Nature isn't natural

People who care about environmental issues often talk in terms of harmony and balance, as though there's a basic stability in nature which bad, unnatural humans are messing with. If we weren't here, then the great circle of life would go on circling, ecosystems would carry on self-regulating, and everything would be ok. The problem is, argues Žižek, that nature isn't really like that. The universe as a whole runs on catastrophes: things stabilise for a while and then bang! the universe starts; bang! an asteroid crashed into Earth and the dinosaurs die; bang! an ice age. Even the ordinary run of things is far from harmonious if you're one of the seals that a polar bear needs to eat to take its place in the great circle of life. This doesn't mean that dramatic climate change isn't bad - it's pretty terrible if you think that human life and civilisation is worth preserving - or even that there's nothing we can do to stop it; what it does mean is that we need to stop pretending that living peaceably with the world around us is somehow natural.

Jainism and ecology

The book Ecology and religion: Ecological concepts in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism is an impressive survey of ecological ideas from different religious perspectives, including, as the title suggests, some discussion of Jainism and ecology. Jainism, in case you never covered it in RE, is an Indian religion that's all about non-violence.

Shreeranjan Soorideva says that the principle of non-violence is the fundamental basis of Jaina culture, and Jaina scriptures totally forbid any kind of killing of living beings. Jaina culture divides all forms of life into four groups which are, in ascending order: 1) vegetable lives, 2) worm lives, 3) human lives and 4) liberated lives. When people do bad things, they accumulate 'karmic particles' which push them down the scale of life, and they have to work their way up by doing good deeds. Because plants are alive too, Jaina culture forbids even pruning or cutting plants. Only fruits that fall to the ground by themselves can be eaten. Tree worship is an important element of Jaina culture, and the banyam tree is considered to be especially holy.


Ashok Kumar Jain says that one of the five sins in Jainism is wanting to possess things that you don't need. He says that Sravaka and Sraviak Jains strictly obey six principles: 1) abstaining from alcohol, meat and honey; 2) not eating fruits; 3) not eating food at night; 4) praising five supreme souls; 5) compassion for all living beings; 6) drinking filtered water. As well as not being allowed to pick or damage plants, it's also forbidden to throw stones in the water or at any object, to dig land without a good reason for doing so, or to make fire (which makes me wonder whether it's rather easier being a Jain in India than in, say, the rather chillier England).

I tend to want to be funny as well as interesting when I blog, and there are lots of easy jokes you could make about such a strict set of rules for life. But I'm reluctant (or is it just that I can't think of any good jokes?). Anthony Paul Smith recently blogged about feeling frustrated that Christian environmental ethics don't really let ecology challenge theology: that Christian environmental ethicists just transpose their preexisting ethical ideas onto ecology, and never let their theology be changed or challenged by thinking about what it means to take care of the earth. People tend to have similar worries about academic books on Indian religions, arguing that academia is similarly unyielding, and just imposes Western (and usually Christian) ideas about religion onto very different cultures without ever letting those cultures challenge our categories. Seriously, what would it look like to take plants (and Jains) more seriously?

Photo credit: Jayesh Bheda

Reading the Bible Ecologically

Elaine Wainwright is a Professor of Theology at the University of Auckland. She argues that, if Christians are to engage seriously with the many ecological issues of our day, that needs to be reflected in our readings of the Bible, and that it's only by transforming the way we read the Bible that we'll be able to face up to contemporary ecological crises.

People who read the Bible looking for ideas about how we should treat the environment tend to focus on the bits which talk about the earth or creation (you can see a good example of that here!). The same has been the case with discussions about women and the church, but feminists have increasingly started to argue that the bits which aren't explicitly about women can be just as important as the bits which are. Why are women not discussed in particular sections? What are the assumptions about women underlying particular passages, or can we catch glimpses of the lives of women who are mentioned but not focused on? Wainwright argues that we need to begin a similar practice of reading ecologically.

Wainwright says that ecology isn't just about saving endangered species, or not emitting carbon; it's about the complex interrelationships of human beings, their physical environment, and the spiritual. To highlight this, she uses the concept of 'habitat', which is a less-anthropocentric (human-focused) version of 'context'. Contextual readings try to locate the biblical texts in their social, political and economic contexts, but Wainwright wants to broaden this out to include the physical and natural contexts as well. She defines habitat as:

"The social, political and psychological elements as these figure alongside
physical and environmental contributions to the nature of a habitat and its
inhabitants at any historical moment. "

So, great, woohoo, lovely, earth'n'things'n'plants, yeah! But what would it actually look like to do a reading of the Bible that paid attention to habitat? Well, in the seminar I went to, Wainwright promised an ecological reading of Matthew 2, the one with the story about the magi. Not the most obvious place to start, right? I'm not yet aware of any ecological activists taking their inspiration from the three kings, but I guess that makes it a good place to start if you're trying to argue that habitat is everywhere in the Bible. So, Matthew 2:1-2 goes thusly:

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,
Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been
born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship
him."

Saying that Jesus was born links this passage back to 1:18, which talks about the birth of Jesus, and 1:1 which describes Matthew as 'the book of the birth/genealogy of Jesus.' From here, it links back to Genesis 2:4 (which gives 'the account of the heavens and the earth when they were createdthe account of the heavens and the earth when they were created') and Genesis 5 which gives the account of the descendants of Adam. That one reference links this particular story about Jesus to the story of the whole human race and, even wider, of the whole of God's creation.

Bethlehem was probably a small farming town and, as a result, would have run very much according to the pattern of the seasons, the rhythm of planting, growing, harvesting. People there wouldn't have been wealthy; they would have depended absolutely on their relationship with the land which gave them food. Jesus spent his life in particular places, and places tend to point us in three directions: towards the environmental materiality of the place (what the soil was like, what the buildings were made of, how big the settlement was); towards social perception or construction (what significance Bethelehem had in the history of Israel, how the place saw itself in relation to the Roman Empire and the nation of Israel, where Bethlehem fitted in the scale of house-village-city and poor-middling-rich), and towards individual affect/bond (Joseph's family lived in Bethlehem, but it wasn't where his house was; for Mary it was the place her in-laws lived).

And it's not just the place, it's also the time: where this happens in the history of Israel. 'During the time of King Herod' was an ambivalent time for Israel. They had a king of their own, but he was a collaborator, and a petty tyrant to boot; he had rebuilt the Temple but it was contaminated by his meanness. He was transforming the physical landscape of Israel with a huge building program.

This is the sort of reading that Wainwright thinks we need to start if we really want to transform our understanding of ecology: one that pays attention to the things we so easily skip over, because we're only interested in people/proving a point/getting through the boring bits. All this already, and we haven't even gotten to the magi! What we find in the Bible depends a lot on what we go looking for.

Theology and ecology

I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little longer for Freud Part III: I was all set to write it up but then I gave blood, and now I'm too woozy and nauseous to think about anything, least of all incest and cannibalism. But! It turns out that today is Blog Action Day, which means that bloggers the world over are writing about climate change. Handily, I've already co-written something, whilst working for the Jubilee Centre ages ago, so I thought it would be an appropriate occasion to share it with y'all. It was published in an Orange Paper by WorldVision in 2007, and goes along with a book I helped research and edit (I'm in the footnotes and acknowledgements!) Enjoy the article, and I'll be back next week, just as soon as I've replaced enough blood to take on Freud.

Why Christians should care for the environment

Marika Rose and Jason Fletcher

Genesis tells us that when God created the world he didn't make it instantly, with the snap of a finger or a single word; but he crafted it bit by bit, declaring it ‘good' at every stage of its development. This good creation was abundant and diverse, with plants, trees, birds, fish, and animals ‘of every kind'.

God cares for his creation
But this initial careful work of God was not the end of his intimate involvement. Throughout the Bible, he is depicted as sustaining his creation at every moment. He knows about every sparrow that falls to the ground; [1] everything holds together in him. [2] Psalm 65 says of God, ‘You care for the land and water it, you enrich it abundantly… You drench its furrows , and level its ridges; you soften it with showers, and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.' The picture is of God lavishing his goodness on his creation; and the response from the earth is one of praise: ‘The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with corn; they shout for joy and sing.'

The Bible paints creation not as a passive, lifeless collection of rocks and earth, but as an entity that is full of life, praise and God's glory, revealing his character and inspiring us to worship him. As Psalm 19 says, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech, and night after night they display knowledge.
'God's attitude to creation indicates that it is precious and wonderful independent of any utility it possesses for us. To love God and to be like him is to care for the things that he cares for. This alone ought to be enough to motivate us to take responsibility for the world around us.

Our interconnection with the earth

In Genesis 2, there is no one to till the ground, so God forms man (adam) from the ground (adamah) and asks him to till and to keep it. This Hebrew wordplay (adam/adamah) expresses our solidarity with the earth; we are connected to it and utterly dependent upon it for life. For this reason Psalm 139:13–15 can parallel the ‘depths of the earth' with ‘a mother's womb'. Humans are both physical and spiritual and the two ought not to be separated. To care for creation, then, is to care for a system that we are part of: in caring for the earth, we care for ourselves.

The original harmony between humans and the earth was ruptured by the fall. But even here, the interconnection between ‘adam' and ‘adamah' is reiterated. The earth becomes difficult to farm, cursed because of human disobedience. We suffer when creation suffers, and it is our sin that causes creation's suffering. [3] Most dramatically, God announces that humanity will revert to the earth upon death, a tragic reversal of the original act of creation: ‘For dust you are, and to dust you will return.' [4]

This interconnection can be seen throughout history – over and again societies have undermined their own welfare by abusing the land that they depend on for life – and can be seen today, but with a difference. Habits of consumption and energy production in the West threaten to destroy not so much our own homes and livelihoods (at least not in the short term), but those of the world's poorest people.

Servant Kingship
However, when God breathes life into Adam this sets him apart from the earth. The contrast between God making plants and animals ‘according to their kinds' with the creation of humans ‘in our image, in our likeness' implies a unique, intimate relationship between God and this part of his creation. Genesis 1:28 says that God blessed humankind and said: ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule… over every living thing'. Genesis 2 says that God created humans ‘to work it [the earth] and take care of it'. But what does this mean in practice?
The language of ‘rule' over the earth is sometimes (mis)taken as licence to treat the earth however we want, but a careful reading of the Bible rules this out. First, this language of ‘dominion' is balanced by the language of Genesis 2:15, where humans are put on the earth to work it (‘to till, serve') and care for (‘to guard, protect') it.

Second, while the language of ‘dominion' does imply some degree of power or authority, it begs the question of how that power and authority should be exercised. Our rule, as his image bearers, is to be modelled after God's rule. Not only does he delight in his creation, but he takes care of the meek and does justice for the orphan and the oppressed. He is the shepherd King who promises, ‘I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.' [5] Moreover, we ought also to remember Paul's exhortation: ‘Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but make himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant'. [6] To rule over the earth in a way that reflects God's character, then, demands of us service and humility, not exploitation and selfishness.

God's promises for the future
Our attitude to the earth is affected not only by the way we view God's original intentions in creation, but also by our view of God's promises for the future and for the ultimate redemption of our sin-ridden world.

One popular view of Christianity is that this means escape from the world into a purely spiritual heaven, but this is far from the biblical picture of ‘the end'. As in the creation narratives we saw that care for creation is also care for ourselves as inescapably physical creatures, so in the promise of redemption we see that some form of ongoing bodily existence is integral to what we will be.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul discusses at length the importance of physical resurrection, and we see a picture of the similarity and difference that will mark our resurrection bodies.

Similarly, the promises of the Bible point to a ‘new heaven and new earth' [7] – a renewal and transformation of this creation. Romans 8 says that creation waits ‘with eager expectation' for the time when it will be ‘liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God'. At that time the desert and the wilderness will blossom and praise God; [8] rivers and streams will flow in the desert; [9]all creation will rejoice. [10]
In Jesus' ministry we see God's promised future breaking into the present as Jesus heals and feeds people as well as forgiving their sins. The good news that Jesus proclaims is for all creation, and his promise is of the redemption of all things.

Right relationships
Jesus summarises God's will like this: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind' and ‘love your neighbour as yourself'. [11] In other words, the sum of the will of God for us is that we would have perfect relationships with God and with others. A concern for getting our relationships right is the essence of Christianity.

As in the parable of the Good Samaritan, having right relationships with our ‘neighbours' means we must take care of their bodies as well as their souls, and in order to do this we must take care of the earth. Environmental destruction has consequences for people around the world and down the generations; the call to love our neighbour extends to our children and grandchildren, and beyond.

This focus on the concerns of others is also captured in the biblical concept of justice (Hebrew: mishpat). Far from being some abstract concept of fairness, mishpat is all about the way we conduct each and every relationship. It highlights our duties and responsibilities towards others, and is particularly invoked in the Bible in the context of oppression of the poor and vulnerable. Are we meeting our obligations to the poor? Or do we need to re-examine our habits of consumption?

Failure to care for creation is a failure to conduct our relationships in the way God wants us to; it is a failure of justice and of love.

Implications for climate change
Many of the things we do as a society which damage the earth have their roots in broken relationships or a failure to prioritise relationships over things.

We travel further to work than ever before, and increasingly do so alone in our own cars. This affects not only the climate, but also our relationships with those around us. American sociologist Robert Putnam estimates that for every ten minutes of additional commuting time, there is a corresponding ten per cent decrease in our social interactions. A concern for relationships challenges the hypermobility of our society.

Carbon emissions from home energy use have risen most significantly because of the increase in single-occupancy homes. For a wide variety of reasons, for which we all as a society are responsible, people increasingly live alone. What does this tell us about the quality of our relationships as a society? What could be done to strengthen relationships in families and communities?

The most significant proportion of our household carbon emissions in the West comes from consumption, which in many areas (e.g. communication, recreation, clothing and footwear) has tripled over the past few decades. Jesus says that ‘the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil', and we see this too in our society. Our lives become more about owning ‘stuff', as we buy into the belief that more things will make us happier, that we can forge our identity by the things we buy; and our desire to acquire not only distracts us from the most important thing – investing in our relationships – it also all too often overrides our desire for justice for the poor, or any consideration of the effect of our lifestyles on the environment.

All of these relational and environmental problems are challenged by the holistic message of the gospel. For example, the biblical images of the Sabbath and Jubilee proclaim the equal value of all people, the importance of limitations upon the accumulation of wealth and spirals of debt, the importance of rootedness in place, the importance of family and community relationships, as well as the importance of rest for all people and for the earth. The gospel paints a vision of a society that is relationally and environmentally sustainable.

If we are to take the gospel seriously, we must recognise its demands over every area of life and over every relationship. It requires of us an integrated understanding of mission that neither neglects evangelism and the need for repentance and faith in Christ, nor the need for radical action to address the problem of climate change, nor the need for social reform to address the underlying structural factors that make it more difficult for us to live the life God intends for us.
But the message of the gospel is, above all, good news. Contemporary accounts of climate change often offer serious cause for concern and little hope. Christian hope for the future is not an excuse for apathy, but ought instead to provide us with the motivation to engage positively with our communities, in the expectation that God will be faithful to his promise to one day ‘reconcile to himself all things' [12] and that, in the meantime, he delights to use his people as the agents of his redemptive activity.

[1] Matt. 10:29
[2] Col. 1:16–17
[3] Rom. 8:19–20
[4] Gen. 3:19
[5] Ezek. 34:16
[6] Phil. 2:5–7
[7] Rev. 21:1
[8] Isa. 35:1–7
[9] Isa. 41:17–20
[10] Isa. 55:12
[11] Matthew 22:37-39
[12] Col. 1:120