Re-Imagining Creation in Light of Climate Change
Like many people around the world, I have been inspired these last few weeks by Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old climate activist from Sweden. Thunberg has become a global force in standing against climate change, and her tenacity has sparked a movement among young people — a movement that has spread beyond youth — taking seriously our need to curb climate change and care for our world. She has been inspiring to so many not just because of her spark, but also because she has Aspergers syndrome, and has been vocal about embracing and celebrating her neurodiversity as part of who she is and what drives her passion.
While testifying before the Senate climate crisis task force this last week, Thunberg said: “Please save your praise. We don’t want it. Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything. If you want advice for what you should do, invite scientists, ask scientists for their expertise. We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.”
This struck me not just as someone who cares about climate change, and is similarly frustrated by leaders who claim to care but don’t back it up with action. This struck me as a Christian. As someone that is part of the church. Because I felt like, in some way, she was talking to me.
You see, I love the church. I would not be doing what I do if I did not. Though my beliefs and my theology has grown and changed and shifted over the years, I still believe that a community of people committed to the way of Jesus can truly make a difference in people’s lives and in the world.
But the truth is, the church can be like our political leaders. The church claims that we care and that we have something special to give to the world. That our faith has something to make this world a better place. Across the diversity of the Christian faith, this is a common thread: That our faith can bring goodness to this world.
Yet for all this lip service, the church is not always known for showing up. When injustice emerges and people begin to mobilize to stand against it, the church has too often stayed on the sidelines.
And when it comes to climate change, the public face of the church in our country has fallen behind in many ways. It has even been openly hostile. In the church tradition I grew up in, climate change was seen as irrelevant. We held to a theology that God was going to come back and destroy the world to make way for heaven anyway, so why bother using resources to stop climate change.
And as over the top as this sounds, it has filtered into our cultural American Christian faith more than many have realized. In conversations with fellow Christians, I have heard echoes of this sentiment. A kind of indifference that, though climate change is important, as Christians our energy would best be spent elsewhere.
Which is why we in the church desperately need to take up the task of re-imagining our relationship with our planet. With all the life and ecosystems and everything else that makes up our earth. Because if we look at the biblical narrative and the history of God’s work in the world, we see that the salvation that God wants to being about is not just about human beings, but all of creation.
From the very start in the book of Genesis, we see that we are connected to the earth, to this world we call home. In Genesis, God creates humanity not through magic, but in connection with the earth. Out of the earth. Which is why in Hebrew, the word for human — adam — is almost the same as the word for earth — adama. The earth and human beings are partners from day one.
And this is not the only place in the creation narrative we see this partnership. In the first chapter of Genesis, verses 20–24, we see God creating creatures in the sea and on the land. But God does not just create them. In verse 20 God says “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” And in verse 24 God says “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” God doesn’t just clap hands and - poof — life appears. God calls the land to be a partner, to help bring forth the life itself.
This partnership — between God and creation, and between the various elements of creation — is central to the narrative of salvation that we see in the Bible.
We are called not only to care for and steward the earth and its resources. We are called to recognize that our salvation is tied up with the land. With our planet. That the saving work we are called to join is about the reconciliation of all things, about all of creation being made new.
To live out the good news of God’s love and justice is to partner with God in this work, to see all things — including the earth — made whole and reconciled to God.
But sadly, we as humanity have not kept up our side of this partnership. Sometime over the course of our history, we began to see this earth as a commodity rather than a partner. We began to see this earth for what we get out of it, rather than how we can live so that humanity and the earth can both thrive.
Some of this was because of greed. People who saw the resources of this earth for the wealth that they could generate, ignoring any impact the extraction of those resources might have on not only the planet, but those who dwell on it as well.
And while wealthy industrialists certainly led the way in this indifference, our entire economic system is based on this as well. In our country, land is a commodity, not a partner. The more land — the more property — one controls, the more wealth one has. This has created a system in which those who care the least of their impact on the land, those who are willing to ignore any environmental impact of their actions, they are the most likely to get ahead and make money.
Yet it is not simply greed that disconnected us from the land. It was also indifference. The more we as humans moved away from making our own food, the more we moved into cities and away from the land, the more we lost sight of this relationship. The easier it was for us to not have to worry about the state of the land, because our food came from a store down the road.
And this has not all been bad. This increase in food production has enabled more people to have access to food and global hunger to go down. But the reality is that the more we became disconnected from the land, the more we were able to ignore when the land was being mistreated.
And after decades and centuries of this, the land is crying out. Today a large consensus of scientists have shown us that our actions over the last few centuries have led to drastic changes in the world’s climate. While I won’t get into the details and the science here, even conservative predictions about this next century show us that that we need to get to work, and if we don’t make some drastic changes to how we treat this planet, the devastating effects of climate change will be felt more and more.
And like so many issues of justice in our world, the climate crisis does not exist in a vacuum, but is rather deeply connected to other issues like poverty and racism. Those who will be most impacted by climate change will be the poor and the marginalized.
The New Poor People’s Campaign, co-led by Disciples of Christ minister the Rev. Dr. William Barber, has made addressing climate change part of its platform, as it sees the deep connection between these things. As they said this last week before the climate strike:
“We recognize the implications of the climate crisis and are clear that the evil of ecological devastation is directly connected to the evils of systemic racism, poverty and inequality, militarism and the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative that prevents us from adequately addressing these issues.”
To re-imagine creation today is to rediscover this partnership that we were created for. This shalom. To work together with all of creation to see life — and our planet — flourish.
What are some ways we can begin to re-imagine our relationship to this earth, and our call to see all for creation thrive? What are some ways to can spark our imagination to give hands and feet to this important work?
One thing we must do is to listen to those closest to the land. Throughout this climate crisis, indigenous voices have been calling us to a better relationship with the land. In a conversation online this last week about climate change, writer Clint Smith said “As the movement to fight climate change gains momentum, we should be clear that indigenous communities across the US & the world have been sounding the alarm & protecting some of the world’s most precious land, resources, & species long before others started paying attention.”
Though much of our world has become disconnected from the land, there are those who have stayed connected. And it is their voices we should be listening to and learning from.
In order to re-imagine we also must listen to those most impacted by climate change: the poor and the marginalized. Those whose social and economic status puts them in the path of harm’s way before others. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change around the world in areas that lack the resources to adequately deal with these impacts. Rising sea levels and dry conditions and wildfires are already affecting thousands of people. Many of us in America are shielded from the worst impacts of climate change, so we must be vigilant to listen to those who are most impacted, as they will help guide our way forward.
Lastly, if we are to re-imagine creation, we need to listen to the land itself.
As I said earlier, the land is crying out. Letting us know that things are wrong. The idea that God reveals God’s self in more ways than just the bible is part of our Christian faith. All of creation gives us a glimpse of God, and if we listen to the rhythms of this world, we can see God.
Which is why we in the church need to listen deeply to those who are studying climate change. We need to listen to the scientists, the researchers, the people who have spent their lives trying to better understand our world. When they warn us about climate change, I don’t believe they are just giving us their expert opinion. I believe they are giving us a glimpse of God. A God who cares deeply about this world and wants to see it thrive. A God that is grieved by our indifference to climate change. If we are to take seriously our call to care for our world, we would do well to heed the words of those experts who are calling us to fight climate change.
As you can see, re-imagining our relationship to creation is not easy. In so many ways we have been conditioned by our culture to be disconnected from our land. One way we can live out the gospel of God’s love and justice is to begin to reconnect with our land. And the more we are able to re-connect, the better we as the church will be at standing against things like climate change and standing up for justice in all areas of our world.
