that salvation doesn’t include the rest of creation. All this needs to be cleaned up too.

And so in the context of these passages, our efforts today become far more than just being good citizens, or kind neighbours, or taking pride in our local area, or seeking to make some amends for times we may have trashed the place. In the grace of God, they can become a little taste of the Psalmist’s vision of true creaturehood, a little taste of Paul’s Spirit-filled discontentment with disorder. In God’s hands, our efforts today can become another step on a journey into following Jesus with our whole lives, a journey that may break our fingernails, that may break our hearts, but which is the only path towards true joy.

Impossible hope

A sermon preached at today's dawn Easter service at Reservoir Park, Paddington.

But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

- Matthew 28.5-6a (NRSV)

Impossible. The execution was thorough. The tomb was sealed. The dead are dead. Cellular degeneration begins when the flow of oxygen ceases. The Galilean preacher was merely the latest victim of imperial oppression. His startling claims vanished as he gave up the ghost.

Cruelly for the disciples, the world did not end on Friday, but Saturday’s sun rose on a world unchanged, indifferent to the execution of another pitiful Jew. Abandoned to the catastrophe of a failed messianic promise, the disciples are scattered sheep. Self-preservation instincts kick in as they flee and hide, bitterly awakening from their three year dream. Pilate’s wife tries to banish her nightmares with a stuff drink. Pilate breathes a sigh of relief, feeling that he somehow dodged a javelin. Joseph of Arimathéa keeps his head down after his rash act of generosity to a condemned man. The centurion can’t shake a lingering unease. Simon of Cyrene digs a few splinters from his shoulder.

The sun shuffles its westerly way and another day departs. Sabbath rest. Sabbath grief. Sabbath shock and disillusionment. Sunday dawns and a new week begins, as it always has. The globe turns and life goes on.

"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

Impossible. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The human frame returns to the humus from which it came. The worm turns. The circle of life. Our atoms are recycled. The extinction of the individual into the cosmic ocean of being. Entropy is all.

"He is not here." Impossible. The world will not stand for resurrection. The finality of death is the one certainty on which we may rely. The grave’s silence reassures us that our failures, faults and fumblings will be washed away by memory’s receding tide, that our self-destructive habits, our myopic obsessions, our petty bickering and fruitless labour are ultimately ephemeral, excusable, indeed already on their way into the oblivion of time.

"He has been raised." Impossible. The wounds humanity bears, the wounds humanity inflicts, can be staunched, but not ultimately healed. All the forests bulldozed, all the rivers poisoned, the wetlands drained, the coral reefs bleached, the oceans plundered, the glaciers melted, the climate heated, all the species lost, lost, lost. These wounds, these open wounds, may one day close – whether or not human hands remain to bind them. But the scars will persist.

"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

Impossible, surely.

But imagine: what if it were true? Yes, it would be an amazing biological miracle. Yes, it would mean that Pilate’s guilty verdict has been overturned by God. It would mean that the disciples who abandoned Jesus in his hour of need could have a second chance, a fresh start. It would mean that Jesus’ amazing claims to represent God in word and deed have been vindicated. It would mean that God has indeed publicly appointed Jesus as Messiah. It would mean that death’s ubiquitous triumph has been breached; its power to silence, to shorten, to sully has been compromised and the trumping threat of all tyrants has been weakened. Yes, it would mean that acts of love, of hope, of tenderness and compassion, are not merely heroic defiant gestures in the face of an uncaring universe, but instead are lisping attempts at speaking the native language of the cosmos.

"He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

Impossible. But if this were true, it would mean something even more exciting. If Jesus is indeed God’s Messiah, the representative not just of God to humanity, but the one in whom the future of all humanity and all of creation is revealed, and if God raised Jesus from the dead, then that is a picture, a promise, a precedent of what God intends to do with the entire creation (1 Corinthians 15.21ff). If Jesus has been raised, God promises to raise our bodies too. If Jesus has been raised, God promises to liberate the entire groaning creation from its bondage to decay, in the words of the apostle Paul (Romans 8.18ff).

But how? The details are not spelled out; the tomb is empty, the angelic message is brief, the recorded meetings with the risen Christ tantalisingly under-narrated. But the implication seems clear. If Jesus has been raised, then no longer is it possible to hope for redemption from the world, for escape, for flight from the impossible conditions of mortal life into an otherworldly bliss. If Jesus has been raised, Christian hope can no longer speak of redemption from the world, only the redemption of the world.

God did not give up on Jesus. He didn't throw his body in the rubbish and start again. And God hasn’t given up on us or on his world, despite all our problems. We don’t need to be afraid. He is not the kind of builder who walks into a house, notices the shaky foundations, the peeling paint, the broken windows, leaking pipes and says, “tear it down, start again!” God is not a demolishing developer. He is into transformative renovation, renovation of our bodies, renovation of his good, very good creation. To renovate something is to make it new. Amongst the last words spoken by God in the scriptures is the wonderful promise: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21.5). If God raised Jesus from the dead, then God has started to keep this promise.

If God raised Jesus bodily from the dead, leaving an empty tomb and a living man who could be touched and embraced, then matter matters to God. Our bodies matter; our ecosystems matter; our art, food, sex, music, laughter all matter. God has said ‘yes’ to our embodied existence, yes to our planetary home, yes to our humanity, yes to every act of love, hope, tenderness and compassion. Yes to forests, fields, frogs and fungi. Yes to our neighbour and yes to each of us.

If we accept the angel’s word, the resurrection of Jesus does not answer all our questions, it only generates more: what does it look like to embrace life in light of following one who has been through death? How can we face our own death when Jesus has walked out the other side – not just the resuscitation of a corpse but the transformation of a life into something genuinely new? How can this message touch a society bent on self-destruction and seemingly willing to take most of life on earth down with us? The resurrection does not answer all our questions, but it says, in the deepest way possible, that such questions are worth asking. It invites us onto a dangerous path, where we are invited to follow Jesus in taking up our cross, putting aside our hopes of riches, of security, of fame, of comfort – not because these desires are too big, but because they are too small. We are instead invited to hope for nothing less than the renewal of all things. To hope: and thus to find ourselves unable to put up with an as yet un-renewed world. This hope doesn’t pacify us, distracting our gaze to some otherworld and so rendering us passive. No, we hope for the resurrection of the dead and the renewal of all things, so how can we sit idly by while our neighbours suffer? We hope for all things to receive the fullness of life that we glimpse in the risen Jesus, so how can we treat non-human life as expendable resources, as raw materials for our short-term projects? How can we remain content with the status quo when the regularity of the one immutable law – the law of death – has been shattered? The resurrection invites us into a grand experiment in resistance: resistance against the tyrants who wield the fear of death; resistance against the logic that says the only things of value are things with a price tag; resistance against the advertising lie that happiness lies in our next purchase; resistance against the comforting apathy of seeing my neighbour’s plight as someone else’s problem. The resurrection of Jesus, if we begin to suspect it might be true, invites us into the humble service of a suffering God and a groaning world.

"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

What if it were true? No, no: impossible. Surely an impossible dream. Better to roll over and go back to sleep. Better to ignore old wives tales. Better to enjoy some soothing religious rituals on a Sunday from a comfortable intellectual distance. It’s safer that way.

Amen.

Destroying the world's most successful killing machine

Humans killed by sharks annually: 5.

Sharks killed by humans annually: 100,000,000.

Source, based on this study and others (see comments for more).

This discrepancy points to a common feature of our predicament, the often vast gulf between our usual assumptions (sharks are a dangerous animal) and our rapidly changing situation (during my lifetime, literally billions of sharks have been killed and their populations have fallen off a cliff, declining by somewhere in the region of 90%). The fact that sharks are survivors from the Silurian period (making them roughly twice as old as the oldest dinosaurs! And there is some evidence that they may be even been around during the Ordovician) and yet our actions are having such drastic effects during the blink of a geological eye highlights just how powerful we (collectively) are. We have truly become a force of nature. I get the impression that few people have really grasped emotionally how shocking and radically novel this new situation is.

There seems to me to be a misunderstand claiming a particularly Christian character holding back such understanding, namely, the idea that it is somehow arrogant to think that puny little humans can have such large, planet-wide effects. Yet true humility is really an extension of the virtue of honesty. There is no virtue in pretending to be something other than we are. Romans 12.3 says "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought" but does not go on to say "but think of yourselves as lowly worms, capable of nothing and worth even less". Instead, the second half of the verse is "but rather think of yourself with sober judgment". Sober judgement is what is needed. We have all kinds of reasons to be humble - from dust we came and to dust we return - yet let us acknowledge that various historically novel quantitative developments over the last few decades have brought us into a qualitatively new relationship to the rest of the natural world. To do so is not arrogance, but sober judgement. And when we notice that this relationship is increasingly one of destruction, then the potential for arrogant boasting of our powers is quickly chastised.

The title of world champion apex predator, held for over 400 million years by sharks, is now ceded to homo sapiens sapiens, who will be doing well if we can make it through the next 400 years without being the cause of another mass extinction.

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Loving the Least of These: Addressing a Changing Environment

"Love does no harm to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law."

- Romans 13.10.

Last year, the US National Association of Evangelicals published a conversation piece called Loving the Least of These: Addressing a Changing Environment. It is another attempt to articulate an evangelical approach to thinking about climate change, especially as it relates to the global poor. Loving the Least of These highlights three theological reasons to care about a changing climate: (a) Love God, Care for Creation; (b) Love God, Love Your Neighbour; (c) Love God, Witness to the World. Each standing alone would be sufficient to motivate Christian response, but together they provide compelling reasons to care deeply about the effects of a changing climate.

Interspersed with vignettes from a pastor, a scientist and a development worker, the publication speaks into a social context in the USA where many evangelicals are deeply suspicious of climate science and/or of the most commonly proposed policy responses to it (it is worth carefully distinguishing these, as they are very different issues, far too often conflated). As such, it is somewhat minimal in its goals, simply speaking to those who might accept that humans play some role in the climatic changes we have already witnessed and so bear some kind of responsibility for trying to minimise the ill-effects of these on those who bear least responsibility and yet are most vulnerable to them. Similarly, the impacts focus on the bottom end of the projected range of changes (i.e. the most optimistic scenarios combining the rosiest outlooks on both emissions reduction and climate sensitivity). Higher possibilities are acknowledged, but the effects are not mentioned. This has the result of keeping the focus on the global poor, since the report explicitly assumes that rich nations will have the means to adapt successfully to the coming changes. The problem with this approach is that it invites the response: "if we can adapt because we're rich, oughtn't the focus be on adaptation rather than mitigation, and on growing the economies of the two-thirds world so that they can afford adaptation too?" Without some sense of the impossibilities of adapting to the changes that are possible, even likely, on our present trajectory, then the immediacy of the ethical response is dulled.

Let us be clear: taking into account presently agreed and aspirational emissions targets, we are still most likely on track for a four degrees plus world within the expected lifetime of my daughter. That is, a world that is on average at least four degrees Celsius warmer than it was in pre-industrial times. Over land, that means far more than four degrees (since land warms faster than oceans). The ecological, economic, social and political changes likely to be associated with such a pace and scale of climatic alteration "would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt" (IPCC, AR4, WG2 TS 5.2). That's putting it mildly.

Unless we acknowledge the full scale of the threats we face, we will continue to live in a fantasy - one with dire consequences for God's creation, our neighbours and the church's witness.

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.

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.

What shall we do? Twelve responses to converging crises

Responding to contemporary converging crises
Human society faces a series of converging crises in our economy, energy and ecology. It is very difficult to know exactly how these will interact and pan out. The depth and breadth of the problems can be overwhelming. Recently, a Christian friend asked me for personal advice as to what he can and should do to take these matters seriously. I made the following suggestions (what have I missed? Or how would you improve this list?):

1. Give thanks for the good world. There is so much going wrong with the world and yet it remains a good gift of the Creator. It is right to grieve, but a healthy grief requires the nurturing of our wonder and appreciation for the goodness of the creation that our actions are degrading.

2. Repent of the patterns of consumption and acquisition that lie behind so much of our destructiveness. Billions are spent every year in a largely successful effort to corrupt our desires, convincing us to covet the cornucopia of stuff that pours out of the world's factories. Learning contentment is at the heart of a good response, since it frees us from feeling the need to protect our toys or way of life and so enables us to focus on what is important and worth preserving (the glory of God, the welfare of our neighbour, communities of trust, the richness of God's creation, and so on). This may not end up "saving civilisation", but it helps us keep our heads when all around us are losing theirs.

3. Stay rooted in the gospel of grace, hope, peace and joy that celebrates Christ's death and resurrection so that you are free to grieve, yearn, groan and lament, that is, to pray. The temptation is to look away or harden our heart to the damage and the danger because it hurts too much.

4. Reject false hopes. We are not going to make it out of this place alive, either personally or as a society. The goal is not to secure immortality, but to love, trust and hope. Society is likely to change significantly or even radically during our lifetimes. The myths of endless growth, progress and individualism are likely to be unmasked for the illusions that they are (though this will be resisted because people hate to lose their dreams, far less to admit that their dreams were actually a nightmare). New illusions are likely to replace them. Survival is not your highest goal. Self-protection is a secondary consideration.

5. Assess your life and habitual patterns to see where your ecological footprint can be significantly reduced: eating less meat, flying less frequently or not at all, driving less or not at all, switching to a renewable energy provider, investing in insulation and local power generation, avoiding all unnecessary purchases and buying responsibly (e.g. food that hasn't been strip mining the soil, local products, durable products, and so on).

6. Invest in communities of trust. If and when things get difficult or there are significant disruptions to "normal", then people tend to distrust strangers, but to keep their friends closer. Get to know your neighbours and people in your local community. Strengthen your ties to a local church.

7. Engage organisations seeking to transition to a more resilient and less destructive society (such as the Transition Network, concerning which I'll have more to say soon).

8. Get out of debt, as far as possible. Debt is a bet that the future is going to be more prosperous than the present so that I can incur debt now and will have plenty to pay it off later. This assumption is becoming increasingly dangerous. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another (Romans 12.8).

9. Petition governments and corporations as citizens, not simply consumers. The roots of our problems are far larger and more systemic than consumer choice or personal greed. Structural changes are required to reduce the damage we are doing. Here is a good example of a letter to banks that briefly makes the case for disinvestment in fossil fuel projects on both ethical and business grounds. Such engagement may begin with petitions or letters, but it certainly needn't end there. Civil disobedience has a noble history in reforming unjust laws and practices.

10. Learn to garden or some other useful skill that you can share with others and which keeps you grounded in the material basis of our existence.

11. Keep learning more about the world and its problems and opportunities. We live in a novel period historically and we currently have the benefit of a large and growing body of research into these matters. Having some idea of the major threats and what they might mean for you, your community, your society and the world helps to orient your practical reason and will make you a more responsible citizen and neighbour.

12. Proclaim the good news, using every means you have, that Jesus is the true and living way, the dawn from on high that has broken upon us who live under the shadow of death and ecological disruption, and which guides our feet in the way of peace.

Surrendering to God?

"For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

- Galatians 5.1.

Over the last couple of years, I have increasingly been struck by the frequency with which certain kinds of Christian discourse (not least many contemporary worship songs) refer to the idea of our "surrendering" to God. The more I have noticed this, the more it has started to ring false in my ears.

To surrender is to cease resistance and to submit to a hostile power generally after losing all prospect of victory. It is done in order to survive, or to bring to an end a hopeless conflict and so to salvage what remains (especially one's life) from further destruction. But the victory of God is not over us, in order that we might become slaves, giving up our freedom in exchange for survival. If we are going to use metaphors of warfare, conflict and victory, then it is important to note that the New Testament speaks in this way of God's triumph over the powers of evil, sin and death in Christ. God does not beat us into submission, he defeats the powers that hold us captive, liberating us to experience an increase in our agency. We are set free to love. This what Paul means when he speaks of being set free from slavery to sin and becoming a "slave" to righteousness (Romans 6.18). "Slavery" to righteousness is not a straightforward parallel to slavery to sin (as Paul acknowledges in the very next verse: Romans 6.19). The switch of masters is from a dominating tyrant to a loving Father who wants us to grow up into maturity.

What is the problem with getting this metaphor confused? Why is it an issue to speak of our surrendering to God? First, because it implies that becoming a Christian is a process of moving from greater to lesser freedom. Prior to surrendering, I was free, but I gave that up in order to prevent a greater power from destroying me utterly. This is to get things upside down. Being rescued from the power of darkness and being brought into the kingdom of the Son is to be brought out into a wide space, not placed into a cell. It is to regain the power of action, that is, the possibility of acting in faith, hope and love as an expression of true humanity, to be freed from the constrictions of selfishness and fear, guilt and impotence. In other words, ethics is good news.

Second, to think of Christian discipleship as unthinking submission ("surrender") to an externally imposed (or even willingly received) divine will is to misconstrue the nature of Christian maturity. We are to be adults in our thinking. Following Christ doesn't mean losing the messy complexity of the world for black and white simplicity, it doesn't mean that every choice becomes obvious and straightforward, that every situation becomes morally perspicuous. This is one of the dangerous attractions in the language of "surrender": that all my quandaries will be resolved through someone telling me what to do again. I can once more be a child whose decisions are made for me. I can regress to irresponsibility.

Third, if our lives are surrendering to God, then what place is there for wisdom? God does not simply give us a list of do's and don't's that we either accept (surrender to) or reject. He guides us in a true and living way, a path of peace, in which we are to walk. This wisdom requires that we pay close attention to the world around us, to ourselves and to the opportunities available at this time.

Do not get me wrong. Following Christ requires the denial of self (Mark 8.34), indeed, dying to oneself, an end to the rebellious self that seeks to live without God. Perhaps in this sense we can speak of a surrender, an end to the impossible quest for self-sufficiency. But this "death" is the prelude, perhaps even the necessary condition, to a "resurrection" in which our whole being is renewed and transformed. This process includes our minds, which are not switched off or put onto autopilot.

Obedience to the will of God is not a matter of a struggle between a human and a divine will and the former being conquered by the latter through sheer force. Instead, obedience in the scriptures is sharing the same mind (Philippians 2.5), being wooed by love to seek a unity of purpose. Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14.15). This isn't a threat or emotional manipulation. It is a description of the nature of love, particularly when one realises that in the context of the farewell discourse where Jesus makes this statement, his commandment is to love one another (John 13.34-35). Love obeys, that is, continues to participate in love, because that is the nature of true love.

In sum, Jesus isn't recruiting impressionable minds who simply swallow and regurgitate his teaching. He wants friends who understand him, who know what he was doing and seek to participate thoughtfully and creatively in that mission.

"I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."

- John 15.15.

Why Christians willingly pay taxes...

...and other stories
Why Christians willingly pay taxes: Brad makes a very interesting suggestion for how to read the passage in Romans 13 that speaks about submission to the authorities. Surprisingly, he reads it in the context of chapter 12 and the second half of chapter 13.

Do no evil?: Google dodges over US$3 billion in tax each year.

The Tea Party: an opinionated view. "It would be inaccurate to say the Tea Partiers are racists. What they are, in truth, are narcissists."

Eat less meat: is it so difficult? There is an argument to be made that meat from factory farms is meat offered to idols. But that's an argument for another day.

Things Obama has done. Of course, not all these are unambiguously good and he's done (or not done) plenty of disappointing things as well. He's not the messiah, but neither is he the anti-Christ.

Shades of green: how do we respond to ecological degradation?

Ecological concern is a broad movement, containing much diversity. In my previous post, I mentioned Northcott's account of three approaches to ecological ethics: ecocentric, anthropocentric and theocentric. These refer to the underlying logic of different approaches to ecological ethics.

But there are other ways of categorising the field that might supplement Northcott's suggestion. One categorisation I've also found helpful is to consider the different kinds of responses that are commonly seen. Following a taxonomy coined by Alex Steffen, let us call them light green, bright green and deep green. As with the previous categories, these are tendencies rather than mutually exclusive options. And as with the three approaches mentioned previously, I believe we require elements of all three in a healthy response, since each on its own is insufficient.

Light green
Light green ecological activism assumes that the most effective response begins by winning hearts and minds. Given sufficient information and perhaps some persuasion and attractive exemplars, individuals will understand the necessity and/or benefits of making lifestyle, behavioural and consumer changes. No large political change is required, simply a gradual raising of awareness. Where the people lead, the politicians will follow.

At its best, light green responses place an emphasis on personal responsibility and the necessity of a change of heart to sustain any change of life. The light shade of this green could be read as a reference to an optimism about the human capacity for change in the light of new knowledge, viz. the freedom to repent, or it might refer to the moral superiority of choosing light over darkness.

But the lightness of this shade could also be read as lightweight, lacking in seriousness. At its more fatuous end, consumer choice is the name of the game. If it has "eco" in the label, then buying it will help the planet (ignoring the fact that it might help things more if I were not to buy anything most of the time). As long as the consumers have good information about their personal ecological footprint and products are clearly labelled, then we can rely on the sensible lifestyle choices of individuals to transform the landscape. Light green actions may be susceptible to manipulation through corporate greenwash.

And so even earnest and well-intentioned light green activism may obscure the structural reasons why society develops the way it has, the deep and powerful economic and ideological vested interests in the status quo. It generally fails to question consumerism, merely replacing one kind of consumption for another, albeit one with a lighter footprint.

Bright green
Bright green was Alex Steffen's preferred mode. The focus here is on intelligent transformation of society through better design, technological development and more widely distributed social innovations. This approach assumes that it is possible to have your cake and eat it, that increasing human prosperity is highly compatible with ecological responsibility, that going green is not merely the lesser of two evils, but a chance to embrace a better life for all. The brightness of this green is intended to refer both to the focus on intelligent response and to the optimism concerning human ingenuity and flexibility espoused by many in this camp.

Much of the talk of "green jobs", "low-carbon economy" or "sustainable development" goes here, though these terms can and are, of course, used in government and corporate greenwash for policies pursued for other reasons. Politically, bright green activism advocates radical social and economic change. Bright greens are frequently passionate about redesigning cities (often with reference to new urbanism), transforming the economy to renewables and/or nuclear power, smart grids, electric cars (with vehicle-to-grid capabilities), techno-progressivism, closed loop materials cycles, bio and/or geo-engineering and, in general, the capacity of co-ordinated thoughtful human action to improve a situation.

At its best, bright green activism seeks constructive solutions rather than mere protest. Undoubtedly, it is possible to build a better mouse trap - to design systems, cities and even whole societies that waste less, produce more and more closely align with human and ecological well-being. Systems are indeed important; personal change is insufficient to avoid an ongoing and worsening ecological catastrophe.

Yet bright green thought can be blinded by the brilliance of its vision to two realities: human sinfulness and finitude. It is utopian, and like all utopian dreams, it can easily become a nightmare. We all have a tendency to go with the devil we know, to continue self-destructive habits, to put selfish interests before the interests of others. We are slaves to sin and without spiritual liberation, even the powers of intelligence and optimism are frustrated.

But there is perhaps an even deeper problem for bright green thought than sin, namely, the finitude of the earth and its living systems. That is, at its most euphoric, bright green thought forgets that finitude is a gift and control an illusion. Furthermore, not all human-caused damage is humanly reversible.

Deep green
This green is deep because it attempts to delve beneath the surface of which political party happens to be in power or which new technology is being developed, instead seeking after the underlying philosophical, economic and political causes of ecological degradation. The analysis of the problem is taken deeper than left vs right or the relative merits of nuclear or wind power. The problem lies not in lack of information or political co-ordination, but in industrialism, capitalism, or some foundational component of contemporary society. Like bright greens, deep greens seek radical political and social transformation, including (depending how deep they go) a rejection of consumerism, of contemporary hyper-capitalism, of the logic of the market in all its forms, of industrialism and even, in some cases, of agriculture.

Sometimes it is also called dark green, since it is frequently associated with pessimism about the possibility of sufficient change without massive disruption to human populations. Some dark greens seem to think that a major human die off is inevitable, desirable or both. Yet not all deep green thought is Malthusian, as it seems reasonable to include certain forms of steady state economics under this banner. Perhaps dark green deserves its own category.

Yet deep green is a better label for all approaches that view endless economic growth as ultimately inherently self-limiting. It echoes the term deep ecology, a philosophy that tries to avoid anthropocentrism in our understanding and appreciation of the complex community of life. Human flourishing is both entirely dependent upon and ultimately less important than the flourishing of ecosystems.

At its worst, deep green can be irresponsible or merely heartless in its embrace of the necessary misery associated with economic decline or collapse. It can be self-indulgent in a wholesale rejection of any partial solution or temporary improvement. It can be self-righteous in condemnation, futile in protest, acquiescent in despairing resignation, paralysed by apocalyptic nightmares.

Yet at its best, a deep green perspective refuses to grasp illegitimate hopes. Our all-too-human hopes must die. We need to feel how deep the roots of our predicament are: both within our own hearts (as light green affirms) and woven into the structures of society (as deep green reveals). While the life of Christian discipleship may have room for what Barth calls little hopes, these are only possible once we have crucified any other great hope outside Christ.

Brown
And of course, some people remain brown, perhaps sporting merely a fig leaf of greenwash to cover their advocacy of ongoing exploitation of the creation without serious limits. There are also various shades of brown, but they all smell bad.
First image by Brennan Jacoby.

How green is God? A reply to Lionel Windsor

Is my God greener than Lionel's?
I've just come across a talk written by Lionel Windsor, whom I know and respect from my MTC days. It was published at some stage in the last 12 months by AFES's SALT Magazine under the title, "Is God green?". It can be found in five parts: #1, #2a, #2b, #3a, #3b. Having recently written a similar kind of piece for the same publication, it was interesting to note how much overlap our pieces had. His was longer, more conversational and an easier read but I'd say we agree on about 90% of the theological and ethical content.

We agree on the goodness of creation distinct from human usefulness, on the depth of human sinfulness and its effects on ecological health,* on the distinction between treating symptoms and treating the underlying disease, on the centrality of Christ and his death and resurrection for any theological discussion of treating this disease, on the universal (not merely human) scope of Christ's redemptive action, on the church as the first fruits of a redeemed humanity, on the anticipatory nature of Christian discipleship, on the impossibility of our actions "saving the world", on the significance of eschatology and God's future judgement and renewal in ecological ethics, on the aptness of yearning and active waiting, on the endurance of love and the passing away of the present form of the world,** on the cruciality of gospel proclamation and probably on much else as well.
*I think his analysis of the links between ecological destruction and human sin could be extended into social structures that give our greed, pride, apathy and so on extra momentum, and make some of these issues "built in" to the way we collectively and habitually do things.
**I would phrase certain sections of his talk quite differently and also emphasize the continuity of the resurrected body with the corpse - that it is this body that is resurrected and transformed, not some replacement for it - and so also expect a measure of continuity between the renewed creation and the old. Though since Lionel is happy to speak of creation being perfected and makes reference to Paul's seed analogy in 1 Corinthians 15, I don't think we're really too far apart here.

Our differences (such as I can discern from a single article and I apologise if I've misread him) seem to revolve around two issues. First: the relationship of ecological catastrophe to divine judgement. Lionel says,

"[T]he judgement day will not come before God is ready. So if you think that the human race will wipe itself off the face of the map through environmental disasters, then that is actually an arrogant attitude. Final judgement is God's job. Right now, God is keeping the world until he is ready to judge. We can’t wipe ourselves out because God will not let that happen until he is ready to judge us!"

He seems to imply that divine judgement is limited purely to the final judgement, whereas I think that the unveiling of God's wrath against human folly is already evident today in our being handed over to the consequences of our own greed and stupidity as discussed in Romans 1. Thus, ecological catastrophe can already be understood as manifestation of God's judgement in allowing us to experience the destructive effects of our search for invulnerability. We taste our own medicine and find that it is poison; we have to lie in the bed we have made. So, Lionel's contrasting of ecological catastrophes with divine judgement in order to avoid misunderstanding of eschatological judgement masks their present connection. I suspect, however, he may well be entirely happy with this nuance.*
*UPDATE Lionel has clarified that he was here only referring to final judgement and quite rightly pointed out that he discusses my concern in part 2a. My apologies for not re-checking my point.

But there is a further claim being made here, even about the day of eschatological judgement, namely, that human actions will have no part in bringing it about (even inadvertently). To my mind, the fact that the timing of the day of judgement is in the hands of God and so is hidden from human knowledge (two common scriptural themes) doesn't necessarily mean that God might not use human instruments in bringing about an end to human history. God's actions are frequently mediated by imminent agents and the images used of ultimate judgement are, I take it, largely metaphorical, such that its actual shape is not known in advance, only its inevitability and decisiveness (amongst other things). But Lionel seems to see final judgement as God's exclusive prerogative without any human instrumentality (apart from Christ the judge, of course).

And this means that Lionel is confident that, try as we might, we can't wipe ourselves out. I am not so sure. Certainly, we can so damage the living systems on which we thoroughly rely that our civilisation and way of life falls apart (whether quickly or slowly). Indeed, we can do this through the speedier nuclear option as well as the slightly delayed ecological route. Can we entirely "wipe ourselves out", presumably meaning the extinction of the human race as a whole? At a practical level, I don't see that it beyond our present power and theologically I see no promises that this cannot happen. This doesn't mean we thereby escape judgement, or that all hope is lost, because even if we entirely destroy ourselves, God can raise the dead. Suicide is no way out, either individually or collectively. The closest I think we see to a scriptural expectation of humanity's continued existence until final judgement is Paul's comment in 1 Corinthians 15 that "we shall not all sleep, though we shall all be changed" (a comment also applicable to babies, by the way). However, even this is not decisive as I think Paul's point is that death is not a necessary route to the kind of transformation of which he speaks. That Paul does not mention the possibility of the self-destruction of the entire human race may have more to do with a pre-industrial imagination not yet shaped by the staggering increase in human agency that has come in the modern era than with a divine promise of the imperishability of our species.

But the point is a minor one, and I don't place much weight on it. It is enough that we certainly have the power to wound ourselves grievously, to decimate the possibility of life on earth and shatter or erode the conditions under which our society is possible. And while these may not have ultimate significance, their penultimate import is weighty indeed.

The second, and I suspect more important, difference concerns the relation of the good to the best, or of deeds of love with words of love. Lionel paints a moving picture of composting out of love for neighbour, or even lobbying the G8 for the same reason. But then he places such activity in direct competition with "speaking the word of the Lord to others", and implies that doing one means the inability to do the other. They are competitors to my limited time and energy:

"But what is the greatest labour in the Lord? Compost heaps take time. Lobbying G8 leaders takes even more time. And we don’t have an unlimited time here on earth. Sure, these are good ideas, but how do I decide what is the most urgent thing? The primary, the greatest labour in the Lord? Isn't it to speak the word of the Lord to others? Isn't it to share Jesus with your friends and family?"

But I say, why either/or? Why not both-and? The good need not be the enemy of the best. The promotion of the gospel is not a zero sum game between words and deeds. Both are necessary; neither is sufficient. There is no conflict between loving God and his word of life for all and loving my neighbour in a dying world.

And so, despite much in common, I suspect that Lionel and I end up with somewhat different estimations of the place of ecological responsibility in Christian discipleship. My subheading was of course tongue in cheek, as though it were a matter of competition. But the differences between us are nonetheless of (penultimate) importance, since Christians have too often been too quick to sidestep the gospel invitation to love our ecological neighbours, or to relegate such matters to mere optional extras.

With these points mentioned, I warmly recommend you read his piece as a cogent introduction to an evangelical ecological theology.

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.