Why I marched with a multifaith group at the climate march

In sense this should be a big non-issue, but it is also an excuse to blog (it's been a while). I'm there on the left holding a multifaith banner. The other in a circle is meant to catch anyone else not captured by the logos.

As a Christian from the Evangelical tradition (I won't try and identify myself on the spectrum except to say the label is broader than some will allow for), I place a premium on the person, deity and uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth, the one called Christ (Messiah, anointed king). But this was not an opportunity for covert prosletysing.

Because I come from a religious tradition, I believe in Earth as sacred space, sacramental if you like. This derives from an understanding of nature as creation, of the Genesis accounts as using temple language. It doesn't represent the entire of the Christian tradition, but I think it's biblical. It isn't a view at odds with some idea of stewardship, or fair use, but stretches it to see the Earth as value to God, home to all of humanity and all of Earth-bound life.

All of the people there hold to some idea of the sacred, and it's a concept that even secular people can identify with, from Stuart Kaufmann's attempts at constructing a secular sacred to the rapturous language of Richard Dawkins in his writings on evolution, captured in music by the symphonic metal band Nightwish in their album Endless forms most beautiful.

Regardless of what we believe, we share one world. Denialism to me is bearing false witness, breaking one of the 10 commandments. Call it what you will. I marched with these men and women for God, for creation and for humanity, to love my neighbour as myself. Here's praying good things come out of COP21 in Paris.

PS: Here is a blog I wrote for Red Letter Christians on why I was marching.

St Francis and the preaching of the birds

October 4 is the feast day of St Francis. Now of course there are a lot of church traditions who don't recognise the concept of sainthood or feast days. And yet, an increasing number of people are adopting Francis because of his attitude toward the non-human part of creation.

This image shows Francis preaching to the birds. Now while it has been demonstrated that certain birds (some corvids, African Grays, etc) are intelligent, they require no sermon or conversion. The fault of environmental damage lies at the feet of humans alone, rooted in uncontrolled and unbounded growth and desire.

Perhaps this feast day is more a reminder that we need to hear a sermon from the birds. Once, the Passenger Pigeon occupied the skies for days, now it is extinct. Once, birds were threatened from DTT thinning their eggs, at least for now the use of this substance is controlled. Rising temperatures stress birds - one heat wave in Western Australia killed half the population of an endangered parrot. Rising sea levels are causing some countries to think about building sea walls that would cut off coastal flats that matter to migrating birds. The birds are preaching to us and telling us we are out of control. They are quite literally, the canary in the coal mine.

In my favorite psalm, Psalm 104, we are told:

¹² By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
    they sing among the branches.
The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
¹⁷ In them the birds build their nests;
    the stork has its home in the fir trees.
  
We learn here that there is a place for everything and everything has a place - though this is in a time before virsuses, bacteria and disease was understood, so this isn't everything that could be said, although lions also have a place in this Psalm, and hence the picture isn't all rosy either. 

That caveat aside, here we see the birds preaching to us. Why don't we start listening?

Dutton's disdain in a drowning world

I've recently been reading Field Notes from the Edge: Journeys Through Britain's Secret Wilderness by Paul Evans. In chapter 5 entitled Flood, he talks about eldritch places, those places that feel eerie and sinister. He visits the old town of Llanwddyn, which now sits at the bottom of Lake Vyrnwy, which provides water for Liverpool. In the 1970s, a drought uncovered many of the buildings of the old town in a phenomena that people found disturbing. Besides the buildings, Evans wonders what else drowned down there.

This eerie feeling will become a common one as IPCC projections of about 60 cm of sea level rise by end of century seem quaintly optimistic. Even this is enough to condemn some island nations, but given the proportion of people living close to sea level, the impacts will be real and far reaching. Long term, several metres, if not 10s of metres are in store if we don't act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. No, coal is not good for humanity.

The disconnect between those currently affected and the rich and powerful is summed up well in a recent slip up by Australian Minister for turning away the boats, Peter Dutton. In a conversation with colleagues, he commented that "time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door."

Now given the current Australian policy of tight borders, tow backs and imprisonment in offshore detention centres, such a comment indicates how climate change refugees would be treated. It belittles a coming catastrophe and a profound disregard for human life. No, it's not simply a joke, it's a symptom of an inability to "love your neighbour as yourself." Given the number of politicians who flash Christian credentials, I'd like to see this biblical saying of Jesus embodied in climate change, energy and refugee policies ASAP. To say nothing of attitudes towards the victims of our success.

Responding to Laudato Si

Last Thursday at a meeting of the Social Policy Connections, I spoke about the Papal Encyclical Laudato Si' for about 20 mins with Professor Joe Camilleri.

An online article for Ethos has just gone up which is closely based on what I said.

There are also two snippets now on YouTube.

Climate change is a justice issue

Over the last few years I've tended to focus a lot in my thinking on the creation care aspect of climate change, of an ecotheology that listens closely to the voice of the earth or non-human creation.

This Sunday just gone I spoke at Essendon Baptist Church and took a justice focus; with three main points

1. Justice is at the heart of God - many thanks to the organisers of Surrender 2015, The Justice Conference and keynotes (and their excellent books) Ken Wytsma (Pursuing Justice) and Eugene Cho (Overrated) for helping me focus on this again
2. Climate change is a justice issue
3. We need to love our neighbours in a warming world

My texts were Jeremiah 9:23-24 and Matthew 6:1-2 to look at the importance of justice and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

On justice, see the excellent article (from his book) by Tim Keller. On the backstory of bandits in the parable, see this article.

The sermon is available on iTunes under sunday am - essendon baptist coomunity church. See here.

Irony, consistency & protest

There's a couple of principles I think that are key when working for change. Not that I'm an experienced activist, although I've marched on a few issues. But as I consider the overwhelming number of justice issues we face today, I'm forced more and more to reflect on what it means to be an activist, what it means to work for change, etc.

The first principle is non-violence. If violence is used to combat violence, violence always wins (a rough paraphase of Tom Wright). I won't get into the ins and outs of war or policing. Evil needs to be restrained, and it may be that force is the only course of action (I don't yet put myself in the pacifist camp, but violence is always a last resort). The point is, if I believe climate change is violence done to others (eco-justice) and creation as a whole (eco-theology) then using violence to combat it seems to perpetuate systems that don't work.

The second principle is to be justice, not simply to seek it. In the case of the above picture, then yes ideally you'd want everyone to be doing things carbon neutral. That said, the supposed irony does little to invalidate the protest itself, that our reliance on fossil fuels needs to be curtailed, indeed we need who new sources of energy and raw materials. But what if the alternatives are largely lacking? Or the resources to hand used oil? Does this mean they shouldn't be used? Or used to at least so something other than stand back and point the finger? Does the originator of the meme care about the issue or is their self-righteousness more important?

Extricating ourselves from a broken system is difficult. This isn't an excuse for doing nothing, but highlights the need for change, change of everything. We will all be hypocrites, but better a hypocrite trying to change the world than someone apathetic about its issues or in denial things need to change.

So pursue justice, wherever possible in a way consistent with your aims.

Psalm 104 for an Australian setting

As part of the Friends of A Rocha Australia visit to Kyneton, I paraphrased and contextualised a section of Psalm 104 and offered some short reflections. Here it is.

Psalm 104:5-24

5 You set the world on a base so it won’t shake. 6 You cover it with the oceans like clothing; the waters were over the mountains. 7 You yell at them and they nick off, at the sound of your thunder they run away. 8 They rose up the mountains and into the valleys where you let them. 9 You put up fences so they won’t jump over and cover the earth again.

10 You make Piper’s Creek flow in the valley between the hills, 11 giving water for all the wild animals, the roos drink their fill. 12 The birds sit in the gum trees near the creek, they sing and call in the branches. 13 From up there you water the mountains, the earth is happy with what you do.

14 You make the grass grow for the sheep, and plants for us to eat too 15 and beer to make us happy and bread to fill us up. 16 God trees are well watered, the gum trees of Australia that you planted. 17 In them birds make their nests, the cockies and the maggies set up shop there. 18 The grass covered hills are the home of the Golden Sun moth, the holes in the ground are for the wombats. 19 You made the moon so we’d know the seasons, and you tell the sun when to go to bed. 

20 You make the night dark, when all the marsupials come out. 21 The young dingos yelp for their prey, seeking their tucker from God. 22 When the sun comes up, they go bed. 23 People get up and work till knock off time.

24 God you’re a clever bloke and you’ve made a lot of great stuff. The earth is full of animals you’ve made.

Reflections

Psalm 104 tells us that in the plan of God, there is a place for everything and everything has its place. The early part of this Psalm is a commentary on Genesis 1, where God separates the waters above from the waters below and the sea from the dry land. Everything is set up as it should be, as God's creation temple. And it is very good.

And yet the command for humans to be fruitful and multiply has been taken too far (Genesis 1:26-28) and we are now denying the place for everything. Remember the blessing to be fruitful and multiply was given to birds and fish (verses 20-22). Setting aside the land at Kyneton for both low impact farming and conservation is a reversal of this crowding out.

Water is an essential element for life on Earth and a precious commodity in the Middle East and in Australia. The Murray River system is an example of a system in crisis, where climate change and over allocation of water rob the natural ecosystem and those downstream of water. Of the seven verses that speak of water and God watering the earth (Psalm 104:10-16), only a couple talk about human needs. We need to learn to better share this precious resource. 

Another thing that emerges from the Psalm is that it provides a balance to Genesis 1 and its blessing to humans to image God to the creation. In our crowding out of other species, we mar this image. Psalm 104 tells us that God is in charge and tends for other creatures, including the things that some people find ugly. For some Christians, predation is caused by the fall. For others, it is part of the natural order. He we see quite clearly (in the original, not my colloquial version) that God feeds the lions, those creatures David fought to defend his flock, and that food is other animals. Divine care includes everything that we like and perhaps much we don't. Creation care means protecting all of these things.

The last point to make from this section (I've not included the marine environment since the event was on land) is that contemplating creation is praise, it's doxological. And therefore so is creation care. We've often boxed worship as something done on Sunday in church, with hymn books and data projectors and music, when it can be done outside pulling weeds and building fences. Worship is much broader than we often allow (in hindsight I could have mentioned Romans 12:1-2 in this context), and so long as we remember that the creation has a creator, we won't end up falling into worshiping what we are working to care for. 

We can learn from Indigenous Christians here, as not only have the first Australians been caring for the land for millennia, they would also say they have always worshiped the creator, and not the creation. When the message of Jesus came, they received him as the fulfillment of their beliefs.

So creation care such that Friends of A Rocha Australia engage in reverses the exclusion we have done and restores some places for other creatures, recognises that we are a part of creation who needs to share with others, and is an act of praise.

Creation care at Kyneton - a Friends of A Rocha Australia trip

The author in a dry creek bed.

On May 16, a small groups of people set off from Melbourne to join some Kyneton locals to look at some 11,000 hectares of a mixture of degraded grazing land and remnant trees and native grasses. This was part of Friends of A Rocha Australia, a volunteer group of Christians trying to establish A Rocha in Australia.

Gorse bush. As prickly as it looks

I've been involved in getting this happening for the better part of a decade, so it was a relief, very exciting and very surreal to finally go out and do some work. For the ten or so of us, there wasn't as much work as we had originally though. One group stretched out some fencing, while some of us got to walk along the gorge and cut down and paint with herbicide some gorse bush. Very prickly, very sharp and a bit of an effort.
 






In the end, we spent a couple of hours surveying the property, and then sat down for lunch. Tick three of the A Rocha Cs - Christianty, Conservation and Community (which often happens over Cuisine!)

The afternoon consisted of a reflection on Psalm 104, with a local version of verses 5-25 (separate post to follow). Much discussion ensued about theology: orthodoxy (right theology), orthopraxis (right doing), community, traditional versus worship outside, and future developments onsite. Plans are to return October 31 for more work, reflection, etc. If interested, contact me via Friends of A Rocha Australia.

Remnants from Black Saturday bushfire

 

Denial 101x

While I'm meant to be blogging through Forest Church, I've been distracted by a few things. The first is a book chapter I have to finish on eco-theodicy and eco-eschatology (more on this in another post). But I also want to recommend a MOOC (Massive open online course) through Edx, entitled Denial 101x.

This course is run through the MOOC site Edx from the University of Queensland and includes John Cook of Skeptical Science, a well run blog that counters climate science myths from denialists. It will look at the psychology of denial as well as countering common denialist arguments. Well worth a look. I've started it today.

Inside out worship with Forest Church

I've started to read the US edition of this book, contemplating how I might start a Forest Church locally. One of the things that Bruce Stanley notes in chapter 1 is how we've shut up worship inside. Nature is associated with thin places, places where we meet the transcendent. These can also be called liminal spaces.

Of course, this is a book on experiencing the divine in nature, but straight away some might wonder about special revelation and how this can happen anywhere. While I fully support the idea of the reenchantment of nature (well of creation), the first few pages risk slipping into primitivism.

Perhaps gathering is more efficient than agriculture (I can't verify this), but gathering won't support anything like our global population - so is the account an historical account of agriculture or a thinly veiled critique? Likewise, it's unhelpful to picture indigenous North Americans or Australians purely as gatherers, presumably to set this up as the ideal, embedded in nature, simply because it isn't true. Get your facts straight by trying to see beyond your ideology; helpful corrective or not.

Gathering might in general be more robust to climate shocks, but it is natural change that forced or helped humans into agriculture. We may have moved through a period of poor nutrition in that shift - but it will be all the poorer if we went back. What I'm saying is that there is a difference between societal progress and spiritual progress. If a return to our place in nature is what is needed spiritually as well as for our physical survival, it can't, won't and should be the same as making an entirely physical return, unless we all want to be entirely open to the elements and predators. There is safety behind doors that is entirely desirable. 

It might be true too that a view of God changes from a gather's milieu to a farmer's one. But that doesn't mean viewing nature purely as enemy, as much as our crops etc need protecting from it. The Israelites saw this in two ways. Firstly, the valuing of wilderness as special to God (Psalm 104). Secondly, the Sabbath rest for land (agricultural) and the allowing of wild animals to benefit from that (wildnerness).

What I'm saying is that making sacred spaces and finding them in nature are not opposed. It's just that the later is profoundly neglected in many Christian circles. Genesis 1 tells us all space is sacred. Working that out in different contexts will form part of working out what Forest Church will mean here in Melbourne.

A climate of hope on air

Ok so I've been slack but have lots to write shortly. Working on a book chapter contribution (more on this soon), but for the moment lots of promoting my book A Climate of Hope with Claire Dawson. last night we were on Ecofaith on the air with Jason John and Miriam Pepper. I think we're slowly settling into the program, which is set as being a panel on the first and third Wednesday of the month.

Apparently half the show wasn't recorded :( but what does exist is found here.

We also launched our book officially at the Surrender conference. I got to talk a bit about the book on Sunday Nights with John Cleary, audio here.

Here's a wonderful pic from the launch.

On the left is Sharmila, who interviewed us here but who also wrote a conclusion for us. Next is the amazing Jarrod McKenna, peace activitist, Jesus justice junkie and all round good guy who wrote the intro. Then there's Claire and myself and finally Gabriel from UNOH who proof read the book, made some important comments and has made a lot of things happen. Sadly Les who did the layout and is working on the e-book didn't make the photo.

Claire and I will be at the Justice conference this weekend, sadly not speaking, but will hopefully have a few books on hand if you are there and want a copy.

Ecofaith on the air

My friend Jason John and Miriam Pepper have started a new local radio program once a fortnight on 2BBB called Ecofaith on the air. It's a 1 hour time slot where a panel discusses the interaction between faith and ecology. I was on the first program last night with Jason, Miriam Pepper from National Church Life Survey (NCLS) and Jacqui Remond from Catholic Earth Care.

The frequency is 93.3 FM on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, live streaming on 2bbb.net.au, and podcast on soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/ecofaith-ontheair. There is also a Facebook page and a webpage http://ecofaith.org/.

On the 15th of April, Claire Dawson and I will be on discussing our book A Climate of Hope: Church and Mission in a warming world, see aclimateofhope.com

Murderous beginnings to the anthropocene

While I planned my latest post to be about the book launch of A Climate of Hope: Church and Mission in a Warming World at the Surrender conference, I've just been reading a paper from the journal Nature about the anthropocene, the idea that humans have so modified the planet that we should be speaking about a new geological age.

The article entitled Defining the Anthropocene by Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin examines a variety of possible definitions. Bill Ruddiman developed his Early Anthropocene Theory to suggest that the origin of modern agriculture has helped control greenhouse gas concentrations. For example, the onset of rice agriculture has meant more regions where methanogenic archaea (a primitive form of bacteria though of a different branch of life altogether) could thrive and increase atmospheric methane.

Ruddiman also suggested that plagues could result in a dip in CO₂ concentrations when population reduction led to farmland reverting to forest. One of the rather sobering ideas in Lewis and Maslin's work is that the arrival of Europeans in the Americas saw a drop from about 61 million in 1492 to 6 million by 1650; the result of diseases, war, famine and enslavement. From ice core studies, a drop of 7-10 ppm in CO₂ concentrationswas observed about 1610. This was a cool period during the Little Ice Age, a largely Northern Hemisphere phenomena.

It's a sober reminder that human hubris, violence and ignorance damage both human flourishing and that of the planet, and that all of our theorising in theology and the social sciences (as well as natural sciences?) need to be firmly post-colonial.

Even if 1610 isn't the best candidate for the beginnings of the anthropocene, it still marks a significant change in the state of affairs of the Earth.

Meanderings of a budding ecotheologian

I've taken to calling myself an ecotheologian because I've been thinking in this space for a while. Drawn in over a decade ago by being asked to write a paper (unrefereed) on climate change (I have a PhD in meteorology and teach a subject on climate change and natural variability), I've been thinking about climate change specifically and more generally about human/non-human creation relationships.

From the standpoint of the field, I'm very much an amateur, and pragmatics is the reason why I haven't started a Masters in Theology yet - this is to happen within the next couple of years - but I've plenty to do in the mean time with a second book slowly bubbling, a couple of contributed chapters and a few papers to write up.

Recently, an established academic Anne Elvey described me to someone as a budding ecotheologian. It's funny to think of oneself as budding at 45, but I like the phrase for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I like a good pun, and secondly it picks up on the fact that there is a process (one could argue a life long one) of becoming someone in the field. The growth has begun, but there is a flowering that is yet to come. Time to get growing.

I was able to give a couple of papers in the last week, firstly at the Conference on Science and Christianity (COSAC) run by ISCAST, I gave a paper on geoengineering. I think there are 2-3 potential papers in what I said. COSACs are always good - lots of diverse papers and thoughts, and the Geelong Conference Centre is a wonderful venue in the middle of the botanical gardens.

The other conference was the Graeme Clark Research Institute conference on rediscovering the spiritual in creation. An amazing lineup of Australian and international ecotheologians at the Serafino winery in McClaren Vale south of Adelaide. Much to follow up on. There, I presented my published work on a theology of wilderness. A few ideas to chase up from that as well.

This weekend are Surrender I'm giving a workshop on putting the Earth right and launching my book with Claire Dawson, A Climate of Hope. Keeping busy.

GCRI ecotheology conference in March 2015

 

If you have an interest in eco-theology and can it in March (fast approaching) then this conference has a star studded line up of international (Ernst Conradie and Celia Deane-Drummond) and Australian (Norm Habel and Denis Edwards) eco-theologians. I'll also be there speaking on a theology of wilderness, based on my paper in the Anglican EcoCare journal of Ecotheology.

Registration and details of speakers is available here.

God of small things: Ocean Drifters doco on plankton

Psalm 104 declares that

²⁵ Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
    creeping things innumerable are there,
    living things both small and great.
²⁶ There go the ships,
    and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

Today, we understand more of the small, in the form of plankton - both plant (phytoplankton) and animal (zooplankton). They form the bottom of the ocean food chain, store carbon in sediments when they die and provide us with oxygen.

Yet they are threatened as oceans warm and become more acidic all due to CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels and making of cement (both from the long dead bodies of plankton) and land clearance.
We pursue this path at our own peril!

The following is a brilliant ~15 minute documentary on plankton by Dr Richard Kirby, narrated by none other than Sir David Attenborough, Enjoy!