For my first post, I wanted to lay out the reasons why I believe creation care is integral to us as humans, and especially to me as a Christian. In honesty I am guilty of hiding the climate crisis issue under the rug even though it means a lot to me. This is because it’s frightening, it makes me feel guilty for certain choices I make, it feels too big or too late to solve, and because I prioritise the many other pressing issues and decisions of day-to-day life. I’m sure many people relate to this. However, I have just begun reading Katherine Hayhoe’s book Saving us: a climate scientist’s case for hope and healing in a divided world and the introduction emphasises that the most important thing we can all do is talk about the issue rather than trying to live in unconvincing denial. And so I am throwing up my rug and reinstating to myself the reasons why this is something worth actively caring about and wrestling with in spite of its enormity.
1. A way to combat climate anxiety
Climate anxiety is a reality for many of us now, defined by Mental Health UK as 'the sense of fear, worry, or tension linked to climate change'. I’ve now grown accustomed to that lurch in my stomach when a new heat record is announced on the weather report, or when the news tells us of another river that has dried up, or another region that has been declared uninhabitable. Again, the easiest thing to do with this anxiety can be to avoid engaging with it and pretend that everything is fine for now. However, climate change is becoming increasingly harder to ignore even in the UK, so one of the most important things we can do to combat this anxiety is to engage with it in whatever ways we can – making small lifestyle changes to be more climate-conscious can at least lift some of the weight of guilt off our shoulders, and make us feel part of the change rather than part of the problem. Whether this is moving away from plastics, eating more locally, enhancing local biodiversity, conserving water – no matter how small or imperfect our efforts, their importance is in the heart posture they represent.
2. Loving God’s creation & living with integrity
For Christians this is a key reason to care for creation. It doesn’t require much explanation – we are part of creation, made within the same ‘seven days’ as the rest of the earth, and given the task (or privilege) of stewarding it. If we are in a loving relationship with God, surely it follows that we love what He has created – it’s part of our worship to Him. Of course there are many aspects to living out our Christian lives and all of them are important, but the effort and care God has put into making the abundant world around us should not be overlooked, but reflected in us as we are made in His image. Jo Swinney highlights in the A Rocha Field Notes podcast that as Christians we are called to live with integrity, and to practice what we preach, which can mean making sacrificial decisions in the interest of the environment, even if we know that realistically in the big picture they won’t make much difference at all. As it says in Colossians 3:23: 'whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.' Even though none of us alone can solve the climate issue, we still ought to put our hearts into trying to restore it simply out of love and worship for God - the key point is our servitude to Him rather than to the earth itself which we know will ultimately pass away into a new creation.
3. Working in partnership with God
I don’t believe that human efforts alone are going to be the answer to the climate crisis - wonderfully, we know that God will eventually bring restoration, in whatever form or timescale that takes. However, I believe that God certainly wants to work with us to bring that restoration. Time and again in the Bible we read stories of God working with people to bring about His will – the parting of the Red Sea, the falling of the walls of Jericho, the survival of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fire – it’s clear that God has the all the power to bring about the right result by Himself, but somehow He wants us to be a part of that journey. We are made to rely on Him and not our own efforts – as one of my favourite Bible passages (2 Corinthians 12:9) reads: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’
4. A means of evangelism
An argument which many Christians have made in the past, and which has been put to me before is that our priority as Christians should be in preaching the gospel and saving souls rather than putting our efforts into ‘saving the planet’, which we know is going to come to an end anyway. However, I would argue that caring for creation is hugely important in spreading the Christian message – hope is one of the biggest impacts that Christians can have on the secular world at a time of crisis. Carrying out positive, hopeful action in the face of chaos and hopelessness has been for me a useful starting point in telling people around me about my faith. My vicar once suggested that a reason for the decline of the Church in this country could be that non-believers look at the lifestyle of Christians and see no difference to their own – we are called to live differently and not selfishly, to be in the world but not of the world, and modelling this even within the framework of the environment is a part of modelling Jesus.
5. The climate crisis is a justice issue
Another argument I would offer to the previous point is that the climate crisis is a justice issue, and justice is clearly a massive matter to God. It’s a justice issue because we have been unjust to nature, and exploited it beyond belief, and certainly beyond our needs. It’s also a justice issue because of the unfair way in which the people who are suffering the effects of climate change the most are those who have contributed to the problem the least. Working to restore the climate is also working to improve the lives of many people who are suffering terribly because of choices we have made, and working to restore justice is one of the greatest calls on our Christian lives.
Christian or not, we all have different callings and different gifts, and one of the great things about society is that we all care about different things - I’m always thankful that other people are skilled at accounting or engineering so that I don’t have to be. But we all share the same dwelling place, and wrestling with this issue should be something we all engage in, for our own sakes, and for the sake of the earth. As Kate Raworth emphasised inspiringly at the Greenbelt festival a couple of weeks ago, ‘hope doesn’t have its fingers crossed, it has its sleeves rolled up’.
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