Lord of heaven and earth

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt 11.25-27)

Jesus’ prayer — which He invites His followers to echo (cf. Matt 6.9-10) — speaks in the same breath of:

• God as ‘Lord of heaven and earth’, whose will is done and whose glorious sovereignty is evident in His hiding and revealing activity; and
• God as ‘Father’ — not in generic terms but in strikingly personal and relational term, co-ordinating it with His own unique identity as the Son.

And these two truths must be held together. While it is right to insist on the truth of God’s sovereignty over his creation — we must do justice to the biblical images of His kingship, ownership and right to dispose of His creation as He chooses, and governance of all natural processes and historical events — this insistence should never eclipse our recognition of His loving, compassionate commitment to and Fatherly care for His creation.

This is one of the key implications of the ‘Christological reinterpretation’ of God’s kingship catalysed by the New Testament inclusion of Jesus in the unique divine identity. This seems to be the drift of Phil 2.5-11, for example: the obedience of Jesus — even unto death — gives us the definitive window into the heart and character of God (it was as God or because He is God that Jesus didn’t exploit his position of privilege).

The God we meet in Jesus is no tyrant. The way He exercises His sovereignty in His creation does not crush its freedom or undermine its integrity as a distinct (although still dependent) reality. Grasping this is essential to understanding our responsibilities in God’s world in their cosmic frame.

At the very least…

It’s worth surveying the ground we’ve covered in wrestling with whether or not concern for the environment can be justified on grounds intrinsic to the gospel.

I’ve suggested we take our bearings from these gospel co-ordinates:

• We begin from the recognition that the depths of creation’s plight means that nothing short of the Messiah’s cross can save it. Consequently, attempts to deal with challenges like climate change without reference to the root problem, no matter how admirable and imaginative, will never even scratch the surface.
• Nevertheless, we also know that God has already done the heavy-lifting when it comes to redeeming creation. What He has done in the death and resurrection of Jesus provides a definitive preview of its destiny, giving hope and value to our work — including our care for creation.
• More, as far as creation is concerned, the good news of the gospel is that God’s achievement in Christ brings the natural world to its God-ordained end — apocalyptically — through Christ and in the Spirit. Thus, human beings can (finally) play our God-ordained role and draw out nature’s potential to glorify God.

The fruit of our preliminary examination of the possibility of a genuinely evangelical environmentalism (it’s still only a ‘possibility’ — the proof of the pudding is in the eating, to which we’ll turn presently) is the need to consider the burden love lays on us.

As the distinctive mark of Christian identity, love is sometimes cited as the motive to care about climate change: At the very least the obligation to love environmental refugees (say) demands some action.

This conveniently short-circuits all sorts of objections. But our gospel co-ordinates demand something much wider.

Although there are indicators in the NT that the obligation to love is relative to the relational and situational realities of our lives (e.g., consider what Paul says about doing good ‘as we have opportunity’ in Gal 6), love bursts narrow bounds — otherwise it descends into tribalism (cf. Matt 5.43-48)?

And a holistic view of Christian stewardship suggests something wider still — in which the obligation to love extends to our broad responsibilities within the whole created order…

A brief theology of nature (Part 3 of 3)

In the previous two posts I argued that a proper theology of nature will be apocalyptic and christological.

A good picture of this is provided by Jesus’ encounter with the man possessed by a legion of demons. There Jesus reclaims part of God’s good creation — ‘planting the flag’ of God’s future in the soil of the present if you like — allowing the man’s distorted humanity to find true fulfilment. Yet in disentangling this man from the evil, anti-creation forces that have claimed him, what is required is nothing short of a massive wrenching. In Christ, grace perfects nature apocalyptically.

This provides some leverage on the traditional thought that creation’s telos is to glorify God. Creation is indeed the arena in which God’s glory is displayed (cf. Rom 1.18-20). And, as Augustine argued (e.g., in On Christian Doctrine), it’s to be used for the enjoyment of God not enjoyed as an end in itself.

All this is true and right, as is a recognition that creation is (in Colin Gunton’s terms) a ‘project’ — something open to the future and full of potential that human beings are privileged to be involved in drawing out (cf. Gen 2.5).

The danger is that emphasising this can cause us to skate over the fact that belief in creation is an article of faith (as Barth emphasises). It is thus fundamentally determined by the reality of God’s Triune being. More, the realisation of creation’s purpose to glorify God the Father requires not just human participation but also God’s decisive reconciling action in the Messiah, Israel’s — and humanity’s — unique Spirit-anointed representative, the Word of God become flesh.

This is reflected in the sequence of thought in Rev 4 and 5. Although the stage is set for all creation to raise its voice in praise of its Creator by the end of Rev 4, there’s an inexplicable pause at the beginning of Rev 5. No-one is found who is worthy to open the scroll and implement God’s plan for the world. No-one, that is, until the Messiah, the Lion of Judah — who is, shockingly, also the Lamb who was slain — turns up. And he ultimately shares in creation’s glorification of the Father in the power of the Spirit…

In short, an adequate theology of nature will be thoroughly trinitarian.

A brief theology of nature (Part 2 of 3)

As I continue to develop my outline of a brief theology of nature, I thought it would worth highlighting a common alternative the misstep I identified in the previous post — taking what seems natural and obvious as our source for determining the natural teleology (purpose and design) of creation.

This alternative — which is equally inadequate — has been dubbed the protological fallacy. It involves trying to read off a pure, untainted natural teleology by looking back to the beginning of the incomplete project of creation.

A number of factors confound this. To begin with, I’ve often wondered why people who do this almost inevitably privilege the opening chapters of Genesis as the ‘literal’ creation narrative (relegating other narratives, e.g., in Job and some of the Psalms, to the status of ‘mere poetry’).

What’s more, even the access Genesis 1-2 gives us to God’s original purposes for His world is unavoidably mediated to us by a document and in a language that doesn’t participate in this original purity. That is, we only ever see through the lens of the Fall.

Of course, we might try to correct this distortion with a kind of ‘negative theology’. Trouble is, all we end up with is the ‘negation of the negative’ not something positive and concrete. Further, any ‘negative theology’ is implicitly anchored in a positive vision which tells us what we should (and should not) negate.

All of which is a long way of saying that we need to read the opening chapters of Genesis in the context of the entire canon — especially its centre: the kingdom of God inaugurated in Jesus. As Hill recognises, ‘it is only the final vision of the Kingdom of God revealed in Christ that enables us to see the picture that governs the whole of the moral life.’ (The How And Why Of Love, p 123)

The kingdom is the consummation of creation, and the definitive unveiling of its natural telos. It is thus to the kingdom that we must look to develop our theology of nature.

In short, an adequate theology of nature will be thoroughly christological.

[To be concluded…]

A brief theology of nature (Part 1 of 3)

When I was younger I attempted to read Stephen Hawking’s outrageously titled book, A Brief History of Time. I guess part of what attracted me to it was its spectacular-seeming claim to both brevity and a (Promethean) exhaustiveness.

At risk of repeating such a futile gesture, I want to develop — in outline — a brief theology of nature according to Scripture. Central to which is the question of what creation is for — its purpose or telos.

In this context, Michael Hill’s distinction between historical teleology and natural teleology is worth bearing in mind (The How And Why Of Love, p 28:

[T]eleological theories in ethics locate the telos by looking at the nature or the design. For obvious reasons this type of teleology is call natural teleology. By way of contrast, we may set ourselves goals (teloi) in our lives. These would be goals that we would strive to reach in the future. This type of teleology is called historical teleology.

There is undoubted value to this. But the danger is that when it comes to thinking about creation’s purpose and design, we end up casting around for what seems ‘natural’ and obvious — which may be cultural or even downright sinful — and treat it as what God intended. This can be disastrous (as the ‘naturalisation’ of Volk prejudice by the established Church in Nazi Germany attests).

We mustn’t pit God’s ultimate intentions (historical teleology) against His original intentions (natural teleology) — as though Creator and creation were opposed! But we do need to recognise that when God graciously brings about creation’s consummation, He does so in a profoundly wrenching way, showing us that so much of what seems natural and obvious is actually distortion (e.g., Jesus’ correction of His disciples’ assumption that power brings privilege in Mark 10.41-45).

In short, an adequate theology of nature will be thoroughly apocalyptic.

[To be continued…]

How to heal a broken world

I have a confession to make. Ever since first encountering it, I’ve really struggled with Oliver O’Donovan’s emphasis on the resurrection as the vindication of creation. For one thing I’ve never been quite sure I knew what it means for creation to be ‘vindicated’. For another I’ve struggled to understand Why? — Why does the resurrection vindicate creation?

But I think I’m finally starting to get it!

From the beginning, the Bible presents creation as something that’s going somewhere — a project (in Colin Gunton’s terms). The assurance in Genesis 1 that creation is ‘good … good … and very good’, still leaves room for the recognition that the perfection of its beginning will be eclipsed by that of its end.

Genesis 2 already begins to nudge us towards this recognition. In v 5, we’re told that something’s lacking — ‘for the Lord God had not caused it to rain … and there was no one to till the ground’.

At the other end of history, John’s vision of creation’s ultimate destiny (Rev 21-22) — while loaded with allusions to the opening chapters of Genesis — goes far beyond the original. We’re not headed back to the garden, but to a city. The New Jerusalem!

There’s a preview of this trajectory in Genesis 12. Against the backdrop of Genesis 1-11, God’s particular commitment to Abraham takes on universal — even cosmic — dimensions. Not only will all the nations be blessed. But the curse, and the shadow it casts on the ground itself, will be overcome.

In short, God undertakes to reclaim and heal this broken world.

Consequently, the forces of chaos that stand arrayed against God’s good world have no future. They’ll be defeated. Life not death will triumph in the end. In terms of Romans 8, creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay — and share in the glorious freedom of God’s children.

New creation simply is the future of creation

This is why Christ’s resurrection vindicates the creation. There Jesus crashes through death and inaugurates the new creation, anticipating the destiny of God’s world. And laying the foundation for a genuinely evangelical environmentalism.

Imagination is not the problem

The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently posted a media release summarising its findings about community attitudes on key matters of environmental concern — climate change, electricity use and water shortages.

One of the most interesting things about it is the gap between people’s stated and demonstrated concern: While 90% of us ‘are concerned by water shortages, and three-quarters are concerned about climate change’, only 17% of people actually signed a petition (the most common form of activity demonstrating concern).

That feels like a significant gap to me — although I’d need to compare it with other issues to see how typical it is. But the more significant question is, Why is there such a gap between the concern people say they have and what their actions demonstrate?

My gut reaction is to suspect that it’s a failure of imagination. We can’t think of what to do. The problem feels so … massive. Workable — and affordable — solutions don’t seem to present themselves. And there are plenty of prophets of doom out there who can reel off a list of problems so long that it leaves you paralysed. (On the flip side we can be served up so many options that we’re left facing an equally fruitless ‘option paralysis’.)

But the message of the Christian gospel leads me to see that imagination is not the problem. Something far deeper is the matter with this broken world. If God Himself had to show up — becoming a human being and submitting Himself to death on a cross — in order to repair His world, then the problem must be pretty severe. Far more terrible than even the most dire prognostications of environmental apocalypse get at.

Obviously, this doesn’t exclude the negative impact of our feeble imaginations. Or rule out the fact that our unwillingness to surrender convenience or comfort is a pretty big contributor to the gap between our words and actions.

It does mean that we can’t claim to offer a genuinely Christian, evangelical response to climate change if we fail to reckon with the underlying problem. And the radical lengths to which the Creator has gone to heal His broken creation.

Is it Christian to be Green?

When I was a child, Kermit the Frog told me, ‘It’s not easy being green’. When it comes to concern for the environment, many people wonder if it’s Christian to be Green.

Is a genuinely evangelical environmentalism possible?

It’s the million-dollar question. And we’ll inevitably return to it as our conversation unfolds. But as I launch my heuristic raft out into the stream of robust, open debate it does need enough initial plausibility for you to consider stepping aboard. It has to at least look like it won’t sink.

To establish this, I want to suggest that the question of an environmentalism is an aspect of a larger question about Christian ethics. Let me explain.

Christian living, ethics, obedience, good works — call it it you will — is no appendix to faith. The Reformation rightly reminded us that it’s grace alone, and hence faith alone, which saves us. But the Reformers all knew that it’s never a faith that is alone. As James insisted a faith consisting of mere intellectual assent — devoid of works — is no faith at all. Obedience isn’t an optional extra; it’s the necessary response to the gospel of grace — the way we adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour (Titus 2.10).

What all this has to do with environmental concern is simply this: if I can show that proactive concern for the environment is part of the necessary response to the gospel, then a genuinely evangelical environmentalism would join the other dimensions of Christian ethics — sexual, church, political, etc — as ‘core business’ for the people of God.

Of course I’m not assuming my point proven — yet. All I want for the moment is for you to at least grant the possibility of an evangelical environmentalism if it can be shown to be based on the gospel. Sound fair?

Welcome to the conversation!

You’ve probably heard of An Inconvenient Truth. You may have seen The Green Bible. You might be aware that theologians of various stripes have raised there voices for and against the development of Christian environmental concern.

But maybe you’re wondering what all the fuss is about. Perhaps you’ve said to yourself: ‘Isn’t there a danger that in rushing headlong to embrace the current environmental fad Christians will be yoking themselves to an agenda and philosophy with as limited a shelf life as Aristotelian cosmology or Newtonian physics?’

OK. Probably not.

But … however you look at it, whatever your previous experience, I’d love your help! This blog is designed to be a space in which to explore — probably for a limited time — the various theological and practical issues at the interface of evangelical mission concern and environmental interest and action.

Some of the key topics I’d like us to hit together include:

1. An evangelical environmentalism?
2. The cosmic frame: creation redeemed
3. The Creator’s faithfulness: biblical monotheism
4. The crucial factor: God’s ultimate purposes disclosed
5. Sanctified for stewardship
6. The responsibility of love
7. So what? Gospel priorities and environmental concern

What do you reckon? Glaring omissions? Points of clarification? Things you’d like to see tweaked?