Are humans moral beings? A reflection on a statement by Paul Watson

Last night I watched a TV special on Paul Watson from Sea Shepherd, and one of the founders of GreenPeace. It was interesting to learn a bit more about his history and to learn that the roots of the famous conflict (at least in environmental circles) between Watson and Greenpeace that caused him to leave/had him kicked out (depending on who is talking) of the organisation were essentially philisophical. Greenpeace, having grown out of the peace movement, holds a core belief in non-violent resistance. Watson, on the other hand, has since become famous for his willingness to use violence to achieve his ends. For me, the insight that allowed me to understand his approach was a comment he made along the lines of this:

"If you try to save the world by appealing to people's morality you are never going to get anywhere. Humans are not moral beings."

For Watson, at their core, humans are violent creatures. They understand and use violence to get their ends, so the best way to get a message across to them is through violence.

It's an interesting statement, and if his core assumption about the lack of human morality is true then he probably has a point about violence being the best way to ensure conservation or achieve any other goal. It's a scary world to live in though. As seen on the special, this is a world where the fastest or biggest boat wins, regardless of whose position holds the most value. It is a world where might is right. As someone without any physical prowess, it's not really a world I want to live in.

I prefer to believe that humans do have a moral capacity. Indeed, I think as a religious person I have to believe that, because our faith traditions are such important sources of our moral codes and the support we need to try and live in a moral way. I think we can make moral choices and we can do things that are right because they are right, and even if they are not in our own best personal interest. I can see how some people might despair and decide we are not capable of such high-mindedness though. Whaling is something of a classic example. The majority of the world made the moral decision that hunting a group of highly intelligent species threatened with extinction was wrong, but a few countries (Japan, Norway and Iceland) decided, for whatever reasons, that they can get away with whaling so they are going to, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks about the moral status of the activity. You have to respect their guts. One of the most powerful tools in the world for ensuring moral behaviour is the strength of peer pressure, but these countries decided to throw it in our faces that they don't care what we think, they are going to do what they want anyway. It does make one wonder about morality. And then there are all the other instances of clear corruption and *evil* conducted by people around the world with no consideration for the effect on other people, let alone the environment and God's creatures. It would be easier to simply believe that humans are incapable of morality and find another way of ensuring what you want is done - eg. the use of violence. The easiest solution is rarely the right one though, so I suppose we have to struggle on trying to believe that people are capable of morality and moral actions. I pray God we begin to show it more often in our interactions with other species.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is not a criticism of Paul Watson or the Sea Shepherd. I feel better knowing there is an organisation working so hard to actually implement environmental laws, particularly on the sea. It is sad that violence has to be used, but sometimes I feel like using violence myself when I note how rarely the laws made to protect the environment are enforced enough that they actually do so.

What is the significance of ‘the Word became flesh’ for Christology? An ecological perspective

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

John 1:1

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth… No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

John 1:14, 18

To use the phrase ‘the Word became flesh’ (John 1:14) is to make a significant Christological statement about Jesus as the incarnation of God in the form of ‘the Word’ and the second person of the trinity. It is to refer to the doctrine, dogma and mystery of the Incarnation. Within an orthodox interpretation, it is also a statement of belief in the both the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, and the Hypostatic Union of these two natures within him (Drum, 1910). It is also to claim Jesus as the incarnation of Wisdom or the logos, and the answer to the Wisdom Literature’s question about where and what wisdom is (Clifford, 1997, p. 15).

This incarnation, or Word becoming flesh, is not some minor Christian doctrine, but rather stands at the very core of what we believe about Jesus. In the words of Miles (2005), “Christianity is the religion of the Incarnation. Christians’ core belief is that God entered the human world of bodies and senses in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whose historical life is normative in its claim about the nature of God and the possibilities for human existence” (p. 1). As such, the Incarnation is a fascinating, vital and evolving area of study for theologians. This essay will attempt to outline the main reasons why ‘the Word became flesh’ is such a significant phrase for Christology and how the person of Jesus has been understood in the past and present.

The doctrine of the Incarnation refers to “the Christian belief that as a supernatural or spiritual being, Jesus became human and lived in a physical body for his human life. After this, he reassumed a spiritual existence” (Brackney, 2010). In other words, “According to this doctrine, God, in one of the modes of God’s triune being, was once and for all made human in the person of Jesus Christ. He alone was and is God incarnate. Out of God’s steadfast love for humankind, a particular human venue – the history of Israel- was prepared for the coming of the divine Saviour. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, and it was Jewish faith alone that could express in human form God’s nature and will for our salvation” (Hebblethwaite in Musser & Price, 1992, p. 251).

This doctrine has been interpreted with different emphasises in different church traditions,  but in the Western Tradition it is used to denote “the belief that God has entered into human history in an act of solidarity and redemption, and that this entrance and embodiment are focused on the specific historical individual Jesus of Nazareth” (Patte, 2010, p. 588), The doctrine is rooted in the New Testament, but it was formalised and systematically expressed during the patristic period in response to a range of heresies that arose in this period (see below) (Patte, 2010, p. 588).

It may help to look at the Incarnation as God’s way of reaching out to His creatures in a way that people could understand. Popular Christian author Philip Yancey illuminates the need for the Incarnation in his book The Jesus I never knew using the analogy of his fearful fish:

 “To my fish I was deity. I was too large for them, my actions too incomprehensible. My acts of mercy they saw as cruelty; my attempts at healing they viewed as destruction. To change their perceptions, I began to see, would require a form of incarnation. I would have to become a fish and “speak” to them in a language they could understand” (Yancey, 1995, p. 39).

There are a range of Bible verses that discuss the theme of the Incarnation[1], portraying it as a predetermined act of grace by God, chosen before the creation of the world as its foundation and goal. According to Bulgakov (1933), “One can even say that God created the world in order to become incarnate in it, that He created it for the sake of His Incarnation. The Incarnation is not only the means to redemption; it is also the supreme crowning of the world, even in comparison with its creation. In the Incarnation, God showed His love for creation” (p. 169).

This Biblical witness, however, has been interpreted in a range of ways, and often come under repeated criticism (Hebblethwaite in Musser & Price, 1992, p. 251). A number of conflicts have arisen over time in terms of the doctrine of what Incarnation means for Christology. In particular, problems arose because Christians wanted to say Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man, not a hybrid or someone who switched from one to the other (Chryssides, p.25). This is a tricky concept that some have said makes no sense, and many people throughout history struggled with it. This issue continues to be debated today. The ancient creeds (particularly Nicaea and Chalcedon) were developed in response to the earliest of these conflicts around the Incarnation, and particularly tried to exclude and reject four major heresies that arose Arianism[2], Docetism[3], Apollinarianism[4] and Nestorianism[5] (Inbody, 2002, pp. 57-58).

As recently as the twentieth century the theology of Incarnation has been subjected to several radical interpretations that reject Jesus’ divinity and focus instead on how God used him as a man with an intense sense of God-consciousness. This is credited with being the cause of his lasting significance instead of any action taken as the incarnation of God. According to Hebblethwaite (in Musser & Price, 1992) there are three reasons behind this – questions about New Testament evidence of the Incarnation based on critical readings of the text, the idea that it is nonsensical to be both God and man, and concerns that this doctrine demands a rejection of other world religions as sources of salvation and knowledge of God (p. 251). Hebblethwaite believes increasing contact with other faiths will cause continued disputes between non-incarnational an incarnational Christian theologies for the foreseeable future. She also believes that these interfaith dialogues, the complexity of the doctrine, and increased understanding of religious myths and the factors that shaped doctrine development in the early church will be factors that favour the non-incarnational view (Musser & Price, 1992, p. 253), while the early appearance of the Incarnation in the scriptural record, its centrality in mainstream Christian traditions and its moral and religious power as a doctrine[6], will all favour incarnational views and theology (Musser & Price, 1992, pp.253-254). 

Although the link between the Incarnation and Christology should already be obvious, as we continue let us focus in on the significance of the Word became flesh for Christology and in particular an outline of several areas where this theology becomes really important for Christology and its relevance today. 

Christology looks at why Jesus of Nazareth is so significant that he is the figure that stands at the centre of Christian identity and practice (Hellwig in Musser & Price, 1992, p. 83; Inbody, 2002, p. 19). In particular, it deals with “questions about who Jesus is and about why he makes the decisive difference in human destiny” (Hellwig in Musser & Price, 1992, p. 83).

The Incarnation is a unique feature of Christian theology. As van Dyke (2010) points out, “In many religions, such as Islam, the idea that God would become a man is not considered merely false but positively disgusting, something the Almighty would never do. To take human form would be beneath his dignity. To Christians, however, this incarnation of God in flesh shows both the unrelenting determination of God to fully reveal himself to creation, as well as the depth of love he bore the world and the lengths he would go to save it” (van Dyke, 2010, p. 72).

The doctrine of Incarnation answers the central question of Christology about who Jesus is. It tells us that he is a compelling and definitive revelation of the God immanent in creation, which allows us to learn about God through Him (Habel, 2010). He is not only the one sent by the Holy Trinity, but the “one called to be representative of all humanity”, the “visible embodiment of God’s wooing of man” and “the representation and highest fulfilment of the human response of love to God’s courtship”. He is both the divine invitation of love and the one who acts as our representative in accepting this invitation (Cooper, 2009, p. 162). Thus he provides us with hope moving forward as we are reconciled to God. As John Calvin said “The situation would surely have been hopeless had the very majesty of God not descended to us, since it was not in our power to ascend to him.” (Crisp, 2007, p. 154)

In addition, Jesus’ status as the incarnate God tells us that we can trust His example as a measuring stick for our own behaviour and how we can become closer to God. In the words of Jones (2008), “As the divine Son, with the Father and Spirit, Christ is the person in whom God relates to, and truly lives with, humankind. On the other side, as ‘elected human’, Christ grounds and exemplifies the proper human response to God’s election, living and acting as God’s ‘partner in the covenant decreed and founded by God’”  (pp. 103-104).

While the event of Jesus’ incarnation and life is fixed in a particular time and place because temporality is part of being human (Hendry, 1956, p. 154), the example of Jesus’ life gives us several clues as to how Christology can become relevant to our faith and actions as Christians in today’s world through the Incarnation. It becomes an answer as to how an event that took place in the distant past and is separated from us “by a yawning gulf of centuries” can become relevant to us (Hendry, 1956, p. 153).

According to Miles (2005), “in every generation Christians reinterpret the significance of Jesus’ life and death in relation to the circumstances in which they live. Commitment to the church as the body of Christ has not required that others’ interpretations must be adopted, but that Christians participate in a centuries-long communal activity of interpretation. As Irenaeus, said, tradition is carried forward in warm bodies; it is not fully represented by writings on parchment or paper” (Miles, 2005, p. 391). Thus each generation must look afresh at the Incarnation to see how it speaks to the issues and conflicts of their own time and context.

One interesting modern example is looking at the Incarnation and the significance of God incarnating into the body of a human male from the perspective of today’s feminist movement. If God ‘chose’ to become flesh as a male, the question becomes why, and does this indicate some failure of women? Worse, according to the idea that “what is not assumed is not redeemed”, since God did not assume the flesh of a woman, the doctrine of Incarnation could be seen as jeopardising the salvation of women. Instead, “Feminist theology asserts that incarnation actually subverts patriarchal dualisms by connecting the divine with bodiliness.” The Biblical Wisdom tradition is retrieved, “identifying Jesus’ redemptive ministry as God’s enduring creativity in the world. As prophetic Wisdom, Jesus incarnates the divine inclusive love that effects and delights in the flourishing of all, especially the poor and marginalized. Recast in these terms, the mystery of incarnation unleashes hope and vision for relationships of mutuality that create a discipleship of equals in Christ” (Johnson & Schaab in Patte, 2010, p. 591).

While some feminist have still been uncomfortable with the identification of Jesus as a male, others have acknowledged the significance of his maleness for Christology in terms of his male gender increasing the significance of his assumption of the role of servanthood and sacrifice (which was expected of women at the time) and the need to avoid the idea of Jesus being an abstract, sexless being without a concrete human form. Others have also argued that based on his treatment of women “Jesus was a feminist”, that any anti-feminist characteristics of his story are created by a need to fit into the culture of the time and that a distinction can be made between Jesus and Christ and Jesus’ maleness and his humanity. Others have gone further, focusing not on Jesus but what he is seen as incarnating or on Christ as being “the power of our primal interrelatedness” (Inbody, 2002, pp. 12-128). Particularly in North America, these emerging reflective Christologies have tried to emphasise that the biblical faith is not about substantive being but rather being in relation. “Thus Jesus is the incarnation of God’s Word, not because he is “of the same substance” (homoousios) or even “of a similar substance” (homoiousios) to God, but because believers experience him through faith as the supreme manifestation of God’s being with us – Emmanuel” (Hall in Patte, 2010, p. 591)

Meanwhile the Incarnation has come to be interpreted as having real significance for Christology around the poor, particularly in Latin American theolog where it is emphasised that when “the Word became flesh and lived among us,” (John 1:14) he chose to be born, live and die as a poor person (2 Cor 8:9). He “assumes human life in all its beauty and its vulnerability, in its wealth and its poverty. Through his incarnation, the Son of God, “born of a woman,” gives himself to the poor of the world, assuming the full humanity of the poor, as the Gospels show” (Patte, 2010, p. 590). Therefore through the Incarnation the poor are liberated from their slavery by Jesus and become Children of God (Patte, 2010, p. 590).

Likewise, the Incarnation is significant for how we see the church in relation to Christology. According to Guill’en (in Patte, 2010) “The Incarnation is the foundation of discipleship and of the life and mission of the church. As a community of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, the church prolongs Jesus’ incarnation by serving those who are excluded and vulnerable” (p. 590). Also, the church has been seen by some as an extension of the Incarnation, “The church is the body of Christ. It is the extension and perpetuation of the incarnation in the world. It is this because it embodies the same principle and lives by the same life” (Bishop Gore in Hendry, 1956, p. 157).

That God chose to Incarnate in flesh and body is significant particularly in light of the influence Greek doecetic ideas of the separation between the body and the spirit have had on the church over time. By reclaiming the bodily incarnation of God in Jesus we reject the idea that flesh is a contamination of the spirit or that we need to be anything other than human to know God. If we are to know Him, we will do it as humans, and we should do so without creating dualities between grace and nature, faith and reason or body and soul (Cooper, 2009, p. 146).

This reclamation of God’s bodily Incarnation has become important very important in recent work towards a more Ecological Christology. Eco-theological interpretations of the significance of the Incarnation have found that it forms an essential foundation for the development of an ecological Christology understanding.  According to Jason John (2005), “A key strategy in affirming all creation is to link it to the incarnation. Jesus is not just human, but flesh.” He argues “that the incarnation, the centre of Christian faith,“…cannot be construed as anthropocentric or androcentric. God gave God’s self to Creation”” (p. 183).

Through the Incarnation Jesus is seen as assuming not only humanity but the flesh of all creatures, embodying all creation to reclaim in from sin (van Dyke, 2010, p. 74). According to Habel (2010), “This Incarnation confers dignity not only on humankind, but on everything and everyone, past and present, with which humankind is united in interdependence… It sanctifies the biophysical world, making all things meaningful and worthy and valuable in the divine scheme.  It justifies “biophilia”, the affirmation with and affection for the diversity of life forms” (pp. 1-3).

In thinking about the Incarnation we know that as a human “Jesus breathes the same air as all the living creatures on Earth, eats food grown from the same ground and drinks water from the same raindrops. The natural biological processes of human flesh are true of the man Jesus.  Jesus smells, tastes and feels in the same way that all humans do.  In Jesus, God joins the web of life, becomes part of Earth’s biology.” (Habel, 2010). This has prompted Eco-theologians to develop the concept of a “deep incarnation”, which emphasises Jesus as the Word of God incarnate in flesh from the Earth and as God’s incarnate present on this planet. This is “an incarnation into the very tissue of biological existence, the system of nature” (Gregerson in Habel), where we can say that ‘God is wholly in that piece of Earth called Jesus and that piece of Earth, that is holy in God, represents all Earth’” (Habel, 2010).

One issue has been the continuing emphasis of Christology on the humanity of Christ and his relationship with human beings rather than his relationship with all flesh and created things. Reid (in Edwards, 2001) suggests that “we instinctively hear the term “incarnation” as referring, not to enfleshment, but to becoming human” (p. 79). Thus, “the majority of even recent contributions to Christology focus on the humanity of Jesus rather than on his fleshliness and consequent kinship to all flesh. The result is that books on Christology tend to avoid ecological themes, and books on ecotheology tend to avoid Christology. This contrasts with a number of recent books on the doctrine of God, and the Holy Spirit, where an ecological perspective does indeed come to the fore” (Reid, in Edwards, 2001, pp. 70-71). Even before we re-examine our Christology we know from the unity of the trinity that if Father God and the Holy Spirit are easily shown to have concern for ecological issues then Jesus must share this concern.

The roots of this issue seem to stem from the separation by theologians of two key phrases in the Nicaean Creed, where Jesus “becoming flesh” is affirmed and where this is expanded as “being made human”. This separation developed in the centuries after the formulation of the creed because of the development of an ideal of humanity as rising above the flesh and its limitations (Reid, in Edwards, 2001, pp. 70-71). Yet Athanasius insists that the Word became human“not because humans are somehow better than all other flesh, but on the contrary, because humans are responsible for the corruption and suffering of the rest of creation” (Reid, in Edwards, 2001, p. 75).

In order to avoid the perpetuation of this issue, this author wonders if perhaps we should try to switch the emphasis is our Christology from “fully man and fully God” to some derivative of “fully creature and fully creator God” or “fully divine and fully flesh”.

As we have seen, ‘the Word made flesh’ and the related doctrine of Incarnation are a very significant part of our understanding of Christology in terms of who Jesus Christ was and what he did (and why that is important), as well as the formation of recent contextual Christologies focused on feminists, the poor and the environment. Reflection on the Incarnation’s relation to Christology has so far proven very fruitful and it seems this will continue to be a significant field for some time to come.

References

Bulgakov, Sergus. (1933) The Lamb of God. Grand Rapids Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Clifford, Richard J. (1997) Introduction to Wisdom Literature. (Keck, Leander E., Convenor). The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes. Volume V. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Cooper, Jennifer. (Jun 30, 2009). Humanity in the Mystery of God : The Theological Anthropology of Edward Schillebeeckx. London: T&T Clark. Accessed 28/08/2011. <http://reader.eblib.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/(S(zs1ekacrgx4lq2awcbhczukr))/Reader.aspx?p=601692&o=476&u=%2b4mUY0f8hUpNtkTqEX4Rhg%3d%3d&t=1314536686&h=04DF0688053C46E4416B3C59CD515828BF54FD13&s=10664421&ut=1443&pg=1&r=img&c=-1&pat=n#>

Crisp, Oliver D. (2007). ‘Non-incarnational Christology’. In Divinity and humanity: The incarnation reconsidered, pp. 154- 184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Drum, W. (1910). The Incarnation. The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Accessed 29/08/ 2011 from  New Advent < http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07706b.htm>

Habel, Norm. (2010) Gospel and Creed based on A Theology of Deep Incarnation and Reconciliation. Season of Creation. Accessed 28/08/2011. < http://seasonofcreation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/a-theology-of-deep-incarnation-and-reconciliation.pdf>

Hebblethwaite, Brian. ‘Incarnation’. Musser, Donald W. & Price, Joseph L. Eds. (1992) A New Handbook of Christian Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press. pp. 250-254

Hellwig, Monika K. ‘Christology’. Musser, Donald W. & Price, Joseph L. Eds. (1992) A New Handbook of Christian Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press. p. 84.

Hendry, George S. (1958). The Gospel of the Incarnation. London: SCM Press.

Inbody, Tyron L. (2002). The many faces of Christology. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 

John, Jason. (2005). Biocentric theology: Christianity celebrating humans as an ephemeral part of life, not the centre of it. Adelaide: Flinders University. www.ecofaith.org

Jones, Paul Dafydd. (2008) The Humanity of Christ: Christology in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. London: T&T Clark.

Miles, Margaret R. (2005). The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Patte, Daniel. (Sep 20, 2010) ‘Incarnation’. The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Reid, Duncan. (2001). ‘Enfleshing the human: An earth-revealing, earth-healing Christology’. edited by Denis Edwards Earth-revealing earth healing: Ecology and Christian theology,. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press. pp. 69-83.

Van Dyke, Fred. (2010). Between Heaven and Earth: Christian Perspectives on Environmental Protection. Santa Barbara: Praeger, an inprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.

Yancey, Philip. (1995). The Jesus I Never Knew. Grand Rapids Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

---

[1] To outline these verses: the incarnation was “predetermined before the creation of the world. That is, it is included in God’s pre-eternal plan for the world, in His counsel concerning the world. Christ is the “lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in these last times for [us]” (1 Pet. 1:19-20). Thus was manifested “the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory” (1 Cor. 2:7). In Christ, God “hath chosen us… before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4); He “predestined us unto the adoption… by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (1:5-6). God thus makes “known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (1:9-10). And this is “the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the pre-eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (3:9-11)… God’s pre-eternal design manifested His love for creation, which did not stop at the creation but went beyond it; as the act of the new creation of the world, it determined the descent into the world of God Himself, that is, the Incarnation. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son… that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17)” (Bulgakov, 1933, p. 168-169).

[2] A type of ‘subordinationism’ where Jesus was a creature and “there was when he was not” (Inbody, 2002, p. 52).

[3] Christ only appeared to be human (Inbody, 2002, p. 48))

[4] Christ seen as only having one nature, ie. Christ did not have a human soul (Inbody, 2002, pp. 57-58).

[5] The eternal Son took on human flesh but the two natures did not become united in one person (Inbody, 2002, pp. 57-58).

[6] Allowing people to form closer and more personal relationships with God through His incarnation in Jesus and gift of the spirit of Christ, the way God’s suffering through Christ makes God a fellow sufferer with us, the idea that we will be gathered up into a community modelled after the relationship between the Father and Son in the end days and the ethical significance of God having entered into the flesh and being part of the social and political dimensions of the world.

More points of interest from my theology studies

Some points that may be of interest:

• Genesis 9:15-17 is a "divine promise of covenantal faithfulness toward the creation for all time to come" (Brueggemann, 2003, p32).
• "This way of beginning the Bible, moreover, by appeal to creation, prepared the way for the primal drama of the Bible, namely, redescription or the restoration and mending of a scarred, broken creation to the intent of the Creator. These chapters [Gen 1-12] thus make a fundamental theological affirmation, but they also prepare the way for what is to come. In God's own way God negates recalcitrant power present in creation to bring human creatures to obedience that makes the world livable" (Brueggemann, 2003, p33).
• "The notion of the "image of God" is reinforced by the imperatives that follow, "subdue and have dominion" ([Genesis]1:27-28). These verbs have often been understood to mean that the man and woman in the image of God are free to use the earth as they wish without restraint (White 1967). Contrary to that notion that the Bible is thus a warrant for environmental abuse and exploitation, Wybrow has shown that the "rape of the earth" has emerged, not from the Bible and this imperative, but from the impulse of Enlightenment autonomy that lacks any covenantal restraint (Wybrow 1991). More plausibly that that misconstrual, which has been given wide articulation, this pair of imperatives intends that human persons in human community should be responsible for the care of the earth and its boundless, God-given fruitfulness for the benefit of all creatures. Thus the imperatives bespeak not unrestrained, indulgent freedom, but a mandate for the community to take responsibility for the well-being of the earth" (Brueggemann, 2003, p35).
• "Its [the text of the creation narrative] purpose is concretely existential. Given that canonical reality about the final form of the text, it is self-evident that the text is not about "the origin of the world" as that phrase is usually employed, and thus it has no particular connection to the "creation versus evolution" debate or, more broadly, to the issue of "science and religion". Such expectations of the text, in my judgement, completely miss the point and function of the text in its original setting or in its durable canonical articulation" (Brueffemann, 2003, p36). 

Reference:

Brueggemann, Walter, 2003, An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination, Westminister John Knox Press, Louisville p 32)

I recommend reading the whole of Chapter 2 Cosmic Miracles in Contradiction (Genesis 1-11) if you have access to the text. 

How I became a Christian Environmentalist

Writing some of my speeches recently, I've had to reflect a bit on my own story and how I came to be where I am now. You will probably see the below again in various versions in those speeches, but here is the story itself - my testimony of becoming a Christian Environmentalist. 

I grew up as a Christian and an environmentalist. Like many who care for this earth, I was one of those kids who ran around the back yard getting dirty and playing with anything living I could find there. I learnt how to stop ants from biting me, I bred Slater pigs (woodlice), I grew flowers and played with the plants in my mother’s garden, I caught the boatmen in our pool and I fished out the drowning bees and other insects and tried to save them when mum wasn’t looking. Most of all, I loved my dog – Sandy the golden Labrador cross. She was a beloved best friend who stood beside me my entire childhood – 17 years in fact. 

My parents both have agricultural science degrees, so my early interest in the environment is perhaps not that surprising. Mum used to teach me how to identify different kinds of plants, and we travelled a lot so I learnt about different environments around the country. I got bored at school so to keep me from running wild my parents gave me projects on animals like whales and dolphins to do after school. I collected book inserts on animals from a magazine each week, and it was from these I first learnt about endangered species like wolves, minx, elephants and orang utans. When I was eight years old I decided that I was going to create the world’s biggest and best zoo, one that was going to save all those endangered species from extinction. I think, at the time, my parents probably laughed off such an insane idea, but over roughly the next decade, when I didn’t give the idea up and spent much of my spare time researching information to help me design and realise this zoo, they had to reassess. In later high school, I did a nine month individual research project on Animal World – the inventive name of my future zoo. I learnt a lot trying to think through the various exhibits, animals and designs and my idea of what I wanted to do with my future changed. Some might say I finally gave up on the impossible zoo, but in some ways, it was more an expansion of my ambition than a contraction of it. Over the course of the months following completion of the project I slowly realised that it wasn’t enough. A zoo alone was never going to achieve all that needed to be done. The animals needed a habitat to go back to, and threats like climate change meant wider changes within our society were needed if we weren’t just going to have a few arks in a sea of destruction and extinct species. So I moved to Canberra for university to learn more about how to save the world, and thankfully discovered I wouldn’t have to do it on my own. Actually it was really confusing for me in some ways, I had spent my childhood preparing to fight against a hostile world as a voice for the environment, an interest that was still rare when I came to uni to study the environment, but which quickly became normal while I was there. As some of my friends like to say, ‘I was green before it was cool’.

I became a Christian at Sunday School, so early I can’t even remember the date. I think my parents thought it was their duty to send me to Sunday School, but they weren’t particularly supportive and I left a few years later. But God was not done with me yet. My church used to give us presents for Christmas each year, and the year before I left, mine was a Bible. I don’t think I would be a Christian today if not for that little act of providence. In the years between then and when I finally decided I would go back to church on my own, I read that Bible through several times, and became, I think, quite well versed in Scripture for my age. When I returned to church I was warmly welcomed, in particular by a special lady who assisted with the youth leadership. Before long, she and I were leading the Sunday youth group together. 

So here I was, passionate about the environment, passionate about my faith, and yet, unable to marry the two yet. It shames and confuses me now that I could have read the Bible so many times and never seen the green message I now see within the text, but for so long I was confused and afraid. The only thing I loved more than the environment was God, yet the Bible said people had dominion over the animals didn’t it? I couldn’t understand or countenance a faith that believed we had the right to abuse our fellow creatures, and I didn’t think, everything belonging to God, that God would approve of this treatment either, and yet how else was I to understand Genesis 1:28? After all, the church didn’t seem to care about the environment. So I was torn, often wondering if God would one day call me to give up my work for the environment and come serve the church. I always promised God that if asked I would do so, but the thought broke my heart and I didn’t understand why God would create me with such a passion for the environment if I was not supposed to use it.

So one day, I heard that the then Bishop George Browning of the Canberra Goulburn Diocese was talking at the ANU about Christianity and the Environment. It was an unpromising event really – it was in a small theatre and very few people turned up, but after the talk I worked up the guts to ask about the question that was bothering me the most – I asked about Genesis 1:28. George Browning thanked me for the question, explained that it confused many people and then explained to me that the word translated ‘dominion’ could also be translated as a commission for humanity to rule over creation in the same way that the sun rules over the day and the moon over the night – as servant rulers. I thought about that for a moment. The sun is the source of all energy on Earth, it nourishes us and make our lives possible yet never receives anything in return. It was a classic eye opening, lightbulb experience. Later, when I was invited to be an Australian delegate to the Asia Pacific Interfaith Youth Camp on Climate Change in Surubaya, Indonesia; I did a whole bunch of reading before the trip so that I would be able to share with the people from other faiths what Christianity had to say about the environment. The eco-theology texts were fascinating and while reading them I finally realised I could actually do this, I could marry the two pillar of my life together. I could be no only a Christian and an environmentalist, but a Christian environmentalist.

At first, I had been concerned that verses like Genesis 2:15 where God tells man to tend and care for the Garden of Eden were isolated proof texts that couldn’t be counted on to build a solid theology. As Shakespeare once said, “the devil can cite Scripture for his own purpose”. As Matthew Sleeth writes in his personal account of his ecological conversion (The Green Bible), “Much harm has been done in the past by taking one or two lines from the Bible and building an entire theology on them. Was the call to care for creation care one of those instances? Was my church right in remaining silent on creation? The good news is that the Christian faith is not based upon trends, but is instead founded on a book – the Bible. ... I turned to it to answer my question.... What my reading of the Bible disclosed is that creation care is at the very core of our Christian walk.” Likewise, I came to the conclusion that creation care was one of the Bible’s central messages and I became convicted that God was calling the church today to respond to this, so I decided to do something about it.

After the trip I began work on what eventually became the Five Leaf Eco-Awards, an ecumenical church greening program I run that I’m hoping to make interfaith soon. I also started volunteering for the Justice and International Mission Unit of the UCA Synod of VicTas where I get to help create a range of resources to help churches in the two states become more environmentally friendly. I love what I'm doing and I'm finally at peace that I can serve God while also helping the environment. I don't know what the future holds, but I look forward to seeing God's will at work in the greening of the church worldwide.

Reflection on the fig tree that didn't bear fruit

Reading: Luke 13: 6-9

In a faith group meeting today we were reflecting on the verse above. I thought I would share my thoughts.

The first thing I thought about the story is that it makes sense from an agricultural point of view. If you have a tree in your vineyard that refuses to bear fruit you should get rid of it because it is sucking up resources like nutrients, space, sunlight and water which could be used to feed a plant you can actually benefit from. At the same time, it makes sense to try everything before you take the plant out, so it should be dug up and fertilised as suggested in the parable. The fact that this parable makes sense in these terms reflects the fact that Jesus grew up in the country, and he understood farming and the environment. Some have suggested this is why Jesus often refers to nature in his parables, but there are few specific teachings on how to treat the environment in the New Testament. Jesus's background means that he would have understood our relationship deeply from both the sources of scripture and experience, as would most of his audience, making it unnecessary for him to talk about this relationship extensively.

Another thing I thought about the story is that it is a relief to know that if we don't produce fruit, God will make an effort to dig us up and shake us through life's trials and fertilise our faith to give us a chance to start producing fruit before he decides to cut us off. We are given a second chance. Some other members of the group suggested that the story is about not giving up and trying different ways of getting results.

Finally, I began to think a bit further on the applications of the story, picturing God as the vineyard owner who is tired of wasting resources on this tree (us) that doesn't produce fruit, and Jesus as the keeper who pleads with him on our behalf for us to be given a chance and to be given the Holy Spirit as fertilizer. Then I was thinking about us here in the west, using up many times the resources it is fair for us to have. We have excess food and clothing, we have access to dozens of churches and the freedom to worship without persecution, we have access to Bibles and Christian books and the internet. Basically, we have been provided with bountiful resources for growth. Yet for all these resources we are being given, are we producing sufficient fruit? Are we using those resources to help others, to make the world a better place and to give it a future? If we are not, perhaps it is time God gave us a shake up and some fertilizer; because if we won't use the resources responsibly, I'm sure there are many developing nations who would like to try.

Pillars of smoke and fire

Reading a reflection on Exodus 13:21 discussing the way God sends us 'pillars' to remind us of His presence and help when we need it, reminded me of the way God always sends me animals when I need a boost. When I am feeling sad, lonely, or just unsettled, God likes to send me His creatures to comfort me. Usually they are insects. I have had praying mantis (particularly appropriate don't you think?), butterflies, lacewings, beetles, caterpillars... all sorts of creatures simply land on me or appear at these times. Sometimes it is a bird or a lizard. I let the insects crawl over my hands for a while, admiring their beauty, uniqueness and trust. They lift my heart, remind me that God is with me, that He is the great and powerful creator, and that He loves us all. It usually only takes a couple of minute with these creatures to lift my heart and give me a new sense of determination to run the race.

What 'pillar' does God send you when you need a lift?

Where would we be without our fellow creatures?

Making your bus ride to church an act of worship

It takes me an hour and a half each way, on two buses, to get to church on Sundays. For most people, this probably seems like a waste of valuable time. We would rather drive to church than go through the trial of catching a bus there. Yet we know that for the sake of the environment we should be catching public transport, riding a bicycle or walking to church. In the times when your church was chosen by the fact it was the closest one to you, it was much easier to take these options. These days, many people chose their church community based on the place that has the best facilities for them, or makes them feel most welcome, which can mean traveling several suburbs away to attend church. This means that the environmental impact of the congregation traveling to church on Sundays begins to give the church quite a large ecological footprint.

If we are going to reduce this footprint however, we need to help people face the prospect of their local bus, tram or train service. I decided to make my trip to and from church part of the service itself. By taking the bus, I am worshiping God by caring for creation; but I can also use the time to deepen my relationship with the creator. In our busy schedules today, it can be hard to find time to spend with God, which is why I find this time on the bus very useful. On the bus, I feel less compelled to be 'busy', because I am actually already achieving something by sitting there. This gives me the time to find some peace with God. Here are some of my favourite things to do on the bus:

1. Pray for myself, my family, my work, the world, the environment, endangered species
2. Read my Green Bible
3. Listen to my local Christian radio station (try not to sing out loud)
4. Read a devotional or a Christian book
5. Watch God's creation go past and pray for it
6. Pray for the people in the bus, and those we pass in the street
7. Listen to an audio version of the Bible
8. Catch up on the reflections from my church newsletter for the week
9. Look up this week's Bible reading and read the chapters around it
10.Think about the sermon you have just heard and think about how you can apply what you learnt to your own life

Use these techniques to make the bus ride part of the service and the ride will be over before you know it. You might even wish it was longer. If you do, try catching the bus to work using the same technique.

Getting closer to God and saving the planet - what do you have to lose?

Christian Living Series - Saving the Earth: Justice, Kindness and Humility

Christians can make great environmentalists. The Bible’s teachings on the environment and how we should live as Christians help us to move beyond the (crisis motivated) sustainability ethics that have evolved around climate change. Instead, these teachings move us towards a different way of thinking and acting; one based on humility, kindness and justice for all creation.

In Micah 6, when the Israelites ask God what was required of them, the reply was “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8 NRSV
This verse has inspired many to work for the poor, and to improve the treatment of other men. But the verse can also be applied to our treatment of the natural world and all its creatures.

From an environmental point of view the world is not a very just place. The rich and the powerful are free to pollute and degrade the environment, while the poor suffer the consequences. We have seen it time and time again: large companies building factories in poor suburbs or towns where the children begin getting sick; mining companies destroying the land and livelihoods of local people; oil spills caused by badly maintained ships destroying local fishing industries; free riders causing the tragedy of the commons; and now climate change forcing the poor out of their homes while the rich continue to blithely pollute.

Climate change will always affect the poor the most. The rich might have some buffer from increasing droughts, natural disasters and rising sea levels, but the poor have none. Already 3000 Tuvaluans have been forced to become environmental refugees by the rising sea levels on their low lying pacific island. Millions in Bangladesh and other pacific countries may face the same fate. These people have contributed very little to the problem, yet they will still suffer the consequences.

So, if we are to ‘do justice’ we must stop allowing the poor to pay for our comfort. We must consider whether it is just that Australians have an ecological footprint so large we would need four planets to support everyone in the world, at the same standard of living. If it is not, Christians and the church must act together to help reduce our impact on the earth. As well as reducing our energy use, this means reducing our use of water so everyone has access; reducing our use of pesticides and production of waste so we aren’t polluting the areas others have to live in; making ethical purchasing decisions so we are not buying things we don’t need, and so we are not contributing to slavery, sweatshops, unfair trade or the production of products like blood diamonds.

To ‘love kindness’ we need to move beyond the fight against injustice and add compassion for the creatures we share this world with. Loving kindness is about fighting against the unspeakable cruelty of trades like that in bear bile – where a steel tubes is inserted through the muscles of a live bear, kept in a tiny cage for its entire life, to drain their bile for traditional medicine- and shark finning – where a shark is captured, has its fins cut off and is tossed back in the ocean, alive, to drown slowly and painful y. Loving kindness means supporting the work of groups like wildlife rescue; means catching and releasing the moths that fly into your house instead of killing them; and means having a bird bath or feeder in your church grounds during a drought. It means planting nectar bushes in your garden for birds, butterflies and bees; working to preserve animal habitats; and volunteering to help a local endangered species. These actions might seem small and insignificant, but they add up. After all, as Mother Teresa once said – “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in an ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

Finally, we must ‘walk humbly’ with our God; and this can be the hardest step. It is time that humanity stops clinging like a child to the idea of our superiority over the rest of creation. God has made humanity his stewards to care for the earth, and we, God’s children, must reveal ourselves through our obedience and work for the redemption of creation. We must remember that we are not defined by our possessions, but by our relationship with God. It is in God that we are to find peace and security. When Jesus came to earth he did not insist on wearing the latest fashions or keeping up with the Joneses. Instead he chose to come to the world as a poor carpenter. He got around by walking, or riding on the colt of a donkey – the lowliest transport available. Jesus was unconcerned by money and appearances. I think he who told us not to worry about our clothing, would have been horrified by the idea of the suffering of both people and the environment that tends to go into our clothes and belongings today. In today’s world, Jesus’ is a challenging example.

Humility is an unpopular word in today’s society. Somehow pride, greed and ambition have ceased to be sins and become virtues. In a world that worships the rich and powerful, would we recognise Jesus? And if we did, would we abuse his creation for our own gain?

Living as a Christian gives us many opportunities to care for God’s creation. By reflecting on God’s words, we can learn to act in a way that is more in harmony with nature, and with God’s will and purpose. In spite of the ecological crisis; if practiced faithfully maybe justice, kindness and humility are the keys to saving us all.

New Series - Saving the Environment through faithful Christian Living

Hi Everyone,

I am starting a new series of Bible Studies to explore how living faithfully as a Christian and following the teachings of the Bible on how we should live our lives can also make our actions more environmentally friendly. I hope you find this series exciting and inspiring, and that it helps you to understand the harmony between Christian faith and caring for the environment.

Jessica

"A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you."

Edelman, Marian Wright

We all like heroes. Great, supernatural type beings who never take a step wrong and who do what we can’t. When life overwhelms us, we want to cry out for a Superman or a Wonder-Woman to come and save us.

There are multiple campaigns on Facebook to ‘Bring back Captain Planet’ to help educate people today about the environment. (For those who don’t know, Captain Planet was a children’s show my generation watched which involved a team of ‘planeteers’ with special powers (the ability to manipulate earth, fire, wind, water, heart) which combined to create the superhero Captain Planet. Under the instructions of the beautiful Gaia (mother earth) they travelled around the world preventing and solving environmental disasters. Each episode would then end with a tip on what you could do to help the issue discussed. The show had a lot of impact on many people. ) While the call is for Captain Planet to be used as an educational tool, I am sure many of us just wish that Captain Planet was real. Why can’t he come and fix this mess we have created for ourselves? We feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the ecological crisis and we don’t know what to do- so we want a hero.

We can treat God as a superhero too. When things get too much we just want God to fix it. Yet God has chosen to act through us. We, the body of Christ, are God’s arms and legs and fingers. It is up to us to let God work through us to see His will done. We have to have the faith to perform miracles.

For most of us, this seems beyond us. We think, yeah, heroes of the faith like Charles Spurgeon and Mother Theresa can make miracles happen, but we can’t. Yet the same Holy Spirit resides in us as resided in them. And if we think they never doubted, we would be wrong. I remember my shock, some years after Mother Theresa’s death, when it came out that for 15 years; she struggled with doubt and a lack of faith. It makes her more human though doesn’t it? And really, when you think about the things she saw, how could she not have had doubts sometimes? We all know that children starving on the streets and people dying alone and unloved in the gutters is not how the world is supposed to be. We long for the promised days when every tear will be wiped from our faces and all evil and pain will be taken away.

My recent reading however has reminded me of something really scary about this situation though – God is waiting for US to help recreate the world and bring about this new day. God has chosen to act through us to redeem all creation. What a great responsibility! We can’t just sit back and wait for God to destroy this earth and give us another (believe it or not, this is a common excuse for Christians not doing anything for the environment). No! Instead we must work with God to bring about the perfect world we all dream of. It is up to us. God does His work through us; and those who look for God on earth should be able to see Him in us. “We who live now are not disadvantaged, but wonderfully privileged, for God has chosen to rely primarily on us to carry out his will on earth” (Philip Yancy). If there is not enough love in the world, then we must bring love to it. If there is hunger in this world, then we must feed the starving. If people lack faith, we must lead by example, and if there are species suffering and dying as they wait for the redemption of creation, we must reveal ourselves as the children of God by saving them.

As Philip Yancy puts it, in his book ‘Disappointment with God’ (p92):
“Some people find no comfort in the prophets’ vision of a future world. “Mere pie in the sky,” they say. “The church has used that line for centuries to justify slavery, oppression, and all manner of injustice. They force-feed the hope of heaven to the poor in order to keep them from demanding too much on earth.” The criticism sticks because the church has abused the prophets’ vision. But you will never find that “pie in the sky” rationale in the prophets themselves. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah have scathing words about the need to care for widows and orphans and aliens, and to clean up corrupt courts and religious systems. The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.”

Creation can only be saved, freed and redeemed by us. It is time for the church to embrace this message; to stand up and not only catch up with society in our care for creation, but to lead society into a greater level of care and sacrifice for its good. It is up to us. It is up to you.

Saved by faith?

We face a challenge. All of creation is rapidly heading towards the precipice of ecological catastrophe. Those fighting to save our endangered species are under-resourced and forced to make terrible decisions about which species will live and die. They cry out desperately for money. What they really need, in many ways, is people of faith. They need our prayers, our ready hands, our encouragement, our support, our hope, and our willingness to change our behaviour to save creation.
For further reading on this topic contact Jessica for a copy of ‘A Biblical Defence of Unloved Creatures’

God’s kingdom come

Read Isaiah 11:6-9. The kingdom of God is one where creatures live in harmony with nature, humans, and with God their provider. We ought to live our lives in such a manner, learning to fit into the ecosystems of creation rather than exploiting them. This will require a new way of thinking, and faith based action.

God is calling us to act

The Bible says that the creation groans in pain while it waits for the children of God to be revealed and to redeem it. God is now calling us to act. “The entire life of Christians is an exploration into Christ. Each generation pushes back ever so slightly this envelope of his mystery…One of the most significant developments in Catholic understanding of the Christian mission in more recent times is its embrace of creation in all its beauty and vitality.” Archbishop Bathersby) Growing ‘Creation Care’ movements in churches and denominations throughout the world indicate the Holy Spirit is inspiring a movement towards remembering our Christian duty to creation.

We have failed

“Man is no longer the Creator's "steward", but an autonomous despot, who is finally beginning to understand that he must stop at the edge of the abyss.” (Pope John Paul II)
Dodo; Tasmanian Tiger; Quagga; Caspian Tiger; Steller’s Sea Cow; Pallas Cormorant; Great Auk; Passenger Pigeon; Lesser Bilby; Lesser Stick-nest Rat; Short-tailed, Long-tailed, Big-eared and Darling Downs Hopping Mice, Desert Bandicoot, Gould’s Mouse and the Gastric Brooding Frog. This is just a very short list of some species that have become extinct at our hands. Australia has the worst rate of mammal extinction in the world with 27 species becoming extinct in the last 200 years. Likely to join them soon are the Christmas Island Pipistrelle Bat, Lord Howe Island Phasamid, Mountain Pygmy-Possum, Leadbeater’s Possum, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat, Dibbler, Mahogany Glider, Red-tailed Phascogale, Orange Roughy, Grey-nurse Shark and possibly the Tasmanian Devil, Tiger, Elephant, Panda, Polar Bear and Blue Whale.

God asks us to care for the animals.

As we have seen in the previous reflections, God made us neighbours, stewards and servant rulers of the animals. After God creates Adam, God declares that Adam needs helpers, so the animals are brought for Adam to name. This is significant. God creates the animals, but gets Adam to name them. Why? Think about the last time you bought a pet. How differently did you feel about that pet when it went from being ‘the puppy’ to being ‘Tessa’? Naming creates a loving bond between animals and humans, and God wants us to love all animals.

God cares for the animals

Read Psalm 104.
“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them” Matt 6:26

God declares animals ‘good’

Read Genesis 1:20-25. When God declares the creatures ‘good’ God is not just saying they are ok, God is saying they are perfect and that they have great value. It is important to note that this is before God creates mankind. God declares that animals have value completely independent of humans. God does not think cattle are more valuable than mosquitoes, because they are not created for mankind’s use and pleasure but to praise God.

Saving the Cosmos

Since we live in our little worlds, it is a good thing to remember that God ‘breathed’ into being the whole cosmos. Christ helps us to bring healing and unity to the world. By the leading of the Holy Spirit we can think globally and act locally. By following Jesus teachings we can fight consumerism, and learn to live more satisfying and faithful lives. With the God’s help, we can make sure our impact on the cosmos is not bigger than our place in it.
The cosmos is singing praises to God, and we need to join the chorus

Our own little worlds

Most people don’t think about the cosmos often. We live our lives in our tiny little worlds made up of our work, our home, our friends and the local grocery store. Seeing the world in such a limited way makes it easy to harm the earth because we don’t see the damage. When we buy cheap coffee we don’t see the people who suffer growing and picking it, and we don’t see the rainforest cut down to get the land it is growing on. It can be useful to remember that ultimately the cosmos is a closed system. As they say, when you pick a flower, a polar bear sneezes.

What little things do you do that might have a big impact on the planet?

Replacement Earth?

Some people think that when we destroy the earth we can simply move to another planet in the cosmos. They see the entire cosmos as just a massive store of replacement planets for humanity. Do you think this is what God intended? I don’t. God created this planet for us and God’s creatures. It is totally unique to our knowledge, in all the cosmos. This is not a gift to throw away, but one to be cherished.

What can we do to make sure we don’t need a replacement planet?