Fossil energy costing Australia billions in health problems

"Coal-fired power triggered lung, heart and nervous system diseases estimated to cost Australia $2.6 billion a year, while the annual health costs of pollution from oil-fuelled vehicles were put at $3.3 billion a year. Switching from vehicle transport to cycling or walking to work would reduce obesity, which would significantly reduce risk of heart disease, breast cancer and mental illness. Reductions in consumption of meat from cattle and sheep, which were big contributors of greenhouse gas in Australia, would not only reduce pollution but also reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer. The report says: "In Australia, air pollution is estimated to kill more people every year than the road toll.""

- Mark Metherell, "Health impact of rising carbon levels said to be costing $6b a year", SMH, August 2012.
H/T Peter.

So, actually, the immediate costs of our high emissions just in Australia greatly exceed $6b a year, since the first two items alone account for that. There are plenty of other fascinating figures in the report that the SMH article skips over (and it entirely ignores one whole section of the report on the benefits for natural ecosystems):

• Motor vehicle-related air pollution is believed to be responsible for between 900 and 4,500 cases of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and bronchitis each year in Australia, and between 900 and 2,000 early deaths.
• Reductions in red meat consumption in Australia from the (current) average of 100g to 50g per person per day have been predicted to reduce annual emissions from livestock by 13.3 MtCO2-e (about 22 per cent) as well as cutting the incidence of colorectal cancer by 11 per cent.
• Globally, 3.2 million deaths each year can be attributed to physical inactivity. [...] Longtitudinal studies reveal cycling for transport is associated with 30-40% lower mortality rates, and cycling and walking projects provide high value for money, with the health gains returning a benefit:cost ratio of 5:1. The likelihood of becoming obese increases by 6 per cent for each hour spent in a car each day.

Indeed, I think the SMH article missed the most politically sensitive number from the report, which is that if we simply take the public health costs of greenhouse emissions (and ignore climate costs), then the price of carbon ought to be at least $45/t CO2e, rather than the current price of $23/t CO2e. Let me repeat that: if the climate dissenters turn out to be right, and anthropogenic climate change is non-existent or not particularly injurious, it would still make sense to put a price on carbon emissions at almost double the present rate purely for the public health benefits.

And such benefits are by no means confined to Australia:

"Globally, air pollution [from coal and oil] kills 1.34 million people each year. [...] The 2012 OECD Environmental Outlook report suggests that without policy action, air pollution will become the biggest cause of environmentally-related deaths worldwide by 2050.

The report also notes that the black carbon (i.e. soot) pollution from burning biomass in poor countries kills more than two million each year "from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and pneumonia."

A somewhat similar study in the US by Harvard Medical School estimated that US public health costs of burning coal (it didn't even look at petroleum) run into the hundreds of billions annually. Total externalities for coal were estimated at between 300 and 500 billion dollars annually. If the price of coal-fired electricity included these costs (as it ought, in a well-designed economic system), coal no longer looks "cheap". It is cheap only to the moment you burn it, then it is nothing but costs.

Another report from the EU found that reducing carbon emissions 30% from 1990 levels by 2020 could save €80b annually in public health costs alone. For comparison, Australia's carbon scheme will actually see our emissions still rise between 1990 and 2020, though we use 2000 as our benchmark in order to hide this fact. And remember, all these studies are looking at countries with semi-decent pollution controls already. China and India's costs - burning much dirtier coal with little pollution control - are measured in millions of lives lost, shortened and worsened.

Two gripes with the SMH article:

1. It is criminal that online newspapers do not provide direct links to reports on which they are reporting. Here is the report in question.
2. The headline is misleading, not only in lowballing the true figure, but also in saying these are the costs of "rising carbon levels". The article makes clear they are the immediate health costs of burning dirty fossil hydrocarbons. The climate costs are likely to be much, much greater, but they are harder to get a handle on (either statistically or emotionally) because they are deferred and operate through highly complex causal chains.

However we slice it, the practice of burning fossil hydrocarbons has huge implications. There are all kinds of ways we can easily and quickly reduce our reliance on them, and taking such first steps is a no brainer even in the absence of climate concerns. When we acknowledge the shared understanding of 19 national science academies of OECD nations (which is contradicted by no scientific body of national or international standing in the world) that our greenhouse emissions are dangerously altering the climate then the demands of justice and prudence call us further than just the easy and obvious reductions. We should have started many decades ago, but today is better than tomorrow.

Ecological legalism and Christian freedom

Some questions: What is your carbon footprint? How does it compare to the global average? To the global required average? And what are you doing to reduce it?

Dig beneath the surface of ecological issues and for many people, apart from fear, the second most significant factor driving our responses is guilt. So much of the discourse around ecological responsibility has the feel of a new legalism, a set of norms available to external quantification and verification that can at best provide useful guidance and at worst either crush motivation or provide an open door to self-righteous superiority (depending on the size of one's footprint). Indeed, the whole concept of an ecological or carbon footprint is ripe for interpersonal comparison and when linked to moral judgements of the necessity of reducing it, the full range of contemporary ecological psychoses becomes manifest: holier-than-thou accusation, desperate performance, pious self-denigration, tokenistic conformity, resentful rejection, weary indifference, paralysing despair.

If we are nonetheless to take our ecological concerns seriously (as the scriptures, reason and a passing familiarity with our present condition suggest), then do we have to live with such legalism? Of course not.

Basically, we need a way to talk about the good life to which Christ calls us that speaks in the tones of grace not law (apart from the law of love). This good life may well often look like taking up a cross and denying myself, but I walk it in hope and faith that the path of love is ultimately the path of life, even if I have to wait for God to raise the dead to see it.

We are set free by Christ to live as servants of God and neighbour. This is the only path to life, and at times it can feel narrow, and yet the content is actually quite flexible. Andrew Cameron speaks of the ethical life as being like a river - there is a strong current in one direction (love), but within that, there is water moving in all kinds of ways, at different speeds and so on. Yet there are still river banks. This is his attempt to speak of how the scriptures can be quite specific in their prohibitions ("do not lie"), but general in their exhortations ("love your neighbour").

The question for us as Christians seeking to follow Christ amidst a world of ecological degradation is therefore: what is the space of Christian ecological freedom? Where are there hard lines that we ought not cross? And, much more importantly, how do we talk about (and live) the strong current of love? Complicating matters is the fact that many aspects of our ecological crises are cumulative, involving too much of an otherwise good thing, rather than the commission of acts that are in themselves always wrong. In this way, I think that ecological irresponsibility has a somewhat similar structure to drunkenness, or gluttony. I may know that once I have had ten drinks, then I am in disobedience to the warnings of scripture against inebriation, but there is not necessarily a line we can draw in the sand and say that up to this many drinks is I am simply enjoying the fruit of the vine. Perhaps legal blood alcohol limits for driving might give us a ballpark estimate, and perhaps contraction and convergence models of carbon reductions (applied on a per capita basis for our nation) might give us a ballpark estimate for our the path of our personal carbon footprint goals, but the law of the land is always going to be both too precise and too blunt an instrument for forming the mind of Christ within us.

If our goal is defined too narrowly in terms of certain emissions levels or atmospheric concentrations or personal footprints, then the complex world of goods and the discernment required to navigate it can become oversimplified. Even amidst the grave perils we face, Christian obedience is a path of freedom and joy, of trusting the goodness of God under the weight of a cross, of dying to self and receiving new life being granted as a gift.

Some better questions: How does new life in Christ lead into delightedly sharing my neighbour's burdens? In what ways are my neighbours threatened by ecological degradation? Which parts of my life and the life of my community contribute to this path of destruction? How can I discover new patterns of thankfulness, contentment and engagement to express the abiding peace I have received from Christ and the deep concern for my neighbour this grants me?

Joined-up Life: A Christian account of how ethics works

"[Jesus] wreaked the best kind of havoc wherever he went. He upset everyone’s moral categories all the time. To the law-stickler he said, go and discover some compassion (Luke 14.3-5). To the equal-rights activist he said, challenge your inner greed (Luke 12.13-15). To those who valued self-fulfillment he said, learn some faithfulness (Matthew 19.3-6); and to the seeker after self-improvement he said, learn from kindness (Matthew 19.16-21). To the goal-oriented security-seeker he said, lose yourself in Gods abundant creation (Luke 12. 22-34). To those wanting righteous judgement on others he said, stop it (Luke 9.52-55). To evaders of righteous judgement he said, wake up (Luke 13.1-4). For those deserving righteous judgement he prayed, forgive them (Luke 23.34).

"He upset moral categories everywhere, yet he inhabited the most joined-up life imaginable. So Christians orient themselves to he cosmos ‘in him’. Anything less – any adherence to some other code, set of values, consequences, principle or philosophy – would relegate Jesus merely to becoming a fellow traveller within that code or philosophy. That would be a horrendous error, because we would then miss all the signals that he’s the human who knew how to be human. We would miss the opportunity for him to induct us into true humanity."

- Andrew Cameron, Joined-up Life: A Christian account of how ethics works
(Nottingham: IVP, 2011), 315.

Having recently got my hands on a copy of Andrew Cameron’s new book, I have rediscovered in its pages many of the reasons why I found him to be an insightful, careful, refreshing and stimulating teacher at college.

This text is a very useful and readable introduction to what is usually called ethics (though perhaps can simply be called "navigating life"): what it is, how it works, how it has been approached in the past and what Jesus has to do with it. The book is divided in forty-seven bite-sized chapters that can stand alone for those who wish to dip in, or which can also be read consecutively in a picture that gradually comes together.

These chapters are grouped into seven sections. In the first, Cameron walks us through basic ethical approaches, which he summarises as rules, rights, values and results. Each has something to contribute, but each fails to provide a comprehensive framework for finding our way in life.

The second section explores a number of ways in which our moral map is more complex than it may at first appear; our social context, our own desires, human frailty and the complexity of a world filled with myriad good things combine to refuse easy answers. Ethics is not obvious and we need help if we are not to get lost amidst it all.

The third section turns to the centre that holds together and surpasses rules, rights, values and results: the human life of Jesus. Tracing his story, Cameron argues that here we find a life that hangs together, a cohesive and compelling life, a joined-up life amidst the complexity and fragmentation of our world. This doesn't mean easy answers, but it does give a central point of reference to all our ethical thinking and practice.

Fourth comes five fundamental poles of reference to guide us amidst the intricacy and confusion: the character of God, created order, divine commands, Christian hope and community shaped by Jesus. None are sufficient, but each contributes to our navigation through life's twists and turns.

The final three sections turn again to the specifics of our lives, illustrating and applying the theological orientation developed in sections three and four to the complex situations outlined in section two. Since I have only dipped into these sections so far, I won't attempt to say much more about them here.

The great strength of this book is precisely its refusal to discover or establish a single unifying framework or concept by which to live our lives other than the person of Jesus and his life. The irreducible complexity of the moral challenges we face (and this doesn't just mean the familiar "hard cases" trotted out in every introductory ethics course but also them variegated patterns and texture of daily life) elude analysis based on a single interpretive key. Jesus is what holds it together, but this doesn't require the reduction of every problem, question or opportunity for action to a predetermined framework.

Readers may find points of disagreement with Cameron's suggested applications and expeditions into the jungle of life, though also hidden treasures. And disagreement itself becomes less threatening when we acknowledge the sheer breadth of goods we are trying to keep our eyes on.

Honest and humble in tone, this book invites us to face the reality of our inability to find a perfect path through our days. We are not given a map with a birds-eye view, simply a companion to share the journey.

The vulnerable future of large cities

"We often think of future wars in apocalyptic terms - nuclear weapons slamming into city centres and such like. But our modern cities are so brittle that far less spectacular attacks could bring them to ruination. In this they are very different from the London that withstood the blitz. Today's cities rely upon highly sophisticated and easily disrupted technology to deliver water, goods, fuel and power to populations of ten million or more, in a just-in-time manner. Imagine a city like New York or London without a functioning electricity grid. People living in high-rise buildings would probably be trapped. With water pumps not working, both the removal of sewage and the supply of clean water would immediately become problems. Communications would be cut, traffic flows and rail services paralysed, and with no refrigeration food would quickly spoil. At night the streets would be plunged into darkness. Local generators might keep hospitals and other vital infrastructure going for a while, but within weeks the city would have to be abandoned. Where would the millions go? If the disruption were sufficiently prolonged it's fair to question whether the city would ever be reoccupied."

- Tim Flannery, Here on Earth: An argument for hope
(Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2010), 230.

Having rejected the apocalyptic image of the nuclear device detonating over a city centre, Flannery nonetheless indulges in an equally apocalyptic image of an immediate and irreversible cessation of an entire megacity's electrity grid lasting weeks or longer. While his point about the vulnerability of large modern cities with complex supply chains is probably quite valid, his example is far-fetched and insufficiently justified. What could cause such an event? As far as I am aware, no megacity is supplied by a single power station. No megacity grid has a single central and irreplaceable piece of infrastructure. No megacity with a major blackout would not have an army of hundreds or thousands of workers to attempt to fix such a problem as soon as it arises. Most high-rise buildings have fire stairs and emergency exits. Even the bleakest (non-nuclear) post-apocalyptic future would see the ruins of the great cities as vast depositories of resources. Medieval huts were built amongst (and from) the ruins of ancient Rome.

Flannery's illustration itself illustrates a lack of imagination in contemplating a more difficult future. Very large cities already face a range of problems in which they struggle under the weight of their own complexity and this is highly likely to increase in the bumpy decades ahead. No city prior to the widespread exploitation of fossil fuels supported a population much above a million. The fate of megacities in a world of increasingly expensive energy is unclear. However, the kind of scenario that Flannery paints is a lazy shorthand for the incredibly complex series of questions faced by political authorities, communities and individuals as our largest infrastructure investments - our cities - become increasingly problematic. The staggering sunk cost that cities represent means that decline or abandonment will likely be piecemeal rather than sudden.

Sunk costs of existing infrastructure also provide a very high incentive to make things work. For instance, in a future where just-in-time agribusiness-to-supermarket supply chains become less reliable and so threaten food security, I doubt it would take long for suburban lawns to be converted to gardens.

Even great catastrophes such as that experienced by New Orleans in 2005 do not suddenly wipe a city clear of inhabitants. It may well be the case that the population never recovers to pre-Katrina levels as the cost of building levees will rise faster than sea levels, making more and more of the city uninhabitable. And the precise conditions faced by each city are unique. Not every coastal city is as threatened as New Orleans by rising seas.

Whether it is wise to live in a very large city is a complex question. Yet such judgements are not aided by visions of the future based on simplistic assumptions or apocalyptic nightmares.

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.

The collapse of complex societies: Joseph Tainter

Joseph Tainter wrote the classic text on societal collapse, called The Collapse of Complex Societies in 1988. Tainter is an archeologist who wanted to answer the question why human history has been characterised by ever-increasing social complexity punctuated locally by periods of rapid shifts back towards greater simplicity (i.e. collapse). His answer is simple yet profound: societies become more complex to solve their problems, yet investments in increasing complexity yield declining marginal returns, until the increasing marginal costs of greater complexity becomes enough of a liability that collapse (shifting to a simpler society) becomes the best way of solving the problem. That is, there is point where greater investment in complexity actually makes things worse.

In this interview, Tainter applies his theory to perhaps the best known societal collapse in history: the Western Roman Empire. And then to the most complex society in history: ours. Compelling listening; God has made no promises of civilisational survival.
Sam Norton has written a very useful summary and review of the book here.

Why I am neither left nor right: where I stand politically

Christians and partisanship
In the comments of a recent post, I claimed that I was a Christian "who was neither left nor right".

As a result, a friend wrote to me expressing concern that I was perhaps being disingenuous about my loyalties considering various experiences and conversations we'd shared in which I'd been critical of one "side" of Australian politics and supportive of the other. My friend encouraged me to be upfront about where I am coming from politically and so I thought I would take the opportunity to do so, if for no other reason than to give a little more context for any comments I might make on policy or party-political issues from time to time.

When I said that I was a Christian who was neither left nor right, I meant it. I didn't mean that I have no political opinions or am apolitical, but that I generally try to be non-partisan for what I believe are good theological reasons.

As a disciple of Jesus, my political allegiance is to him alone. He has received all authority in heaven and on earth from the Father and so all political authorities that remain in this present age have been put on notice. What authority they have is derivative from his and is strictly temporary. Their jurisdiction is similarly limited. And Christians may not place in them anything other than small and provisional hopes, nor expect of them anything other than partial victories and defeats in a world marred by sin and indeed should expect them sometimes to resemble the powers and principalities arranged against God. So any identification by a Christian with a political cause will be under these caveats.
Or, to put this another way, it may come as no surprise that I broadly agree with my PhD supervisor Oliver O'Donovan. For a decent summary of some of his key ideas, see this essay by Andrew Errington, which is Andrew's work but draws upon O'Donovan fairly extensively.

Neither right nor left
I reject being straightforwardly labelled as "left" or "right" for two reasons, one philosophical and one theological. First, I don't think that the spectrums of left/right or conservative/progressive are particularly useful conceptual tools for discussing a political field that has more than one dimension. At best they are a commonly-accepted shorthand, but they often obscure as much as they reveal. The two-party system that dominates politics in Australia, the US and the UK (the three arenas with which I am most familiar) generally simplifies all issues to two positions. Sometimes these two positions are actually very close to one another, but this is hidden by constant focus on their slight distinctions. This represents a (perhaps partially inevitable) dumbing down of political discourse and debate and is not helped by mainstream media sources that are more interested in profit than accuracy or nuance.

But more importantly, speaking theologically and ethically, none of the parties of which I'm aware manifestly represents the cause of the gospel. Each holds positions and priorities that as a Christian I find disappointing, disturbing or repulsive. Furthermore, neither the agenda of the "left" nor the "right" can be entirely adopted or entirely demonised by thoughtful followers of a crucified and risen king. Both contain worthwhile attempts to defend aspects of the good creation. In a world of complex goods, there will rarely be policies that are unambiguous expressions of justice, truth and the common good. By the same token, the parasitic nature of evil means that even the worst policies will lay claim to some good thing, even if, in seeking to defend it, they trample other (and perhaps more important) goods. When the complexity of the moral and political field is combined with human sinfulness and the impossibility of any leader (other than Jesus) being the Messiah,* then no party or "side" can claim the obvious, exclusive, permanent or total commitment of Christians.
*Indeed, some of my longer blog pieces have been critiquing implicit messianism, whether associated with leaders or nations. Here is one example and here is another.

Consequently, voting is only ever possible while holding one's nose. I've rarely voted with much confidence and never without some degree of regret, often quite deep. And remember, voting is only the tip of the iceberg when considering what makes for a healthy political authority. But if and when you do vote, it ought to be done thoughtfully and out of concern for neighbour.

Politics and love
Indeed, all Christian political activity (which may begin with voting, but is not at all limited to it) is a response to the royal law of love - love for God and neighbour. This is also what prevents political apathy or disengagement, or a total retreat into cynicism. To write off the political authorities as irrelevant, uselessly corrupt or ubiquitously anti-Christ frequently means to abandon one's neighbour to the strongest or sneakiest bully. Of course, political engagement is neither the start nor the end of the love command, and it is a task that falls on the church community as a body, in which different members may play different roles. It is not the case that every member needs to be equally well informed or passionate about every political matter.

A significant part of Christian political responsibility will be warning political authorities when they are overstepping their jurisdiction, or when they are neglecting to protect the vulnerable and uphold justice. And so part of this task is unavoidably critical. But it is also important to seek ways forward, to offer creative suggestions, to pursue the best that it is currently possible to achieve, to engage in the often messy and always imperfectible pursuit of justice. And so it may be the case that some Christians will be called into seeking elected office, into partial and provisional loyalty to a party or cause for the sake of the common good. Being a Christian ruler is not necessarily oxymoronic.

My recent political activity
On my blog I have made positive comments about a variety of political parties and individuals and not all on one "side". I have supported particular campaigns by various groups who in some cases identify as either "progressive" or "conservative", but this doesn't mean I endorse everything they do.

I don't think that I have ever campaigned on my blog for a particular party or individual, but even if I have (or do so in future), this would represent a provisional and highly fallible position based on my evaluation of current needs and opportunities.

I am not claiming to be a swinging voter (though I have voted for various parties at various times) nor to be a centrist (though, like the "left" and "right", it has some good points). I am not saying that I have no preferences or sit on the fence.

At different times I have written to MPs, councillors, government and shadow ministers and prime ministers of many parties (in a number of countries) seeking to put forward particular policies, offer praise and humbly present criticism. Always I have promised to pray for them and I try to keep that promise.

At times I have expressed frustration at how common it is in some circles to assume that Christian discipleship entails partisan political conservatism (though I am just as frustrated by the opposite assumption, it is simply a little less prominent at this point in history). I have argued against the idea that most issues have a single and obvious Christian position; I think that it is possible for biblical Christians of goodwill and honesty to disagree on the policies that will best uphold and pursue justice. I reject the assumption that only certain issues are "Christian", or that there are a small range of issues (generally to do with sexuality) on which Christians ought primarily or exclusively to base their voting and other political activity. And, perhaps quite obviously, I believe that there are some issues (such as ecology) that Christians have generally not paid enough attention to.

So if you had me pegged, pigeonholed or stereotyped, I hope that this helps to clarify where I do (and don't!) stand politically. I am not trying to hide anything; I am sorry if I have not always been sufficiently clear on these matters.
UPDATE: a slightly modified version of this post has been included on the CPX site as part of their election coverage.

Life too complex?

" [...] the best place to start backing away from an overload of complexity is in the daily life of the individual. What sustains today’s social complexity, in the final analysis, is the extent to which individuals turn to complex systems to deal with their needs and wants. To turn away from complex systems on that individual level, in turn, is to undercut the basis for social complexity, and to begin building frameworks for meeting human needs and wants of a much simpler and thus more sustainable kind. It also has the advantage – not a small one – that it’s unnecessary to wait for international treaties, or government action, or anything else to begin having an effect on the situation; it’s possible to begin right here, right now, by identifying the complex systems on which you depend for the fulfillment of your needs and wants, and making changes in your own life to shift that dependency onto smaller or more local systems, or onto yourself, or onto nothing at all – after all, the simplest way to deal with a need or want, when doing so is biologically possible, is to stop needing or wanting it."

- John Michael Greer

How much freedom do we have to simplify our lives? It depends how strong our desire for simplicity is. As I said yesterday, sometimes less really is more. What couldn't you live without?

Thesis question articulation VI: Moral attentiveness

Moral attentiveness: part two
Series begins back here.
Uniting all three responses is a deep fear of loss and death. Facing this predicament may be the first time some people are faced with their own mortality and impotence to prevent loss. But the threat is broader than personal demise or suffering; broader even than family and loved ones also being in danger. If the present form of society comes to an end or undergoes radical transformation to a lower level of complexity, then the loss encompasses an entire cultural identity: familiar places and rituals; narratives that make sense of the world; feelings of belonging; a sense of self.

Part of what justifies the negative evaluation of these responses is the deleterious effect they have on the clarity of moral attentiveness. I am drawing here on some of Professor O’Donovan’s recent work articulating the character of moral thought as attentiveness. He argues that there is a process of moral awakening in which we are called to pay attention in order to understand and respond well. We must pay close attention to our situation in the world, to the time in which we live, and to ourselves as moral agents lest our actions fail to grasp the goods that lie before us.

Therefore, the topic speaks of attentiveness rather than merely attention. Everyone pays heed to this or that at various times and so attention can simply refer to the latest distraction. Attentiveness, on the other hand, is a habitual disposition, a comportment of coherent focus. Moral attentiveness is a way of being in the world that seeks to understand action.

The focus of moral vision is not generally helped by apocalyptic fears of the imminent end of society (at least as we know). On the contrary, social breakdown is often imaged to mean the suspension of morality for the sake of survival. An aphorism attributed to Mao Tse Tung articulates this widespread sentiment: “Food before ethics”. In other words, survival is the highest good, coming before all other moral considerations. Perhaps particularly when the situation is not simply personal survival, but the dynamic interaction between personal survival and the continuation of society, then the possibility of moral thought declines further. When collective survival is at stake, all other bets are off and all means justify that overarching end.

Indeed, Hans Jonas has made this the centre of his ethics of responsibility. This is the one truly categorical imperative: to keep human society alive. To this, all other ethical impulses, principles and insights are to submit (including the impulse to protect one’s own life). This is one way of attempting to avoid the panicked fragmentation of moral thought in the face of grave societal danger, but in the end it treats all other ethical norms as distractions from the single unifying survival imperative.

This project seeks a different and more nuanced kind of coherence through relativising the importance of survival (both personal and societal), believing that moral attentiveness is a more complex (and important!) phenomenon than merely the pursuit of continued existence.

The reasons for rejecting the false coherence of survivalism and the possibility of a different kind of coherence are found in the term modifying moral attentiveness.
This post is part of a series in which I am outlining my current research question. My present working title, which this series seeks to explain, is "Anxious about tomorrow": The possibility of Christian moral attentiveness in the predicament of societal unsustainability.
A. Societal unsustainability: part one; part two
B. Predicament: part one; part two
C. Moral attentiveness: part one; part two
D. Christian: part one
E. Possibility: part one
F. Summary: part one

Someone's been reading my blog...

The threat posed by climate change and environmental degradation tends to make us think about survival and look for solutions that will guarantee survival. That's a reasonable response to any threat; but the sheer complexity of this situation and the continuing uncertainty about some of the precise detail (how late is it? have we reached the 'tipping point?) make us especially vulnerable. We are bound to realise sooner or later that easy solutions are not at hand and that there is no one cause of the whole crisis that will allow us to point to some single scapegoat. This in turn makes us vulnerable to panic on one hand, apathy on the other, and the illusion that someone will both take the blame and assume the responsibility of finding a solution – usually meaning a series of grand technological solutions requiring massive investments of money nobody seems to have.

- Rowan Williams, "The Climate Crisis: Fashioning a Christian Response"

Either we're both barking up the wrong tree, or we're displaying similar bark because we belong to the same tree. Either way, at least I'm not alone.

This address, given just days ago in Southwark Cathedral contains many important insights and claims. To pick just some of them, I agree with Williams that the first casualty of ecological degradation is the human soul, that we can't damage what is not us without also damaging ourselves. And I also agree that we are in need a reality check about the meaning of being human, that we need re-examine the ways in which many of our cultural assumptions about affluence and consumption lead us away rather than towards human flourishing.

However, we depart company when he says "To be human, in the biblical world view, is to be given a responsibility for the future of life." I do not think that it is our obligation (nor, contra Williams, was it Noah's) to keep something (even ourselves) alive. We are to care for life, and respect it, and nurture it. But it is God who gives life and in the end it is also God who takes it away or preserves it. God may and does call us to a role of responsibility for one another and his good world. But to believe that we bear the full burden of the future of life is another form of human hubris, and like all hubris, it will eventually crush us.

UPDATE: I should have pointed out that Sam Norton has also been responding to the Archbishop's address here and here and we share much in common on this topic. I would affirm almost everything he says in his second post. However, perhaps the most significant difference between us would be that I believe national governments can still have a significant effect (for good and ill) on the effectiveness of the "airbag" and "seat-belts" and so national political action is not irrelevant (though it is by no means either primary or a "solution"). To shift Sam's car-off-the-cliff metaphor, perhaps if we think of a car that has lost traction and is sliding off the road, then even though a crash cannot be avoided, the actions of the driver can still make a major difference.

Losing the wood for the trees, and vice versa: or, the eschatological reconciliation of complex goods

"...evil is always the assertion of some self-interest without regard to the whole,. whether the whole be conceived as the immediate community, or the total community of mankind, or the total order of the world. The good is, on the other hand, always the harmony of the whole on various levels. Devotion to a subordinate and premature 'whole', such as the nation, may of course become evil, viewed from the perspective of a larger whole, such as the community of mankind."

- Reinhold Neibuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, 14.

In this account, evil is a failure of contextualisation, a mistaking of a part for the whole, an insufficient awakening to the complex goods of the world. There may be other aspects to an account of evil (not simply the intellect, but also our will and imagination and desire are corrupt. All evil is not simply ignorance), but this is an important point to ponder. Is my desire for some good thing actually undermining someone else's blessing? Or is the way that I am pursuing my desire making it harder for others to love life? Or perhaps even more subtly and yet disastrously, might the aggregation of many individuals pursuing their various goods diminish the common good of each?

And yet, there are still "various levels" at which the good is to be sought, noticed, preserved and pursued. It will not do simply to replace a myopic individualism with a hypermetropic collectivism. It is often difficult to see how the good of both the individual and the wider community can be attained when they come into conflict, but if life is not ultimately a competition then it is possible to attempt the creative and imaginative task of seeking an integration between apparently competing goods in hope that such a reconciliation is possible. Or, in other words, we hope for win-win situations.

Yet our grasp on what is good, on what constitutes a life truly called blessed, is fragmentary. The complexity of all the various goods in a single human life, in society and throughout the created order is too vast for any individual to comprehend. And so we continue to mistake partial goods for complete goods and even our provisional attempts at reconciliation may end up creating new injustices. We may even despair of the possibility of win-win outcomes in many situations. We may conclude that it is a dog-eat-dog world and for me and mine to do well, others must do poorly.

And so, this belief (in the non-competitiveness of human, and indeed creaturely, flourishing) is a tenet of faith, presently unseen and repeatedly thwarted by a fallen world. It is an eschatological hope for the reconciliation of all things, anticipated in Christ's earthly life and promised and inaugurated in his resurrection. And so today we seek signs and foretastes of this future reality, bearing witness to the one who is alive and brings life to all. Today is not the day to achieve this final reconciliation, but we must be content in our discontentment, eschewing utopian fantasies for the good that it is possible to do today.
Good to see that Niebuhr agrees with me.

Fish on Eagleton on Ditchkins

In the opening sentence of the last chapter of his new book, “Reason, Faith and Revolution,” the British critic Terry Eagleton asks, “Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?” His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance — science, reason, liberalism, capitalism — just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed. “What other symbolic form,” he queries, “has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?”

- Stanley Fish, "God Talk".

Michael Jensen has also been reading Eagleton's new book, in which he defends the intellectual complexity and importance of Christian theology, belief and practice (or aspects of them at least) against the new atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens (to whom he refers collectively as "Ditchkins"). Sounds like an interesting book. But I mainly put up this post for the title.

Starting with Christ: the limits of neutrality

On being a Christian fanatic

"The Christian who lives by faith has the right to justify his moral actions on the basis of his faith."

- Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Nine Propositions on Christian Ethics"
in Principles of Christian Morality (trans. Graham Harrison;
San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986 [1975]), 77.

Christian ethics (and theology more generally for that matter) does not attempt to discover a "neutral" starting point without presuppositions and build arguments from first principles. We start, as everyone always starts, in media res, in the middle of things. To leave one's beliefs and commitments behind when pursuing intellectual inquiry makes for less, not more, interesting and valid conclusions. Of course such commitments and beliefs will be revisable (the first freedom is the freedom to repent), but attempts at neutrality are nearly always simply a reversion to the background assumptions of the culture one finds oneself in. Such a supposed neutrality is thus less likely to lead to critical reflection upon the conditions of possibility of that culture and its faults and elisions than a perspective that begins unashamed of its convictions and enters into dialogue with other such interlocutors.

This has been an abstract discussion of a principle that makes more sense in the concrete. Jesus is the Christ and reflection upon our actions and ways of life (i.e. ethics) must first respond to that announcement. This can seem like too small or particular a starting point to sustain and shape the whole of life. Yet as we grow more aware of the contours of that reality and all that it encompasses, we are led deeper into the richness and complexity of our existence. In Christ, in that one word, we find the entire world and ourselves as well.

It might also seem like an irredeemably partisan commencement, from which no agreement or peace may ever be reached. This is both true, and false. It is true, because Christ makes claims upon the world and upon our lives that stand in tension with all other claims. No one can serve two masters. There are two ways to walk: one broad, one narrow. Those who are not for Christ are against him.

And yet walking the way of Christ is a peculiar kind of opposition to "the world". Christ is hostile to hostility, he takes captivity captive, he kills death, destroys destruction, opposes opposition, hates hatred, excludes exclusion; he loves the world. His is a battle in which he prefers to be killed than kill. His "party" can thus never be merely partisan. Christianity can never conceive of itself as one viewpoint amongst and against others, one religion amongst and against others, one lifestyle amongst and against others. "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood" (Ephesians 6.12). The way of Christ is a restless one, never content with the divisions and contradictions of human society, including the contradiction and division created when you simply try to dissolve such differences by a well-meaning but myopic relativism.

Therefore, the church, as the faction of Christ, can not be reduced sociologically to one cultural or political agenda. The church does not have a social program, it is not an interest group. Trusting in the God who raised Christ from the dead, it is to look not to its own interests, but to the interests of others. It embodies, and so holds out to the world, the promise of a society in which the interests and rights of one group need not be understood to be in competition with those of another. It believes and so pursues (imperfectly and provisionally) the common good.

Theology from a human point of view

"...[I]n practice, both secular and religious attempts to speak of a moral universe commonly work as strategies for responding consistently and intelligibly to the world's complexity rather than as exhaustive interpretations; which suggests that we can read the religious account as claiming that it is in learning to respond to our ultimate origins and 'calling' that we learn to respond truthfully or adequately to the world. To say that a religious discourse is 'about' the whole moral universe may be simply to say that it offers a sufficient imaginative resource for confronting the entire range of human complexity without evasion or untruthfulness; only when divorced from this context of a kind of imaginative skill does religious discourse fall into the trap of pretending to be a comprehensive system for plotting, connecting, 'fixing' and exhaustively accounting for the range of human behaviour. In other words, religious and theological integrity is possible as and when discourse about God declines the attempt to take God's point of view (i.e. a 'total perspective')."

- Rowan Williams, "Theological Integrity" in On Christian Theology, 6.

What do you think Williams has in his sights here? Who is guilty of giving up on theology as "a kind of imaginative skill" and moving into trying to establish "a comprehensive system"?

Our knowledge of ourselves, our world and God can only be from a human, creaturely perspective. The temptation to be "like God" in our knowledge of the universe arises from a fundamental mistake about what it means to be us. Even where God reveals himself in Christ, we are still given human-shaped knowledge of God. This is not to say that we have inadequate knowledge, or only a rough sketch. Jesus said "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father" (John 14.9). A faithful human response to the call of God is not merely a second-best option, all that is left to us lesser beings. On the contrary, the humility and responsiveness required of us is a reflection of the humility and responsiveness found in the heart of God manifest in Christ.