Environmental Challenge - the Theological Dimension |
Introduction
We have heard Sir John Houghton on the scientific understanding of the nature of the environmental challenge and the Archbishop, drawing on the experience of his work with the World Bank and his visits around the Anglican Communion, on the impact of environmental degradation on the poor of the planet.
Has theology anything to add? Is theology more than the kitchen maid of the sciences, reduced to showing how scientific insights might be given a Christian spin or decor? Can theology generate energy?
We have certainly made statements, sometimes many years ago, but they do not seem to have been transforming. Every Lambeth Conference since 1968 has passed resolutions about the environment. General Synod in the early seventies issued a warning about the environmental challenge posed by the audacity of human exploitation of the earth's resources.
Lambeth '98 was no exception to the tradition of statements, although the geographical origins of the bishops who opted for that particular section was revealing. Our meetings were shaped by the presence of bishops from the Philippines and Africa. Despite the fact that the US with 5% of the world's population is responsible for 25% of the world's atmospheric pollution did not alter the fact that while American bishops trooped into the Human Sexuality section, our meetings were attended by a solitary American. That was Bishop Cy Jones of Montana, who at that time did his parish visiting by private aeroplane. The Bishop of Hereford was there as befits someone with a long and sustained concern for the environment. I was there as Bishop of a Diocese that has probably had as long an experience of serious pollution as anywhere else on earth. The first law directed against atmospheric pollution in London dates from the 14th century.
Some progress was made in the report of the section and in the resolutions adopted by the Conference. The ACC has responded to the suggestion that some staff time be given to co-ordinating an international ecological network within the Communion. There is a need, however, to honour and develop past statements as we seek to build up a corpus of authoritative, reiterated teaching on this subject. I hope that English bishops might play their part in this in the future by producing something comparable to the helpful House of Bishops Report on Human Sexuality.
The fact remains as the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that although ecological challenges are "unlikely to be met satisfactorily without the moral and spiritual motivation of the churches", it has to be admitted that "our contributions to public debate about environmental responsibility have often been patchy and undistinguished." A similar point was made by the Bishop of Liverpool in his address to the Baptist Conference.
There are a number of reasons for this reticence discussed by Hugh Montefiore, an episcopal prophet in this area, in a published contribution to the Theological Consultation held in the Brunei Centre in the University of London as part of the John Ray Initiative. In particular he suggested that some Christians in the past have viewed concern for the environment as a distraction from justice issues but there is also the problem that we only have limited energy left over from running a complex institution.
One of the other inhibitors is a very modern sense that theology has no business intruding in realms that are properly seen to belong to science. Science and theology some time ago, suggested Moltman, signed a truce based on "mutual irrelevance".
Max Weber, in an analysis that is still valuable, talks of the essence of modernity being the "differentiation of the cultural value spheres". He was referring to art, morals and science. Most pre-modern cultures did not differentiate these spheres clearly but modernity differentiated art, morals and science and let each pursue its own truths in its own way, free from intrusion. This resulted in a spectacular growth of scientific knowledge, a flurry of new approaches to art, and a sustained look at morals in a more naturalistic light.
The distress arising from pursuing these ways of thought in isolation from the other spheres is, however, becoming more evident. We are no where near even the beginning of a new summa but this is the time for expeditions into neighbouring spheres in an effort to find some unitive and integrative concepts which can signal a way to transcend the present impasse. The John Ray Initiative [in which Sir John Houghton is involved] named after the 17th century priest scientist, John Ray, is just such an essay in joined up thinking.
We need a community of insight as we face the environmental challenge and I believe that the theological dimension is crucial. Our generation is characterised by behaviour which seems to suggest some kind of autism in respect of the cosmos; a certain lack of awareness or recognition which causes us to waste the beauty of the world.
The crisis we face is not in essence an ecological crisis but a crisis of awareness. A way of being in the world, out of communion with the creation, is exhibited in symptoms of ecological distress.
The modern project of growth without limits and with no end in view beyond the process itself arises from a particular way of seeing and thinking which had its origins in Western Christian Europe.
At the heart of West European experience there has been a contest between two figures, Christ and Prometheus, [the Forethinker]. The 16th. century French philosopher Charles de Bouvelles compared the emancipated man with Prometheus. He celebrated the Titan's theft of fire, his seizure of power from the Olympians, as an act that allowed human beings to change their nature. In his book "de Sapiente" published in 1509 de Bouvelles pictures a human being as "no longer part of the universe but as its eye and mirror; and indeed as a mirror that does not receive the images of things from outside but that rather forms and shapes them in itself."
As such a being looks out on the world around, he sees not an animated nature in which he is a participant but simply matter to be exploited. Dominance has been substituted for connectedness in the relation between the Forethinker and the universe around him. Later, Descartes frankly confessed that the motive behind his method of reasoning [which followed the psychological shift prefigured in de Bouvelles] was to make man "maitre and possesseur de la terre". So it has proved.
We treat planet earth in a destructive god-forsaken way because we see things in a destructive, god-forsaken way. We see things that way because that is how we have come to see ourselves. Behind the rhetoric of humanism, [according to Jonathan Porrit in a recent publication] there is a modern self image of ourselves as "random, purposeless bipeds with an inherently destructive nature which can be read off from our genetic inheritance; as rapacious self interested exploiters whose success depends on converting all around us [other people, relationships, resources] into commodities and consumables; as victims of our own success in procreational and technological terms."
We need an end to the truce founded on mutual irrelevance, a fresh look at the Biblical tradition and a dialogue with those who approach the environmental challenge from a scientific viewpoint which aims at change in both parties. I have been involved for some time in a symposium entitled Religion, Science and the Environment. Some progress in understanding has been achieved but too often the Spiritual side seems content with ideas and the Scientists simply want to use the church, instrumentally, to get their ideas and strategies across. There is little real dialogue.
Actually it seems to me that modern science has already provided us with a number of concepts which make the recovery of an authentically Biblical awareness more of a possibility.
The man-centred and reason dominated world view, to which theology has contributed not a little, has been challenged by Darwinism which, whatever its other reductionist tendencies, has returned human beings to their organic place in nature. This has restored the perspective which informs the symbolism of Genesis II in which God forms "adam", the earth creature out of the very dust - "ha'adam".
Evolutionary thinking has also encouraged us to see human beings as the expression of a line of development which incorporates a number of simpler forms of life. In this context the teaching of St Maximus the Confessor, that the human being is the microcosm of creation, seems once again resonant.
Somewhat later Einstein and quantum physics, [if what I have struggled to understand is really correct], signalled the end of the dichotomy between substance and event. Everything that is at the same time happens, space and time coinciding one with another. The world itself is an event and cannot be conceived apart from an act which takes place all the time. In addition we have the undermining of the subject-object distinction which has flowed from quantum mechanics. The observer and the observed form an unbreakable unity, the one influencing the other. As a consequence the kind of dualism evident in the work of de Bouvelles has become less plausible.
The Creation Covenant
Scripture was inspired in a world very different from our own but Biblical insights into the deep structure of the relation between the Creator, humanity and the world provide a foundation for a transformational eco-theology.
At the heart of the Biblical understanding of the deep structure of the world is the notion of the creation covenant. Whilst only implicit in the Genesis narrative, the creation covenant is made explicit after the account of Noah's Flood. In Genesis IX, and also in Isaiah and Hosea [Isaiah XI, XXIV, XXXII, LV; Hosea II], God is pictured binding together all living beings, and the earth itself, into a web of inter-relatedness. The Biblical tradition asserts that the effects of this covenant are empirically verifiable in the interdependence of the natural order that God created in a state of "shalom". It is well known that this word, usually translated "peace", also incorporates ideas of harmony, justice and integrity.
In Jesus Christ, this creation covenant is renewed. "When anyone is in Christ there is a new creation." [2Cor.V,17] The redemptive purpose of God for a created order that had fallen into bondage and decay becomes a reality.
I have much to say on this topic but you cannot bear it now but since this is the season of Pentecost and we have all been struggling to help people see and recognise the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised would be with us and in us, I thought that it would be useful to focus on the implications of what the Bible reveals about the role of the Spirit in the created order.
Maximus the Confessor in his Letter VI meditates on the trinitarian mode of creation. He says that the Father "intends" in Creation. The Word "activates" and the Holy Spirit "perfects" created things.
Theological tradition from time to time has stressed the first aspect of this trinitarian process of creation in which the Father creates through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. In consequence, the tendency has been to place God Creator and Lord over against his creation in a monotheistic way.
According to the Biblical traditions, it is always the Spirit who first brings the activity of the Father and the Son to its goal. Jurgen Moltmann in his valuable "God in Creation" shows the Triune God unremittingly breathing the Spirit into his creation. Everything that is, exists and lives in the unceasing inflow of the energies and potentialities of the cosmic spirit. The Creator does not merely confront the creation but is present in it through the energies and potentialities of the Spirit.
One of the classic passages which describes this relationship is to be found in Psalm CIV, 29-30.
"When thou hidest thy face they are troubled: when thou takest away their breath they die, and are turned again to their dust.
When thou lettest thy breath go forth, they shall be made: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
The Spirit is poured out on everything that exists, the Spirit preserves, makes it live and renews it. Ruach is of course feminine in Hebrew and Moltmann points out that the divine life of creation must be apprehended through feminine metaphors as well as in masculine ones.
He is also able to quote Calvin as one of the few people to take up and maintain this conception. "Spiritus Sanctus enim est, qui ubique diffusus omnia sustinet, vegetat et vivificat."
If the Holy Spirit is poured out on the whole creation then she creates the community of all created things with God and with each other. "In him we move and live and have our being" Acts XVII,28.
This means that the interrelations of the world cannot be traced back to any components or whatever name we might give to elementary particles. According to the mechanistic theory, things are primary and their relations to one another are determined secondarily through the operation of natural laws. But in reality the relations are just as primal as the things themselves. Thing and relation are complementary modes of appearance, in the same way as particle and wave in the nuclear sector. For nothing in the world exists and moves of itself.
As the prophet William Blake claims,
Everything that lives,
Lives not alone, nor for itself.
It is only the community of creation in the Spirit that can be called fundamental. With this concept we are cutting loose the theological doctrine of creation from the age of subjectivity and the mechanistic domination of the world, and we are leading it in the direction in which we have to look for the future of an ecological world community.
Perceptions on Creation
I believe that a fresh engagement with Scripture is a vital key to the revolution in awareness which is demanded by our time.
A Christian awareness will embrace three perceptions which are present in the Biblical narrative. Creation imbued with the Spirit is seen as "good and beautiful". When God contemplates his work in the creation narrative and sees that it is "good", the Hebrew word implies goodness and beauty and this is confirmed by the choice made by the Septuagint at this point of "kalos" rather than "agathos".
This creation is however mysteriously marred and fallen. There is also in the Bible an awareness of the reality of evil in a creation which "groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." [Romans VIII,22].
These perceptions are transcended by the experience of the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ who effects a recreation of the world. In this connection the doctrine of the corporeal resurrection is especially significant. Christ is not some immortal spirit disguised in a body.
These perceptions inform the distinctive Christian attitude to matter.
Manichees hate matter.
Pagans worship matter.
Materialists are [ironically] indifferent to matter. Christians give thanks and refer matter to the Creator.
They play their part in elevating the whole cosmos to the point where God's intention is realised and all is bound together in Christ. St Paul salutes Jesus Christ as "the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation; for in him were all things created in the heavens and upon the earth...all things have been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church." [Colossians I,15-18]
St John of Damascus speaks for Christian Orthodoxy when he says, "Because of the Incarnation, I salute all remaining matter with reverence."
It is vital to recognise that Scripture sees the process of recreation as still unfolding. Romans VIII is the classic source for the idea that we are not only pilgrims in creation but pilgrims with creation. The latter position does better justice to the Biblical narrative with the consequence that there should be caution in using the term "environment" which can easily imply that creation is simply a backdrop to human endeavour. The words which constellate around "ecology" better express the sense that there is mutual influence and interdependence between humanity and creation in our procession through time and history.
Ecological Principles
As well as a distinctively Christian awareness, it is possible to distil some ecological principles from scripture and the Lambeth Conference report from the ecology section attempted to do this.
1. There is an Earthkeeping Principle. Genesis records that human beings were placed in the garden to "till and keep" the earth. [Genesis II,15] Scripture is pervaded by a sense that human beings have a special role and responsibility within creation, given to them by God which involves both developing and conserving the earth. This balance is also reflected in what is said about the elements blessed in the Eucharist. The bread and the wine are said to be both "fruits of the earth and then work of human hands."
2. The Sabbath Principle. Whereas humanity is sometimes described as the "crown of creation", it is more faithful to the Genesis account of the seventh day to see the Sabbath itself, as the crown. Certainly the Sabbath was intended to be a pause to allow the earth time to recover from human use of its resources but the theme is richer than that. The weekly observance of the Sabbath is an anticipation of that state of equilibrium which God intends shall be the crown of creation. It is a festival of thanksgiving and "enoughness", as it was described in the report from Lambeth 98.
The rhythm of Sabbath days and Sabbath years reclaims time from a mere succession of passing moments and gives life a shape which flows from a recognition that creation was not brought into being to serve any transient human purpose but to be material for the praise and glory of the Creator.
Today creation "wears man's smudge and shares man's smell;" it is "seared with trade and smeared with toil," [Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur], knowing no respite from the demands of human beings addicted to a cult of "more". The Sabbath needs to be reinvigorated, not as a reversion to some fantasy search for "Victorian values", but as a feast of redemption and an anticipation of the ecological harmony and sustainable equilibrium of Christ's Kingdom.
3.The Principle of Fruitfulness.
The fecundity of Creation is to be celebrated and enjoyed not destroyed.
4.The Principle of Fulfilment and Limits.
The Divine Creator sets boundaries in place which must be respected. In the context of the contemporary project of growth without limits with no end in view beyond the process itself, the relevance of this particular principle is very clear.
The role of humanity in relation to the creation.
As bearers of the divine image, humans are uniquely called to embody and express God's will and purpose for all creation in a way which clearly makes its abuse and wanton destruction, impermissible.
God also ordained that human beings should be co-creators. Whereas other creatures adjust to the given world, human beings desire to create their own world and have been given the power to do so. They are able to transform raw material into new reality. Nevertheless, this "dominion" over the natural world was never meant to damage creation but rather to be the way in which creation was intended to reach its fulfilment.
Human beings are called to be priests and pastors of creation, living bridges between earth and the infinite possibility of heaven. They are to pronounce God's blessing on creation and contrariwise to express the praise and longing of creation to the Creator.
Human beings must neither disappear into the community of creation, nor must they be detached from that community. They are called to be at the same time imago mundi and imago Dei. They stand before God to offer up creation and they stand in the midst of creation on behalf of God. Though they may enhance creation by skill and technology, this is only in order to offer it once again to the Creator.
As servant priests they must be prepared to make personal and corporate sacrifices for the common good of all creation. The model for this sacrificial service is provided by the "kenosis" of Jesus Christ who emptied himself of "dominion" and sacrificed himself for the world. No ecological theology is complete if social justice is not a part of it.
Transmutation of ethics into ethos
If ethics and this vision of the role of human beings in the creation is to become an ethos pregnant with transformation then they must be incarnated in a community of sacrifice and spiritual practice. We must re-discover the joy of watching and praying and fasting together. Ours must be the first civilisation which has so confused wisdom with mere knowledge and information that we have not understood the connection between our state of spiritual development and the possibility of attaining wisdom. This is the clear message conveyed by Our Lord's statement in Matthew VI that "if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be filled with light."
If there is to be any profound energy for change then it will not come merely from repeating exhortations about all-embracing fraternity from conference to conference. Talking shops evoke not one iota of the energy that can be released by sober scientific analysis embodied in a community whose nervous system is constituted by the Holy Spirit. Hope springs out of real congregations, not concealed aggregations where people are on a trip in search of spiritual commodities.
Our challenge as pastors is to play our proper part in re-animating the church as a society of mutual responsibility in which giving and sacrifice is understood to be the way in which we attune ourselves to God who gave himself in Jesus Christ for the life of the world.
It is not enough for the church to exercise the lobbyist's option, valuable though that is. We must do more than point the finger at government and demand a revolution. Political leaders in a democracy cannot press too far ahead of public opinion. It is part of the churches' task and potential, as has been demonstrated in the Jubilee 2000 campaign, to enlarge the political room for manoeuvre. We need to play our part in building up a constituency which is concerned and vocal but which has also earned the right to be heard by embarking on the revolution at home and in their local Christian fellowship.
We have many allies in setting about this work
And we shall hear about some of them tomorrow. The Conservation Foundation has already made an impact with its Parish Pumps initiative and I hope that more bishops might feel able to commend this initiative as well as investigating the various other options proposed by the Government's agency, "Going for Green" and Martin Palmer's Alliance of Religion and Conservation.
I very much appreciated Sir John Houghton's emphasis on confidence in God. Some people are understandably fearful about what is coming upon the world but our profoundest motivation comes not from fear but from love and obedience to the gospel.
Conservation really demands conversion in our relationship to creation and our understanding of our role in the world where the gospel calls us to live in modest harmony not audacious exploitation. We have the right says St Paul [1Cor.VII,31] to use the world but not to abuse it but above all to grow in the wisdom which comes from love. The elder Zossima in Brothers Karamazov exhorts his disciples thus:-
"Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in things."
