The case against growth, and other stories

The case against growth: Ted Trainer (UNSW) makes the case that very few people are taking seriously the full economic and political implications of the concept of limits to growth: "The growth problem is not just that the economy has grown to be too big, now depleting resources and damaging ecosystems. The more central problem is that growth is integral to the system. Most of the system's basic structures and mechanism are driven by growth and cannot operate without it. It is not that this society has a growth economy; it is that this is a growth society. Growth cannot be removed leaving the rest of the economy more or less as it is. Unfortunately people in the current 'De-growth' movement tend to think growth is like a faulty air conditioning unit on a house, which can be taken away and the house will function the way it did before."

Peak stuff? Fred Pearce investigates the claim that consumer societies are becoming post-industrial. Based on various metrics that have actually started to decline in many rich countries (for example, car use is waning in most developed countries), some commentators look forward to the "dematerialisation" of the economy proving the silver bullet that saves us from ourselves. As others note, however, such evidence is patchy, and fails to account for the fact that we've still got decades of massive consumption growth if the developing world is to approach our present consumer lifestyles. Even if there is a point at which such development reaches a natural plateau in per capita consumption, it is not at all clear that reaching that plateau won't involve massively overshooting various planetary boundaries (as outlined effectively in the "case against growth" above).

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Climate Change: Brad Littlejohn offers some dark humour reflecting on our obsession with novelty. Discussion in the comments ponder further about the place of novelty and humour in our ecological deliberations.

Fossil fuel glut: Much noise has been made about developments in the fossil carbon extraction business that ensure these companies are not about to go out of business anytime soon, with claims that "peak oil" is disproved or that the US will lead a fossil fuelled renaissance. The reality is that these non-conventional carbon pools are only now economically available due to a high oil price, and that unless the price stays high, they will not be extracted. So we have indeed very likely seen the end of rising production of cheap, easily accessible conventional oil. That doesn't mean we run out of oil, just that energy gets expensive, which still has all kinds of economic implications. And if we insist on remaining addicted to fossil carbon, pursuing non-conventional sources is leap out of the frying pan of energy insecurity into the fire of climate chaos.

Economic growth and ecological health: It has become popular in certain circles to argue that as countries get richer, they clean up their environmental problems and that therefore the solution to our ecological woes is to grow the global economy as fast as possible (sometimes called an environmental Kuznets curve). This piece is a sustained critique of that idea.

How Money Makes People Less Humane. Some really interesting research on the effects of money (either having it, wanting it, thinking about it or even having it subconsciously suggested) on empathy. The upshot is that, statistically speaking, money functions to disconnect us from those around us, making us less caring, less sensitive, more suspicious and more individualistic. Or, as the scriptures would say: "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6.10).

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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When history was made and other stories

The Economist: When history of made, a graph in which the historical novelty of the last six decades or so is made breathtakingly clear. H/T Michael Tobis, who offers his own reflections upon it.

SMH: Bob Brown, the most ______ man in Australia. Fill in your own adjective to complete the title of an interesting profile of a fascinating man.

Naomi Klein: Climate change, capitalism and the transformation of cultural values. Klein suggests that perhaps the insistence of the deniers that climate change implies the necessity of a left-wing cultural transformation ought to be taken with more seriousness.

Slavoj Žižek: Occupy First. Demands come later. Žižek answers the critics of the movement who claim it is a gathering of un-American violent dreamers. Speaking of Occupy (which surely deserves its own post or three at some stage), I found this summary (from a NZ perspective) useful, these images illuminating of protesters' motives and this warning (from an American in London) quite salient.

ABC: Anti-consumerism is the new democracy.

John Dickson: Art of persuasion not so simple. Dickson turns to Aristotle to gain some basic insights into how to be convincing: logos, pathos and, crucially, ethos.

Orion: The Consolations of Extinction. A reflection on how deep time affects our perception of the ongoing sixth extinction event and of our own mortality as a species.

Seven billion: too much of a good thing?

According to the best available estimates, the global human population reached seven billion individuals last Monday (give or take a few months) and continues to rise by about 10,000 each hour. We took all of human history to reach one billion around 1800. We then took a leisurely 120 odd years to reach two billion in about 1923. The third billion came in 1959 after 46 years; the fourth in 1974 after 15; the fifth in 1987 after 13 and the sixth in 1999 after 12. Since we've just taken another twelve to rise to seven billion, it may appear that human population is growing faster than ever before in history. In absolute terms, it is. The cause is not rising fertility but declining mortality. We are living longer and more are surviving childhood to raise children of their own. Yet in relative terms, we have passed our peak growth back in the 1970s. The annual rate of growth has been slowing since then as fertility rates are plummeting. Sixty years ago the average adult female gave birth to six children, now it is only two and a half. Yet sixty years ago the global average life expectancy was 48, now it is about 68, with infant mortality having declined by two thirds.

Longer, healthier lives; fewer tragic losses for parents; smaller families (largely reflecting more educated and affluent women, greater social security for the elderly and less manual labour): these are all good things. More human beings created in the image of God, more neighbours to love, more brothers and sisters for whom Christ died. This is a thing of wonder.

And yet, seven billion of us live on a single planet, with a single atmosphere, single ocean, and finite land area with limited supplies of fresh water, fertile soil and biodiverse ecosystem. Is it possible that we have too much of a good thing? For some people, this issue is "the elephant in the room" of ecological discussions (for some reason, this seems to nearly always be the phrase that is used). More mouths to feed means more food, means more land devoted to agriculture, means more forests cleared, more fertilisers disrupting the nitrogen cycle, more stress on water supplies, more trawlers scraping the bottom of the oceanic barrel, more rubbish, more carbon into the atmosphere and more demand on finite resources. We are invited to conduct a thought experiment in which every square metre of the surface of the planet contains a human: a ridiculous impossibility. So at what point do we reach too much of the wonderful thing known as homo sapiens? We love water, but too much is a destructive flood. Have we, in our enormously successful filling of the earth, now become a human inundation?

Such questions are always controversial, not least amongst Christians who (rightly) cherish children as gifts from a loving Father. But raising such questions in a simplistic manner can actually serve a dangerous hidden agenda. When you start crunching the numbers, the key figure in ecological degradation is not seven billion, since seven billion are not created equal (at least in terms of ecological impact). A single affluent Australian may have a total destructive impact on the planet that is more than one hundred or even a thousand times greater than a typical rural African. Taking carbon footprints as an example, the average US baby will be responsible for more carbon emissions in their first year of life than an average Ethiopian in their entire lifetime. The Bangladeshi with ten children may still have a far smaller drain on the planet's resources than a childless European businessman. And so, if we only look at population and ignore consumption, then the problem becomes Africa, where birth rates are highest.

Yet Africa contributes a relatively tiny share of the total demand on the earth's systems. In absolute terms and especially per capita, the developed world still bears the lion's share. Again, to pick a single statistic (which turns out to be reasonably representative of other metrics): globally, the wealthiest 11% contribute 50% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions while the poorest 50% contribute 11% (a surprising, but very memorable symmetry).

Therefore, the first issue is and must remain consumption, consumption, consumption, consumption, consumption. Or as Monbiot puts it, it's not sex, it's money. Too narrow a focus on population enables those of us who are wealthy to ignore the very real threat our lifestyles and economic system are to the planet and all its inhabitants. In some cases, a population obsession may even be a mask for xenophobic anti-immigration sentiments that have little to do with ecological concerns.

The much-feared "population bomb" is already being de-fused. As mentioned above, fertility rates have fallen rapidly across much of the globe to levels now only just above replacement (2.5 children per women; replacement is considered to be 2.1). While each billion has taken fewer years to add than the last, the rate of growth has been in decline for about four decades and the ongoing growth is largely the result of so many young people being born in the last few decades, giving the system a certain momentum. Where we end up is currently estimated to be around ten billion (give or take a billion or two, largely depending on how quickly African women receive access to adequate education and healthcare). As countries develop out of absolute poverty, first death rates decline, then birth rates, until population levels stabilise. This has been (or is currently) the experience of every nation thus far and is known as the "benign demographic transition". The demographic transition refers to the shift from high mortality and high fertility to low mortality and low fertility. It is labelled benign because it means that human populations will not continue expanding exponentially like bacteria in a petri dish (another image much loved by certain demographic doomers).

What is less often noted is that the benign demographic transition assumes that the nations currently still experiencing high fertility rates will see them decline as their affluence increases. Thus, we avoid a population explosion though a consumption explosion. The benign demographic transition may not be so benign after all if the model of development used to bring it about assumes that everyone ought to be living like us.

I do think that "the more the merrier" is true, yet on a finite planet, I believe it most prudent to pursue this diachronically, not synchronically. That is, the way to welcome the most humans onto the planet is probably not to try to do so all at once, lest we exacerbate the damage we are presently doing to the globe's carrying capacity and so reduce the possibilities of future generations. In considering this damage, population is a secondary issue, yet it is an issue nonetheless. Since we still walk a path of high consumption and great inequality (and are likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future) then efforts to slow population growth sooner rather than later are one way of reducing the damage being done to the planetary conditions necessary for human flourishing. Of course, these efforts must remain subordinated to tackling over-consumption (which is the primary issue) and never be allowed to become an excuse to shift our own weighty responsibilities onto the poor.

Ultimately, it is possible to live a flourishing life not mired in stupid poverty without it costing the earth. A good life need not be a life of high consumption. The other alternatives are to abandon any notion of justice and expect the poor to stay poor, to institute draconian population controls or to abandon any attempt to pass on an earth anything like the present one to our children. Very significantly lower per capita consumption in the rich world is the only path that enables the simultaneous pursuit of both ecological responsibility and social justice for those living in absolute poverty in a world of seven billion and rising. Fortunately, it is also the path to greater joy.

The novelty of today

"This train of thought offers us an insight into one aspect of the challenge presented by the contemporary ecological situation, its novelty. The world has never seen a phenomenon like the contemporary resource and ecological crises. There have been various patterns of ecological degradation in various cultures, but none with the constellation of features that this one presents. And we need hardly be surprised at this turn in history if we reflect on the extraordinary discontinuities that exist between late-modern society, taken as a whole, and traditional societies. To understand the contemporary ecological situation without achieving some understanding of late-modernity as a civilisational phenomenon is out of the question. But then, how can we understand late-modernity without understanding contemporary ecological crises? Can we pretend to take a reading of the spiritual condition of our ultra-technological age without reading deeply the distinctive and novel forms of emotional experience that it has generated? It does not matter whether we suppose this society and its emotional forms will be short-lived or long-lived. The point is, they are of our day; they constitute a horizon of our mission. To live in our time, as in any other, is to have a unique set of practical questions to address."

- Oliver O'Donovan, Good News for Gay Christians:
Sermons on the Subjects of the Day (7), §13.

Who knew that O'Donovan was such a radical greenie? OK, I confess I have changed a couple of words in the above quote. But only a couple. Wherever you see "ecology" (and cognates), substitute "homosexuality" (and cognates) to discover the original (which can also be found here). But my point is that the novelty of the contemporary situation is morally relevant, whether we are considering homosexuality or ecological degradation. This is likely to itself be a contentious claim amongst those who think the application of Holy Scripture to our contemporary situation is always more or less straightforward. Yet there is no need to be threatened by the observation that God's Word addresses us today. We are quite familiar with the need to translate not just out of Greek and Hebrew and into our own tongue but also out of the socio-cultural context(s) in which the scriptures were written and into our own. This is not always an easy task, but ignoring it won't make it go away. Of course, this needs to be a genuine translation that seeks to communicate the meaning of the scriptural witness, not simply the replacement of scriptural concepts, forms and ways of life for those we find more familiar or comforting.

If only I had remembered this quote in some of our supervision meetings as it may have saved a little time! Still, it good that he has been pushing me to try to articulate the nature and implications of this novelty. I will be posting more on the novelty of today's ecological situation in coming weeks. Any help on the interpretation of its theological and ethical significance would be much appreciated.

Dying birds

Some people have been getting excited about some unexplained mass avian deaths recently. Thousands of birds apparently dropped dead out of the sky. Could it signal the end of the world? Perhaps not. The likely explanation is much more prosaic: new years fireworks startling sleeping birds into flight leading to disorientation and a fatal collision in the dark.

It may turn out to be something more disturbing and newsworthy than this, but such events need to be kept in context. Human actions kill billions of birds each year, primarily through domestic cats, collisions with buildings and habitat destruction. Our collective activity represents the largest threat to other living things on the planet for millions of years.

Sometimes, we are so keen to find things that are new that we get used to living with ongoing catastrophe.

In other news, six more Australian bird species were recently declared extinct.

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.

Scared yet?

Regular readers will have noted the increased frequency with which I’ve been posting links related to the various ecological and resource crises facing contemporary industrial civilisation. Examples can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Some readers have expressed in comments or in private some concern over these posts. They wonder whether (a) I have lost hope for the world (b) whether drawing attention to such information encourages others to lose hope (c) whether drawing attention to such information is a distraction from the good news about Jesus or its replacement with an ecological gospel. In short, am I scaring people unnecessarily? Have I become an alarmist or fear-mongerer?

I write about these things and provide links because this is the world in which we live and love, where feelings of fear, guilt and impotence are both common and have some basis in reality. To ignore this fact is to remain disconnected from where people are at (and from trends that I believe are only likely to increase as the years go on). There is no virtue in ignorance. Yet our situation and these feelings are not beyond the scope of God's redemptive action in Christ. Articulating why the good news of Christ is good news today amidst ecological and resource crises is a significant part of my purpose in writing this blog.

Does this mean I think we shouldn't be scared of the threats that face us? No and yes. Many of us need to be far more alarmed than we currently are, to wake up from our comforting illusions and be roused from our apathy and confront the bleak realities of our present situation. But for those who are already paralysed by fears and cannot bear to hear any more, we need to hear again the words of the risen Christ to his friends: fear not. We need our fears put to death, not so as to leave us unfeeling and untouchable, but so that they can rise as a deep loving concern that shoulders the burdens of our neighbour's fear out of compassion and joy.

And so anxiety is indeed a common response to taking these threats seriously, as are anger and despair. Indeed, I think that a healthy response to our situation involves (for many people) some intense grief. Recognition of the scale, complexity and intractability of our predicament often means the "death" of certain cherished images of the future. Grief over lost futures can be quite real, even if the futures imagined were never really ours to claim or expect in the first place.

While the particular shape and challenges of our situations are novel in various ways, the wisdom of relinquishing idealised futures is perennial: "And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" (Matthew 6.27). This doesn't mean the silencing of the voice of concern or prudence, but the transformation of our fears from a paralysing contraction of the self in a fruitless quest for security to an expansive love for neighbour that seeks to preserve what can be kept, to grieve what will be lost, to discern what we ought to have abandoned long ago and to discover a treasure that does not fade.

How is such a transformation possible? This is where Jesus Christ has good news for us today.

Are we living in a revolutionary age?

"A good test that anyone can make when his time comes: if a man in the fullness of his days, at the end of his life, can pass on the wisdom of his accumulated experience to those who grow up after him; if what he has learned in his youth, added to but not discarded in his maturity, still serves him in his old age, and is still worth teaching the then-young, then his was not an age of revolution… The world into which his children enter is still his age not because it is entirely unchanged, but because the changes that did occur were gradual and limited enough to allow him to absorb them into his initial stock and keep abreast of them. If, however, a man in his advancing years has turned to his children, or grandchildren, to have them tell him what the present is about; if his own acquired knowledge and understanding no longer avail him; if at the end of his days he finds himself to be obsolete rather than wise, then we may term the rate and scope of change that overtook him “revolutionary”."

- Hans Jonas.

Sometimes, revolutions can happen without much attention being paid to them.
H/T Andrew Errington.

Is climate change good for us? Deutsche Bank: Nein!

A new report from Deutsche Bank (PDF) says that “Human-made climate change is already happening and is a serious long term threat.” The report runs through many of the typical sceptic talking points - it's not happening, it's not us, it's not bad - and debunks them in turn (in the style of John Cook's excellent Skeptical Science site). One of the most interesting answers concerns the common claim that since humanity has survived many climate changes in the past, there is nothing to worry about:

"Although adaptation is possible, historical shifts in climate have never occurred under conditions of such high human population numbers. Natural resources and ecosystems are already taxed and further climate perturbation is likely to be disruptive. Climate shifts in the past have frequently been accompanied by collapse of governments or extensive mortality. Increasing population pressure exacerbates the likelihood of pandemics and the destabilization of food-insecure regions can lead to failed states and threats to global security. Humans have survived numerous past changes in climate, but survival of the species is a poor measure of the true consequences and costs associated with adaptation to climate change."

The threat of complete human extinction gets too much attention in some circles. There is plenty for us to be concerned about before we reach that stage - indeed, there are 6.8 billion reasons for concern prior to getting that far.

And it is worth repeating the point that humanity has never faced a situation quite like this before; the threats are on an unprecedented scale. We have never had anywhere near this many people, with anywhere near this amount of infrastructure investments to protect, with anywhere near this level of consumption, with anywhere near this level of firepower to hurt ourselves if things turn pear-shaped geopolitically. Climate change is far from the only issue we face, but it is a threat multiplier in a world already under incredible and growing stresses. We are living in a historically novel period for all kinds of reasons and the stakes are higher than they have ever been.

What can philosophy say about ecological crises?

"The environmental dangers that now face [hu]mankind put the reflexive non-scientist in an awkward situation. He must acknowledge that he can have precisely nothing interesting to say on the two most important questions in the air, namely, 'What is going to happen to us?' and 'What should we do?' It is not from a philosopher that you stand to be enlightened.

"Which is not to invalidate the attempt to contemplate, rather than simply find a way out of, our ecological dilemmas. It remains valid to try to fathom what the idea of planetary abuse has done to our minds. We may ask what the awareness of the crisis has done to our inner landscape, how it has altered the human psyche.

"One should begin by observing that there is nothing new for mankind about confronting the possibility of its own destruction. The feeling that the present order – the neat fields, the ordered laundry cupboards, the full granaries – might soon disappear, would have been intensely familiar to any inhabitant of medieval Europe. One need only study the carvings on the sides of the cathedrals to see that our imaginations have for centuries been haunted by visions of Armageddon.

"However, we have grown used to conceiving of our present environmental situation as unparalleled, perhaps because we have learnt of it through the media and because for the daily paper, everything must, from an a priori position, be novel. There never was a Lisbon earthquake or a sack of Rome. No one has ever murdered their children or wasted their fortune. This isn’t to deny some intensely novel features behind our anxieties, just to insist that we must carefully separate out the familiar, long-standing morbidity of homo sapiens from the particular features of the current predicament."

- Alain de Botton, "Ecology" in the UN Chronicle.

Populist philosopher Alain de Botton can be somewhat hit and miss, but I think this piece is well worth reading in full (see right hand column).

Fears about our present situation are neither entirely novel nor merely a repetition of ancient patterns. Indeed, part of what I will be arguing in my project is that in certain important respects, we do face genuinely new challenges and fears in the various ecological and resource crises of our time. More on that in future posts, but if you want to get a gist of where I'm headed (at least insofar as the diagnosis of an historically novel issue), read the article.
H/T Stuart.

What we do with what we know: a story

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. It was not an easy cancer to explain to people, because, basically, the doctors hadn’t seen any cases quite like it before and could not identify precisely where it had started or what caused it. Since it was such a rare growth, they could also not give me a meaningful prognosis. The scans indicated that it was of a significant size, in a critical location and there was good reason to think it was probably growing quite rapidly. Their recommendations were that surgery would be almost impossible (one of them told me, “I’m not into killing my patients”), but that chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy might have some effect (one oncologist spoke of “curative doses” and another simply of reducing its size).

Now at this point, I had a variety of possible responses open to me. I could go and get further oncological opinions (I had already gone to three different hospitals and had multiple scans and a variety of tests).

I could have weighed up the probable side effects of treatment (quite a long list!) and decided that it was not worth it and tried to make the most of my remaining time, however long or short that turned out to be.

I could have heeded the many voices telling me that traditional medicine doesn’t know how to deal with cancer and that I needed various alternative treatments: homeopathy, acupuncture, meditation, herbal remedies, hypnosis, miracle diets and many more that were urged upon me by well-meaning contacts, often with powerful testimonials.

I could have listened to the Christian sisters and brothers who told me that I would be healed if I had faith, that God loves miracles and would preserve my life without treatment, that they had seen or been given amazing recoveries after prayer.

I could have embraced the cynical critiques of the medical system by noting that it is in doctors’ interests to keep me thinking that I am sick, that I need them, that I need their expensive and complicated treatments.

I could have gone onto Google and attempted my own re-diagnosis on the basis of extensive reading of the most popular sites, or by consulting the most helpful discussion boards.

Each of these options were being put forward by people who apparently desired good for me. Yet deciding to go ahead with the recommended treatment was a relatively easy conclusion for me. Despite its costs, I do not at all regret the decision and suspect there is a very good chance I would not be here today without the excellent treatment I received at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Indeed, it has been three years today since I had my last radiotherapy dose, a few more days since my final round of chemo.

I’m sharing this story not for the sympathy vote, nor to celebrate an anniversary, and nor yet to ridicule the faith or intentions of those who urged me to avoid treatment. I share this story to raise the issue of the relation of knowledge to ethics. How does our knowledge of the world affect our obligations and opportunities to pursue good?

Many factors contributed to my decision to accept treatment, but significant amongst them was the considered advice of recognised experts in the field based on years of empirical research. I was not morally bound to follow this advice. The research has not been exhaustive. Not all the experts I saw recommended exactly the same treatment. My case involved some degree of novelty. Not all cancer treatment is as effective as mine has been so far. But I do believe I would have been both foolish and seriously at fault if I had simply ignored their advice, or acted as though the diagnosis must be wrong because I’ve heard of some misdiagnoses in the past, or if I had presumed that I would be alright because some tumours undergo spontaneous remission.

It would be no good to say that since the scriptures don’t tell me whether or not to trust doctors, then I have no reason to trust them. It would equally be no good to say that since the scriptures don’t tell me to have cancer treatment, then I was under no moral obligation to take the advice of the oncologists seriously.

Of course, receiving treatment in order to try to stay alive was neither my only nor my highest moral obligation. There are worse things than death. There are ways of staying alive that diminish the point of being alive. But all things considered, I believe there was a compelling moral case for me to accept the recommended treatment. I believe that not only was it possible to pursue this treatment without being distracted from more important things (like loving those around me and praising the wonders of the one who gives all life), but that the treatment was in fact a means to that end, keeping me alive for more service and song, and opening many opportunities to love and praise that I might otherwise not have had.

It may be obvious where I am going with this, but in case it is not let me spell it out. There is a large and diverse body of scientific experts with years in the field who point to widespread and growing empirical evidence of a critical diagnosis, which we cannot in good conscience ignore. They may offer a variety of different (even sometimes conflicting) advice on specific treatment, but it would be irresponsible to dismiss their warnings or to treat the situation as though it were nothing but a distraction from what is truly important.

Our knowledge of the world, though fallible and incomplete, is nonetheless sufficient to contribute to the moral deliberation of Christians. The evidence for alarming anthropogenic climate change is strong enough such that wilfully ignoring or burying the issue at this stage has become irresponsible. This is not a denial of sola scriptura nor to fall into legalism. Nor is it to say that climate change is the only or primary moral challenge of our day, or that all Christians ought to become climate change activists. And neither yet do I claim that Christians owe their allegiance to any particular mitigation strategy. But as one significant pastoral and social issue amongst others, and one linked to fears and guilt, to anger and confusion, to questions of greed and of faith, hope and love, addressing climate change Christianly is neither a luxury nor a distraction from the gospel.

Acting in the dark: climate change and the paralysis of novelty

"[B]eing compelled to make decisions in a situation which remains opaque is our basic condition. [...] We find ourselves constantly in the position of having to decide about matters that will fundamentally affect our lives, but without a proper foundation in knowledge."

- Slavoj Žižek, First as Tregedy, then as Farce (London: Verso, 2009), 63.

We nearly always act in situations on incomplete or insecure knowledge. We have to do things before we truly know what they mean. Sometimes, this feeling is more acute than others. How is it possible to get married when one has never experienced making such a promise before? How can one have a child while ignorant of how it will affect your life? How can we baptise those who don't yet really know what the way of the cross entails?

The novelty of these situations is personal rather than social. We marry without personal knowledge of what exclusive lifelong commitment means. Yet we do so on trust since we have witnessed others (perhaps our own parents, perhaps some other role model) who live out the blessings and struggles of this reality before us. We may not have firsthand knowledge of the delights and despair associated with raising a child, but perhaps we are already an uncle, or a cousin, or a godfather or in some way know a little of what this has meant for others.

But what about social actions that are historically novel? How is it possible to will a new social situation that has never before been experienced, not just by me, but by anyone? And how is it possible to make political and social decisions in a situation of incomplete and contested knowledge?

That is exactly where we find ourselves today with climate change. Whether we choose to do nothing (or the equivalent of doing nothing through greenwash and weak agreements) and so continue the novelty of our present carbon experiment, or whether we choose to make widespread and untested changes to our global economy, we cannot but choose historical novelty. Our knowledge, based in the science and our estimations of what is thinkable economically and politically, is far from complete. Scientific models can give some sense of likely climate outcomes, or at least a current best estimation of various risks (which should not be sneezed at). Economic models represent some of our best guesses about the costs of action (and inaction!). Political discussion seeks to find the best solutions that it is possible to implement (though it is important not to shut down the possibility of new possibilities opening up due to radical political action: the abolition of slavery or universal suffrage would have been unthinkable economically and politically without decades of more and less radical protest). But we are still left with educated guesses taken on trust in the individuals and institutions offering them.

This could be paralysing. But it need not be. The stakes are high; the debate is heated and complex. But how is possible to seek the best options without sticking our head in the sand or waiting until our knowledge is complete? What beliefs and practices keep open such a space for careful deliberation under high pressure?

Why I am pessimistic about Copenhagen

There is a great deal in the media about the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 which will meet in Copenhagen in just over two weeks. A number of people have asked me recently about my take on the matter. While I think that an international agreement of some kind is necessary to reduce global greenhouse gas levels (it won't happen simply by countries acting unilaterally on national interest), my expectations for Copenhagen are pretty low at the moment. Let me briefly outline some of my current perceptions.

• First, it is worth noting that an international treaty of this scale and complexity is a historical novelty. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but it does mean that we're in uncharted waters. I am certainly no expert on international law, but I am aware that the last decades have seen numerous innovations in this field. Yet any treaty that is developed will be something of an experiment, and one unable to be repeated.

• Second, there are deep divisions between the developed and developing world. This was quite predictable. The former have produced by far the lion's share of historical emissions and continue to be much higher per capita emitters than even the industrializing economies of China and India. And while responsibility is not equally shared, neither are consequences. The current effects of climate change are being felt most keenly in developing nations (perhaps Australia will be (or is) the first developed nation to be seriously affected through water shortages during more frequent and severe droughts). These divisions were visible at Kyoto and were part of the reason for the failure of that effort (when the US and other developed nations (e.g. Australia) refused to ratify the agreement that their own negotiators had reached. Despite ten more years of negotiation and massive progress in climate science, these deep divisions remain and were evident in the African bloc of 50 nations boycotting part of the most recent pre-Copenhagen negotiations in Barcelona. They did this due to a perception that the developed world was not really serious about making significant changes.

•Third, there are particular political difficulties associated with the United States. The US has been historically the largest greenhouse gas emitter and continues to be so if consumption of products made elsewhere is included (about a quarter of China's carbon footprint derives from the creation of products for Western markets). And yet for eight years during the Bush administration, it did all it could to stand in the way of any international progress on the issue, refusing to ratify Kyoto and suppressing the warnings of its own agencies. The Obama change-we-could-believe-in has revealed that the US Congress has little faith. There is basically zero chance of any US climate legislation being passed prior to Copenhagen and even when Congress does get around to addressing it, the issue has become increasingly partisan.* The significant Democrat majority in Congress provides no guarantees for Obama's agenda, as demonstrated in the heath care debate. The US is not the only nation to have internal political divisions over the issue, but some of the quirks of the US system ensure that legislation will have particular difficulty in being passed.
*It is quite refreshing to see that it is much less so here in the UK, where the Conservatives are in full support of Gordon Brown's aggressive stance and promising to not make this an election issue (which may be a political move to neutralise a perceived Labour advantage; the actual determination of a (likely) Cameron government to make this a high-priority issue remains to be seen). It is also quite partisan in Australia.

• Fourth, public opinion about climate change remains in some degree of flux (with the numbers who view it as a serious threat declining in at least the US, Australia and the UK). While elected representatives ought to make their own judgements based on wisdom and available evidence, rather than simply seeing which way the wind is blowing), it only seems to be increasingly true that too many politicians follow rather than lead public opinion. And public opinion in some countries seems to have shifted away from seeing climate change as a real and present danger for various reasons. First, the economic downturn is an immediate distraction from a long-term problem like climate change, and provides a convenient excuse for inaction until economic conditions are better. Second, there is a growing and highly successful misinformation campaign of climate change denial that is muddying the waters with outdated, pseudo-scientific and de-bunked claims (and not just about climatology). This is not to say that there are not plenty of bogus claims made by those who see climate change as a serious issue, but the noise-to-signal ratio on each side is not even close to being equivalent. Of course there is a difference between genuine scepticism and denialism. And of course we ought to weigh important claims that made upon our lives and are right to take most things reported by the media with a grain (or five) of salt. However, Andrew Cameron puts it well when he says, “Too little scepticism is gullible, but there comes a time when too much scepticism is a crippling disconnection from reality.” I intend to write more on this at some stage soon.

As crippling as these four point are, none is entirely insurmountable. Together, they combine to mean that negotiations at Copenhagen are unlikely to reach a binding treaty. Indeed, as a result of these and other obstacles, President Obama has recently stated the increasingly obvious: that Copenhagen will not deliver a legally binding deal. Despite all the momentum and build-up, the talks will now become just another stepping stone rather than a finish-line for climate negotiations. Will this matter? Is a bad deal worse than no deal? Will this cripple the possibility of a treaty or just delay it? All that remains to be seen.

However, I have three more reasons for remaining pessimistic that would still be true even if a miraculous 11th hour deal is reached in Copenhagen.

• Fifth, even the most ambitious targets on the table may well be too modest. There is currently around 387 parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. The pre-industrial level was about 275 ppm. Twenty years ago, when the issue started to gain more widespread attention, 550 ppm was seen as an upper limit, but this was basically just a doubling of 275 and was not based on much evidence. The general consensus is currently to try to limit average warming to 2ºC (though even this would have significant negative effects) and most of the recent efforts have focused on stabilizing CO2 levels at 450 ppm as a means towards this (though it is difficult to be precise, it seems 450 ppm only gives about a 50% chance of staying below 2ºC warming). This is what is on the table at Copenhagen. Stabilizing levels at 450 ppm will be extremely difficult and will require massive shifts in economic patterns and expectations. The model proposed by Nicholas Stern in his Stern Report included "overshooting" 450 ppm to peak at 550 and come back down from there. However, more recent studies suggest that even 450 ppm may well lead to runaway warming as feedback effects gain pace and a number of scientists are now calling for a goal of 350 ppm.

• Sixth, I am not currently persuaded that the cap-and-trade market based system proposed as the mechanism driving emission reductions will actually work to reduce CO2 levels. From my limited understanding, a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be better and could also be the subject of international agreements. Solving ecological issues through extending the reach of market logic into more spheres of life seems a little like trying to put out a fire by pouring oil on it.

• Seventh, even if politicians fashion a binding agreement (whether in Copenhagen or some time next year) for 450 ppm, we are very unlikely to get there. The required changes are enormous, the momentum behind business as usual is too large. The economic assumptions of centuries (though note that they only arose during the period of modern industrialization) are too deeply entrenched. No leader is talking about anything other than economic growth as their primary goal. No leader is being honest about the fact that stabilizing levels at even 450 ppm would require massive changes on a scale similar to those experienced in Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union (the only example in recent history of a nation dropping its emissions at anything like the rate required). Of course, that was (a) unplanned, (b) lasted only a few years rather than decades, and (c) was still not fast enough.

In summary, the Copenhagen conference is an attempt to reach a novel international agreement in a short time frame despite deep political divisions between and within nations and lagging public support, an agreement which may well be too little, too late, using the wrong mechanism and obscuring the true size of the challenge. So call me an optimist.

Nonetheless, politics is the art of the possible and I do not see the conference as either hopeless or useless. Nor, despite my pessimism, do I believe that such pessimism is self-fulfilling. But these points will have to wait for another day since this post is already way too long.

Thesis question articulation I: Societal unsustainability

Societal unsustainability: part one
The background for my project is the increasingly widespread perception of the unsustainability of the present order of industrial society. This belief is based on a wide variety of factors and takes a variety of forms, but uniting them all is the judgement that contemporary industrial society is undermining the material conditions of possibility for its own existence. Deforestation, soil degradation, water depletion, climate change, peak energy, biodiversity loss, pollution, sea level rises, mineral exhaustion, introduced species, pollinator decline, desertification and over-fishing: each of these challenges are caused or exacerbated by the industrialisation of much of human society over the last few hundred years. The scale of each issue is multiplied by the unprecedented population expansion that industrialisation has enabled. And each of them could sooner or later threaten significant social disruption. Many of these problems already cause widespread suffering and political tension, but taken together and in their bewildering array of interconnections, they drastically endanger the continued growth of industrialised society, and perhaps its very existence. Although ours is certainly not the first society to face a crisis that threatens the basis of its continued existence, nonetheless, the global extent and technologically-enhanced degree of environmental degradation are historically a novelty.

A number of thinkers, such as Jared Diamond, William R. Catton Jr. and Joseph Tainter, argue that, due to a range of converging reasons, the present way of life enjoyed by the developed world and aspired to by the developing world will reach the limits of its conditions of possibility within the next few years or decades. If so, then significant social changes are imminent. Whether accepted voluntarily or imposed forcefully by material conditions, total human population, production and consumption will not continue to grow indefinitely in a world of finite resources. A sustained or precipitous decline in the world economy may well bring with it the compounding difficulty of political and social instability. If the decline is as severe, permanent and global as these thinkers suggest, such instability is unlikely to be confined to the poorer nations or those usually considered volatile.

Whether such claims are accurate is a complex matter, and so are the analyses of the causes: the causes of the situation if the perception is accurate or the causes of the false perception if it is not. All these questions are important, but I would like to set them to one side. My concern is with the perception itself, its effects on thinking (specifically on moral reasoning) and possible responses to it.
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

PhD proposal: the church in social crisis

I have been asked by a few people to post my PhD proposal, if for no other reason than for a good laugh when it morphs into something completely different. I thought this might be an apt way of un-pausing this blog and getting people talking again. Feel free to comment, question, critique, suggest, laugh or award me an honorary doctorate as you see fit.

First, the one paragraph version for those who are time-starved.

“In view of the present distress”
The role of the church in a society in crisisHow does an experience of severe social stress affect the possibilities and dangers faced by the Christian community in its relationship to broader society? Via historical case studies and in dialogue with significant contemporary thinkers, this project will develop a theological perspective integrating insights from ecclesiology, ethics, eschatology and political theology in order to provide suggestions to the contemporary church in its service of and opposition to a society that appears to be entering a time of heightened ecological, economic and cultural distress.

For those with a little more stamina, here is the full proposal (700 words):

“In view of the present distress”
The role of the church in a society in crisisThe church is not immune from the troubles of the various societies amongst which it exists. How does an experience of extreme social stress affect the possibilities and dangers faced by the Christian community? What does it mean for followers of Jesus to be faithful together when the broader society is under dire threat? What scriptural, theological, ethical, emotional or historical resources can the church draw upon at such times?

The scriptural tradition of both testaments records a number of catastrophes for the people of God and the series of social worlds they inhabited. What was the nature and basis of hope-filled response at such times? How did the structure, practices and beliefs of these communities function to sustain or undermine patterns of human social existence?

These questions are of more than idle interest in our own time. One of the defining features of recent decades has been, at least amongst some groups, a growing awareness of the depth and breadth of a range of ecological, social and resource crises facing an increasingly globalised human society. Numerous interconnected factors cumulatively present a grave and urgent threat to society as it currently exists.

While the global extent and technologically-enhanced degree of environmental degradation are a novelty historically speaking, ours is certainly not the first society to face a crisis that threatens the basis of its continued existence. Over the centuries, Christian communities have found themselves amidst societies undergoing rapid change, foreign invasion, sustained economic and cultural decline or even sudden collapse.

And so I would like to pursue my question through a historical lens in order to see what might be gained from a critical investigation into how the church has responded to instances of social crisis and decline in the past. Possible case studies could include one or more of the following: the response of Augustine and others to the fall of Rome in 410 (and/or the broader pattern of decline in the Western empire around this time); the Eastern response to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (and/or the broader pattern of decline in the Eastern empire); various patterns of ecclesiastical response to the Black Death in fourteenth century Europe; or the trajectories of State and Confessing churches in Nazi Germany. In all these instances, although the nature and origin of the threat varied, the Christian community found itself with the opportunity and responsibility to adopt a variety of functions with respect to the ailing society, from palliative care to armed dissent.

A selection of these case studies will provide material for critical reflection, in order to develop a theological perspective on possibilities open to the contemporary church. This theological perspective will be formed and enriched by integrating insights from ecclesiology, eschatology, ethics and political theology. To complement the various historical theologians associated with the case studies (e.g. Augustine, Gregory Palamas, medieval and reformation advice on dealing with plague, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer), this project will also interact with a selection of contemporary writers with significant contributions to discussions of the role of the church in society. Potentially fruitful interlocutors with whom I am already familiar include: Oliver O’Donovan, Stanley Hauerwas, Miroslav Volf, Rowan Williams, Jürgen Moltmann, N. T. Wright, John Milbank, William Cavanaugh and Bernd Wannenwetsch.

The theological perspective orienting this proposal may be briefly outlined as follows. The gospel of Christ finds its most faithful expression today in hope-filled communities that subvert the idolatry of our cultural obsession with consumption, as well as the growing panic over ecological doom that is its increasingly likely result. Although there may be no divine promise of cultural continuity or even civilizational survival, a community founded upon belief in a divine word and driven by an eschatological hope of resurrection for human life and its entire created environment is able to engage in open-eyed loving service without fear. Christian hope is not otherworldly, yet by giving an origin to hope that transcends the present ecological and social order, believers are liberated to admire, care for, critique and enrich this order as a sign of trust that God’s purposes for his good world are not thwarted by decay.

The practical outcome of this study will include suggestions to the contemporary church in its service, witness and opposition to a society that appears to be entering a time of heightened ecological, economic and cultural distress.

Obviously, this needs quite a bit more narrowing down, since at the moment I've basically said "I'd like to talk about Jesus and stuff, you know, looking at most of church history and anyone I can think of who's still around and talking about what happens when there's a problem."

Since writing the proposal, three further thoughts have helped give it a little more shape. First, I am interested not simply in any old crisis in society (war, famine, pandemic, interest rate rise, celebrity gaining a few kilos), but in a crisis of society, that is, a crisis in sociality, situations in which the fabric of social life is undermined. Second, I think I'd like to look at collective deliberation and resolution, how society discerns and pursues the common good. How is that impeded by the kind of crisis of society I just mentioned and (how) does the gospel (and/or the practices of the church in response to the gospel) shape the possibilities of constructive and creative collective deliberation and resolution? Not that I'm saying that the this is the primary function or purpose of the gospel, but might it be a blessed side-effect? Finally, a few people have expanded my possible case studies, especially with historical and contemporary scenarios from the two-thirds world.

I realise I need to define "crisis" (not to mention "society" and "church"!). I'd love to hear suggestions of books to read, especially if someone has already answered this question.
If you are going to mention the latter, please also supply a replacement topic. Thanks!

New every morning: novelty, imperialism and cataclysm

Continuous Cities • 1
The city of Leonia refashions itself every day: every morning the people wake between fresh sheets, wash with just-wrapped cakes of soap, wear brand-new clothing, take from the latest model refrigerator still unopened tins, listening to the last-minute jingles from the most up-to-date radio.

On the sidewalks, encased in spotless plastic bags, the remains of yesterday's Leonia await the garbage truck. Not only squeezed tubes of toothpaste, blown-out light bulbs, newspapers, containers, wrappings, but also boilers, encyclopedias, pianos, porcelain dinner services. It is not so much by the things that each day are manufactured, sold, bought that you can measure Leonia's opulence, but rather by the things that each day are thrown out to make room for the new. So you begin to wonder if Leonia's true passion is really, as they say, the enjoyment of new and different things, and not, instead, the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity. The fact is that street cleaners are welcomed like angels, and their task of removing the residue of yesterday's existence is surrounded by a respectful silence, like a ritual that inspires devotion, perhaps only because once things have been cast off nobody wants to have to think about them further.

Nobody wonders where, each day, they carry their load of refuse. Outside the city, surely; but each year the city expands, and the street cleaners have to fall farther back. The bulk of the outflow increases and the piles rise higher, become stratified, extend over a wider perimeter. Besides, the more Leonia's talent for making new materials excels, the more the rubbish improves in quality, resists time, the elements, fermentations, combustions. A fortress of indestructible leftovers surrounds Leonia, dominating it on every side, like a chain of mountains.

This is the result: the more Leonia expels goods, the more it accumulates them; the scales of its past are soldered into a cuirass that cannot be removed. As the city is renewed each day, it preserves all of itself in its only definitive form: yesterday's sweepings piled up on the sweepings of the day before yesterday and of all its days and years and decades.

Leonia's rubbish little by little would invade the world, if, from beyond the final crests of its boundless rubbish heap, the street cleaners of other cities were not pressing, also pushing mountains of refuse in front of themselves. Perhaps the whole world, beyond Leonia's boundaries, is covered by craters of rubbish, each surrounding a metropolis in constant eruption. The boundaries between the alien, hostile cities are infected ramparts where the detritus of both support each other, overlap, mingle.

The greater its height grows, the more the danger of a landslide looms: a tin can, an old tyre, an unravelled wine flask, if it rolls towards Leonia, is enough to bring with it an avalanche of unmated shoes, calendars of bygone years, withered flowers, submerging the city in its own past, which it had tried in vain to reject, mingling with the past of the neighbouring cities, finally clean. A cataclysm will flatten the sordid mountain range, cancelling every trace of the metropolis always dressed in new clothes. In the nearby cities they are all ready, waiting with bulldozers to flatten the terrain, to push into the new territory, expand, and drive the new street cleaners still farther out.

- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, 114-16.

What is new about Jesus?

In response to my previous post, Geoff asked an excellent question: can we still say it's 'new' leadership?

I assume that by asking if we can 'still' call it new, Geoff was referring to the enormous gap of around 1977 (or maybe 1974) years since Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Is this still something 'new' after the fall of Rome, after the black death, after the invasion of the Americas, after the Renaissance, Reformation and countless revolutions, after industrialisation, after the European colonisation and destruction of Africa, after the war to end all wars, after Auschwitz, after the bomb, after globalisation, after a Ruddslide?

What does it mean to say that Jesus is 'new'?

On the one hand, it is an acknowledgement that, despite all these momentous changes (and more - after all, my summary was very eurocentric), the most important and decisive turning point in history was the life, death and resurrection of this somewhat obscure Jewish peasant on the outskirts of an ancient empire. This is still news, good news, in the face of twenty centuries of disaster of death. Indeed, those twenty centuries are counted (in many parts of the world) from Jesus' birth (or as close to it as some medieval monks could calculate). Not only so, but his advent divides history in two, throwing all previous events in a new light and rendering them "B.C.".

But there is more. Jesus' victory, like the mercy of the Father, is new every morning (Lamentations 3.22-23). This is not to say that he is forever changing his mind, eternally indecisive, but that his good gifts never become stale, his rule never runs out (Luke 1.33). Ironically, the ever-new is an image of stability.

Furthermore, God's redemption is also always to do a 'new' thing, as promised in Isaiah 43.18-19. Our hope is for God's surprising act of refreshing, of renovation. But this isn't because God is like the market, shallowly obsessed with novelty, or like the SMS-generation, unable to make a commitment, always needing to keep bridges unburnt. No, God's renewal takes the form of life from the dead (both literally and metaphorically) and so is both restoration (continuity with the old) and novel transformation (discontinuity: new!). He is the one who renews, who gives a fresh start (in fact many fresh starts): in every deadly end, Christ brings a new beginning. And so the message of Jesus is good news - it breaks through the dreary depressing sameness of sin with the promise of a new day. Every morning is a reminder of that coming new day, which is already dawning (Romans 13.12).