Holding Fast to Hope (pt. 1)
We are pleased to have Michael Briggs on the blog, sharing a two-part series on climate theology.
Michael is from Richhill, Co. Armagh and has been living in and around south Dublin since serving with the TOM team (a gap year programme run by the Irish Methodist Youth and Children’s team) in 2003. He currently lives in Bray. Michael works part-time for the Methodist Church in Ireland, co-leading the Ignite/Urban Junction community in Blackrock, Dublin and part-time as Development Education and Campaigns Officer for Christian Aid Ireland. In these next two blogs, Michael briefly outlines theological themes of climate justice and how we see them in the Bible.
Theology, at its best, will help us to see clearly and face up to our experiences, clearing away the instruments we all use to hide from the truths about ourselves and the world. It can help us to discern the meaning of an experience and find wise ways to respond that will bring life to others and be faithful to what we know of God. It returns us constantly and repeatedly to a sense of who we are before God and where our values come from. We all need those who will help us to see the truth from which we might be tempted to turn, to face things we can hardly bear, and to find a source of hope that is real.
We have often called the people who can do this for us ‘prophets’. They help us to discern the truth and to act upon it. Prophets are sometimes unpopular, especially with those who have much to lose if things change. But they consistently, and without fear, speak out. Sometimes people think them mad. Sometimes they are indulged as though they are naïve. All this happened to the prophets in the Bible, and it happens still to truth-tellers in the world today.
But prophets are much more complex than their popular caricature. Their most dominant note is not actually doom-saying, for they bring most a joyful and hopeful vision of a new world. The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman has taught us to celebrate the ‘prophetic imagination’, and to look for those who offer us a vision of a renewed world, holding on fast to hope. Prophets call people to behave differently, to keep the good laws they have been given, to do what is right. They help us all face up to the future we are walking towards and that we are creating for future generations.
But, even more than these things, they show us what a renewed humanity and a renewed earth, a different present and a different future, might really look like. They believe that these things could indeed come to be. They see a connection between injustice in human community and the ruin of the land. They know how hard we find it to see this, and how our own interests blind us. But they can also make vivid a hopeful vision of a different future, with a fertile, peaceful earth in which all may celebrate and share the gifts of life.
Those who show us the reality of climate change right now are in this tradition of the prophets. When they speak of uncomfortable realities we sometimes prefer to ignore them. They are often dismissed as ‘prophets of doom’ rather than listened to as those bearing a vision of a renewed world. Their ethical challenge is sometimes derided as guilt-making and the real attractiveness of their hope lies unexplored. Sometimes, in our denial or despair, we do not listen well to the prophets or catch their imaginative vision. But it is precisely these voices that we need to hear in the churches and in the wider world, and a theological approach to climate change must make this possible.
Bill McKibben is one such prophet, though he would not call himself that. Some call him the world's most famous environmentalist, he is the founder of the 350.org environmental non-profit and a practising Methodist. He champions the idea that climate justice is ‘the dominant theological issue’ of our times. That is a big statement.
“God called the dry ground ‘land’, and the gathered waters he called ‘seas’. And God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:10
Here is a brief outline of theological themes of climate justice and how we see them in the Bible:
i. The Bible tell us that God created the earth.
In Genesis, at the very start of the Bible we read about God creating. We are told that God looked on the world he had made and called it good not once, not twice, but seven times. God so clearly loves the world he created. How should we treat his creation?
ii. The Bible tells us that Every living thing is part of God’s creation.
The Psalms are filled with God’s love for His created world for no apparent reason than its own intrinsic goodness. And don’t even get me started on the jaw-dropping beauty of divine speech in Job. Not once in the scriptures is it suggested that something in our world has appeared separately from God’s creation.
In part two of this blog, Michael will explore three more themes of climate justice.