Would Jesus vote green? VI

Sorrow
Once we move beyond systematic denial of environmental destruction, we reach the second common response: sorrow.

Upon coming to accept (at least some of) these claims as true, we are filled with sadness. It is sad that human action (and inaction) continue to cause so much destruction and senseless waste. This is a natural and right response, since we’re really losing things of that are of great value. In particular, I find the rate of extinction very sad, because while most other forms of environmental damage are reversible, (sometimes only in the very long term), with the extinction of a species, once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

It is not only the animals and plants that suffer from our environmental irresponsibility. Humans suffer too, especially those too poor to move and too marginalised to have a significant political voice. Poisoned rivers, degraded soil, more frequent and more severe extreme weather patterns – these and more cause incalculable human suffering too. This is far more serious than not being able to water your garden or having to pay a little more for electricity.

Sorrow at what is lost and sorrow at what it costs those least able to afford it – this response resonates with a deeply Christian way of viewing the world. We only grieve the loss of what is valuable. Fundamental to Christianity’s take on the environment is that the world God made was good, very good. Grief is the natural correlate of love, when the object of love is harmed or threatened.

And our sadness also accords with a second basic Christian belief: there is something deeply wrong with God’s world. The beauty is marred. There are cracks in the abundant diversity. The health of the planet is threatened by a global disease.

The Apostle Paul teaches that to follow Christ, to be filled with his Spirit, is to grieve over the plight of creation, to groan in shared pain, to be discontent with the fractures in the world. Following Christ is not a recipe for a mindlessly happy escapism; we follow the one called the man of sorrows.

Yet grief alone is insufficient, not least because despite our best – or perhaps our worst, or simply our mediocre – efforts, despite pollution, soil degradation, climate change, the squandering of finite resources, mass extinction, despite all this, the world remains a good gift from God, filled with delight and things worth celebrating. Unless we take the time to stop, notice, enjoy and give thanks for all that surrounds us, we lose the very reason to grieve because we lose sight of the goodness of this gift.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII.

Let the little children come to...

...someone else. Jesus preferably.

Yesterday morning, I spent two hours teaching four classes of school Scripture to six to twelve year olds.

Last night, I spent two hours with Dr Matheson Russell teaching a CASE course on the problem of evil to about twenty adults.

I know which age group I prefer teaching. Scripture is a wonderful opportunity and kids are so often delightful, but putting twenty-odd together and letting them loose on me without much of a voice (or much experience, training or skill in dealing with primary and infants kids) is a recipe for general mayhem. I'd like to improve, but I'd also like to encourage those with an existing passion (and/or training) to get involved too (or simply instead!).

As for the CASE course, it's not too late to join. We had a great time last night, and there's still three more weeks to go. Thanks to SydneyAnglicans.net for some free advertising.

Budget '07/'08

Mixed messages?
Enough cyber-ink has been spilt on the 2007/08 Australian Federal Budget, so I will not comment, except to wonder whether the government is sending mixed messages:

• $150m for climate change mitigation AND
• $150m for the war on ice.

I said I would not comment further. I lied. For Australian citizens, here is a campaign worth a look.

Would Jesus vote green? V

Scepticism (cont)
And yet, scepticism alone is inadequate. There is a place for reserving judgment, but there is a point where to continue to do so in the face of overwhelming and pressing evidence is simply stubborn. How much scepticism is too much? There are such things as foolish gullibility and lazy conformism, but there also comes a time when stubborn scepticism tips into basic disconnection from reality.

I am fairly sure that of the statistics I quoted, some are probably inaccurate, and some may be based on faulty methodology, or outdated research. I am no expert and am quite happy to be corrected, yet it seems to me that it is now impossible to reasonably deny that human activity is indeed having a significant detrimental effect upon the living spaces of the planet. To do so is an exercise in wishful thinking. And this is no surprise to Christians, as we shall see.

For instance, while there is still dispute over details, to continue to suppose that human activity has not been a major cause of global climate change places you in disagreement with every major scientific organization in the world – except the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. As far as I am aware, for about the last ten years there has not been a single peer reviewed scientific publication disputing the human causation of recent global climate change (please link to examples if you know of any, I could be wrong, but this is what I've heard).

Yet there are still large numbers of people who continue to deny this claim in the face of almost unanimous consensus amongst the scientific community. At some point, it is right to become suspicious of such sustained denial, asking whether it mightn’t be a coping mechanism for dealing with hidden grief or guilt. Denial is a common part of responding to serious tragedy, but to properly grieve, we need to move beyond it. If you call yourself a skeptic,* I hope that in the following posts, you’ll discover reasons why it is safe to move beyond systematic denial.
*Not simply about climate change. I realise that this issue in particular has become highly politicised. At the moment, I am more interested in the broader claim about detrimental human effects on the environment considered more broadly. Nonetheless, here is a useful site answering 26 common myths about climate change. H/T OSO.
Thanks also to the Social Issues Briefing #63 for some of the thoughts in this post. Read it here. If you'd like to receive it regularly, sign up here.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII. Photo by Steve Chong.

Barneys: a year on

A Year Today
Today is a year since my old church St Barnabas', Broadway, burned down. I reflected at some length on this back here.

Construction on the site is still yet to begin.

This has been a sad week for a number of reasons.

Bonhoeffer on confession

Alone in church?
Confess your faults one to another (James 5.16). He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, not withinstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (translated by John W. Doberstein), 86.

Twelve points for each link to another photo on this blog of the same location.

Would Jesus vote green? IV

Scepticism
For some, the initial response to such claims is to question them. After all, 87% of all statistics are made up. Could this simply be the latest fad? Isn’t it perhaps a little arrogant to claim that our actions are really affecting the planet that much? Aren’t there some who dispute many of these claims?

There is much that is good in this response. Jesus was no fan of naïve credulity. He does not ask those who would follow him to check their critical faculties in at the door. We don’t need to jump onto every bandwagon that gathers momentum. The truth is more important than being popular. We are right to be a little suspicious about the endless parade of new disaster scenarios presented to us.

And at a deeper level, there is a foundational Christian truth that ought to make us pause before we accept every new prediction of doom. God made the world good, very good. It is filled with abundance and diversity, evidence of his creativity, blessing and generosity. And so we are right to assume that we live on a good and abundant world. Therefore, we ought to have a healthy initial scepticism towards doomsday predictions.(more on scepticism)
Eight points for the correct name of the building in the centre of the picture.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII.

Eve speaks to God

A creative sermon on Genesis 4.

Would Jesus vote green? III

There’s a whole range of possible emotional responses to these statistics: apathy, disbelief, curiosity, sorrow, fear, anger, suspicion, guilt, impotence, despair, grief, resolve, self-righteousness. And most of us probable feel some combination of these.

I wonder whether we mightn’t be able to broadly classify these responses into five groups under the following headings:

(a) Scepticism
(b) Sorrow
(c) Anger
(d) Guilt
(e) Fear

In each case, I think there is something fundamentally correct about the response, but also something mistaken. In the following posts, I will take these five common responses as launching pads for considering Jesus’ own attitudes towards the earth.
Eight points for guessing the Sydney suburb.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII.

You never knew statistics could be this interesting

Not only does this video contain much about the two thirds world that you mightn't have realised, it also has some ingenious graphics.

And in other videos, can you imagine John Howard doing this?

Would Jesus vote green? II

As I mentioned back here, tonight I gave a talk titled 'Would Jesus vote green?' at a restaurant in Harbord. Over the next few days, I'll post the talk in a short series.
What has Jerusalem to do with Athens the Amazon?
Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. If present trends continue one half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years. A total of 11,046 species of plants and animals are listed as presently threatened or endangered. Current extinction rates are estimated to be around 1,000 times the normal background extinction rate. Within 50 years, one-third of all land-based species could face extinction. According to the United Nations, 71-78 per cent of the world's fisheries are 'fully exploited', 'over exploited' or 'significantly depleted'. All wild seafood will have disappeared from the world's menus within 50 years if current trends in overfishing continue according to one of the most comprehensive studies of marine life. In just 60 years the Antarctic blue whale population fell from 220,000 to just 1,000. One-quarter of the Earth's bird species have been driven into extinction by human activities.

Somewhere between a third and a half of the land surface of the earth has been transformed by human action. More than half of the fresh water sources of the world are now put to use by human beings.

Ancient forests are home to around two-thirds of all plant and animal species found on land. More than 2,000 tropical forest plants have been identified by scientists as having anti-cancer properties. Less than one percent of the tropical rainforest species have been analyzed for their medicinal value. Nearly 90 percent of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide depend on forests for their livelihoods. Yet 80 percent of the world’s ancient forests have already been either destroyed or degraded, and half of that has been in the last 30 years. An area the size of a football field of ancient forest is destroyed every two seconds. That’s an area bigger than France and Spain combined in the last ten years. At current rates, all tropical forests may be gone by the year 2090.

Demand for oil and energy resources from industrialized nations like China are expected to almost double by the year 2030. Two thirds of all energy generated in power stations is lost as waste heat – up the chimney and along transmission lines. The energy use per capita of high income countries is more than 10 times higher than that of low income countries. The world has a finite supply of oil. We are roughly halfway through using it. At some point within the next few years, it is likely that the rate of oil extraction will fall into decline. With ever-growing demand, once this point of ‘peak oil’ production is passed, prices are likely to rise rapidly, with possibly disasterous consequences for the global economy. For every kilojoule of energy we gain from eating food, we spend ten kilojoules of (mainly oil) energy to fertilise, harvest, transport, refrigerate and cook it. If we were to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear power, world uranium supplies would be depleted in four years.

More than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water, 2.6 billion lack access to adequate water for sanitation. Water-borne diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. This situation is getting worse. Two thirds of the world population will be without safe drinking water and basic sanitation services by 2025.

The Sahara desert in Africa currently expands southwards at the rate of 5-10 km per year.

Australians are ranked 7th worst in the world for our average ecological footprint. The total human ecological footprint is estimated to have exceeded the biocapacity of the planet by 25%.

And I haven't even mentioned climate change, toxins in the air and water, soil loss or nuclear waste.

How does this make you feel?
Five points for naming the location from which the first photo was taken. Fifteen for guessing the region in which the second one was taken. Second photo by JKS.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII.

UPDATE: When I first posted this, I avoided discussion of climate change because it is so politicised at the moment and seems to distract from the bigger picture. However, here is a useful site answering 26 common myths about climate change. H/T OSO.

Death sucks (again)

See back here for context.

Après moi, le déluge

I came across a new phrase today. Literally, it translates as 'after me, the flood'. Attributed to Louis XV of France, the attitude expressed is one of myopic self-interest. It doesn't matter what happens after me as a result of my (in)actions, so long as my desires are satisfied. Let catastrophe come, as long as it comes once I'm gone.

Prior to the the Earth Summit in Rio (the UN Conference on Environment and Development 1992) George Bush snr is allegeded to have warned: 'the American way of life is not negotiable.' Après moi, le déluge.

UPDATE: Dan suggests an excellent Christian response: Plongeons dans le déluge (maintenant!).

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
&#160&#160&#160 It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
&#160&#160&#160 It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
&#160&#160&#160 And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
&#160&#160&#160 And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And, for all this, nature is never spent;
&#160&#160&#160 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
&#160&#160&#160 Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
&#160&#160&#160 World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877, published 1895

This poem captures a number of important theological insights. The first four lines are filled with wonder at God's creation, and the grandeur of God revealed there. Yet already by line four is a puzzled recognition that not all see it.

The next four lines are very pessimistic about humanity's effects on nature. With good reason, yet not as good as the reasons for such feelings today. There is more to be said about this relationship (and Hopkins has much more to say in other poems), but I think this captures an important moment in reflection. The marks humanity leaves on the world are often more shameful than glorious.

After the turn at the end of line 8, the sonnet shifts focus to the future. Despite the worst humanity can do, our powers of ultimate destruction are curtailed. Even if we bring blackest night, that could not dim the regenerative power of God's hovering Holy Spirit. This final confession has been criticised as letting us off the hook, since God can and will fix whatever problems we create. What do you think: does the promise of universal restoration (Acts 3.21) undermine our motivation to care for creation?
Ten points for naming the country in the pic.

Can the cross obscure Jesus?

Can't see the go(o)d for the tree
Interesting 'anonymous' rant over at Hebel about how the gospel might sometimes be (mis?)represented. Can some descriptions of the cross fail to do justice to the importance of Jesus? Does this caricature sound familiar?

God made the world, but people sinned, it all went pear shaped and humans were in the red. So God sent his son, killed him to fudge the books for us, so if we repent (of something?) and believe (in grace not works), then we have direct access to the father (Jesus job is done, he now sits on the sidelines). Where is the Resurrection? Where is the Ascension? Where is Jesus? Is god a bad account keeper?

Love to hear what people think of the author's suggested alternative account.
Points for the location of this photo. I'll decide how many by how accurate the description is.

Would Jesus vote green?

I have been invited to give an evangelistic talk with this title at a restaurant next week. I have a few ideas about how I might approach it, but I'd love to hear any ideas that pop into people's heads. What angle(s) might I take? What might be the main point? How is it good news? I'm interpreting the title to be broadly raising the issue of Christianity and the environment, rather than being specifically about voting. In other words, I will be speaking about small 'g' green issues, rather than the Greens. I'll be working on the talk over the next few days. All suggestions welcome.

Here are the links to all the posts:
I. Introduction
II. What has Jerusalem to do with Athens the Amazon?
III. Five common emotional responses
IV. Scepticism
V. Scepticism (cont.)
VI. Sorrow
VII. Anger
VIII. Guilt
IX. Guilt (cont.)
X. Guilt (cont.)
XI. Fear
XII Fear (cont.)
XIII. Conclusion

UPDATE: Scotland goes to the polls soon. For an interesting Christian take on voting Green (not just green), see here.

UPDATE #2: I have now given the talk and will be posting the text as a series. The first post is here.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII.

Gittins on eating

More interesting research reported by Ross Gittins in today's SMH on the unconscious operations that lead to overeating:

And, being social animals, how much we eat is heavily influenced by other people. When we're with people we like we tend to eat for longer than when we're alone. If others are still eating we tend to keep eating. Research suggests that if you eat with one other person you eat a third more; when you eat with seven or more people you'll eat almost twice as much.

Thinking Blogs

Having been tagged by MWW for a "Thinking Blogger Award" (thanks!), I am now meant to nominate five others and pass the link-love back up the chain in this pyramid-scheme meme based on flattery and self-interest. Sure.

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

Five blogs that make me think:

a. Faith and Theology - already nominated, I know, but if we're really going to make this movement feel elitist, we've got to keep it small...
b. The Blogging Parson
c. Alastair.adversaria - currently on a month long hiatus.
d. On Journeying with those in Exile
e. Chrisendom

If you didn't make the top five, guess it must mean that your blog is thoughtless and shallow - did I mention that this meme also works on fear of exclusion and relief when someone finally nominates you?

Death sucks

Our church has a signboard on a fairly busy intersection in the middle of Leichhardt. There have been a number of above average signs in the history of this board, most of them making reference to contemporary events in one way or another:

Where the bloody hell were you last Sunday?
In response to a controversial Australian tourism campaign in the UK: 'Where the bloody hell are you?'
Biannual worshippers welcome here
Just before Easter.
Come to me all you who are Labor and I will give you rest
After the ALP lost the last Federal election.
If you're looking for a sign from God, this might be it

While our rector Tim was away recently, he asked me to put something up. I chose Death sucks, which seems to have generated some discussion. Yesterday I received a call from local newspaper The Glebe interested in running a story. Tim told me today that someone graffitied the board, crossing out the "sucks" and replacing it with "rules". A number of parishioners have mentioned overhearing conversations as people pass by. I'd love to hear your reactions too. Also, any thoughts on what might come next? I'm thinking of Life is a gift, and then a week or two later I have come that they may have life - Jesus. My thought has been to run with sentiments fairly widely shared (though with strong Christian bases) and then build on them with the third sign. However, I'm very happy to hear other suggestions/improvements.

St John's, Ashfield (whose sign is done by our friend Andrew E) has recently put up this one: Church: where relations are more than industrial.
There has been much discussion and controversy surrounding changes to industrial relations laws in Australia over the last couple of years and it has hit the news again recently.

UPDATE: A few years ago when my rector went on holidays, he told the catechists to get the sign into SMH's front-page interest section called 'Column 8' (it appears on the far right of the print version of the SMH front page (or used to - it's now on the back page) and has done so for many years). He did so with the first sign mentioned above ('bloody'). A few weeks ago when Tim again went on holidays, he repeated the instruction to me. And it seems I also succeeded. Thanks to the Wednesday Bible study group at the café, who helped work on the idea.

Knowing is being known

New blog with a nice name from a quality guy: "Knowing is being known is a blog for Biblical exegesis and Biblical theology and occasionally your standard issue straight up and down right regular Theology." Antman was in my year at college.

Another friend (indeed another Anthony) and ex-MTC student recently started a blog: On Second Thoughts by leading point-scorer Anthony. He seems to have had second thoughts since then (like so many). Hands up, how many have blogs with fewer than ten posts? I wonder what the infant mortality rate for blogs is...

Heroes vs saints

Nice post from Ben Witherington on the difference between heroes and saints.