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…
This is a very good idea for a blog. A Christian response to the environment is a tricky, relevant issue that is important to think through. I like the way you name the ‘short-cut’ for what it is and point towards a more rigourous response. I’m interested to see where this goes.
JB