Book: Faith in a Changing Climate. Chapter 1/1.
We are releasing sections of the book Faith in a Changing Climate for review. (The current Table of Contents is here.) This post provides the first part of Chapter 1. (Please note that this material is taken from the manuscript — it is likely to change as the book goes through the editing process.)
Background
We face multiple intersecting crises; these include climate change, resource depletion, biosphere destruction and population overshoot. Together, they constitute an ‘Age of Limits’. These crises are predicaments, not problems. Problems have solutions, predicaments do not. When faced with a predicament we can respond and adapt, but we cannot make it go away. Of these predicaments, climate change is the one that receives most attention, but it cannot be handled in isolation.
Paul of Tarsus correctly said that, “We see through a glass darkly”. None of us know what the future holds. But it is becoming clear that, within the next few decades, we are in for wrenching and unpleasant changes. We cannot maintain ceaseless material growth in a finite world.
Leadership is required, but leadership is not happening. A politician cannot run on the platform of, ‘Elect me and I will reduce your standard of living’. (If he does, he will soon become an ex-politician.) Neither can businesses provide long-term leadership because their economic models are predicated on the assumption on never-ending economic growth, and they have to meet short-term financial targets.
The central theme of this book is that the church can provide that leadership. The Bible does not promise material prosperity — it talks mostly about spiritual and ethical matters. And, throughout the church’s history, sacrifice in one form or another has been integral to its message. Therefore, if the church is to provide leadership, the question becomes, ‘What form does that leadership take?’
I suggest that the first step in answering that question is to work out a theology for the difficult and strange times in which we live. I have to tread lightly here — I am a chemical engineer, not a theologian. (The picture at the head of this chapter is of me when working on a North Sea offshore platform. It was snowing lightly at the time.) Therefore, anything I say to do with theology can only be in the form of suggestions for professional theologians and ordained clergy. However, being an engineer, I stress the importance of having a theology that fits within the bounds of the laws of physics, ecology and thermodynamics. Church leaders are not immune from wishful thinking and ‘greenwashing’.
Given this background, I have developed three guidelines that I hope church leaders will find useful in the coming years. They are,
Guideline 1 Understand physical realities,
Guideline 2 Accept and adapt, and
Guideline 3 Live within Gaia.
CHAPTER 1 — NOAH’S ARK
NOAH
We start each chapter in this book with the name of a religious or secular leader who provided insights that help explain the contents of that chapter. In this chapter we start with the legend of Noah and his ark. His story is told in Chapters 6 through 9 of the book of Genesis. God had created the world, and given special authority and privileges to humans. But, after just ten generations, God regretted what he had done.
The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”
That certainly sounds familiar. Ten generations is about 300 years, and, as we will see in Chapter 4, we are coming to the end of a 300-year fossil fuel party. In the Noah story, God decided to destroy the wicked humans and all the other creatures of the natural world. That seems to be what is happening now.
But then the Lord gave the people of Genesis another chance.
The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation . . . Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
So, Noah built an ark and saved a remnant of humanity and the many animals. (Using Babylonian texts which predate the Hebrew Bible by hundreds of years, Irving Finkel suggests that the original ark was circular, like a coracle, rather than boat-shaped. (Finkel, 2014)).
Following the flood, we are told that,
. . . The Lord said in this heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.”
This prophesy is one that we are doing our best to overturn. Climate change will not lead to the destruction of ‘every living creature’. But it will definitely lead to the extinction of many species.
God also said to Noah and his sons,
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird in the air, and on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea: into your hand they are delivered.
By following this commandment so enthusiastically we have created today’s crises. We will see if there is a second chance.