Justice and respect for Earth at heart of healing planetary crisis

RITE AND REASON: Congress to reflect on Christian responsibility for global warming, writes SEAN FREYNE

RITE AND REASON:Congress to reflect on Christian responsibility for global warming, writes SEAN FREYNE

RESPECT FOR the natural environment is one of the most pressing moral issues of our time.

It is generally acknowledged that the crisis facing this planet is man-made, a product of the insatiable demands of a consumerist culture, driven by greed and profit. Not merely will the baneful effects of human arrogance be passed on to future generations, but the plundering of Earth’s resources has brought about the impoverishment of many people in today’s world. Ecological exploitation and human impoverishment have always gone hand-in-hand.

The responsibility for this state of affairs has sometimes been placed at the door of religion, especially Christianity, because of its emphasis on the doctrine of redemption, giving rise to an otherworldly and anthropocentric value system. Furthermore, it is claimed, the biblical injunction that humans should subdue the Earth (Genesis 1, 28) has deprived the natural world of any intrinsic value, other than to serve human need and greed.

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It is heartening, therefore, to see that the European Society for Catholic Theology has chosen the theme of Ecology and Theology for its international conference in Limerick later this week.

Reflection on the roots and consequences of the global situation calls for more than a purely utilitarian vision of how to deal with the problem.

A rethinking of some of our most cherished categories might assist in finding motivation and direction in averting the catastrophe that is looming, even if we do not want to recognise its unmistakable signs.

The claim that Christian teaching has contributed to, if not caused, the crisis has some justification. As a species we are indeed the most self-centred of creatures, individually and collectively. Our religious beliefs or, better, the received formulations of these, reflect the bias that regards humans as the crown and apex of creation.

Christians have appropriated uncritically the idea that humans are “God’s handiwork” for whom all else is ordered and intended, never for a moment reflecting on the responsibility that goes with such a high status in the order of being. Theological renewal always involves as a first step a return to the sources, not to discover some golden era that is lost, but to see if the compass that we are following is accurate.

The stories of creation in Genesis chapters one to three explore the beginnings of human life in the context of the origins of the created world as a whole.

The names Adam and Eve denote in Hebrew that both are Earth creatures. Thus, their fortunes are bound up with the other life forms that, at God’s bidding, Earth had already brought forth, before human “intrusion” occurred.

The fact that human experience of Earth is often painful and laborious is not the fault of Earth, which is described as “good”. Human alienation stems from the failure to appreciate the superior wisdom of God, seeking instead to usurp the role of the creator by eating of the tree of knowledge while ignoring the tree of life, which was also planted in the middle of the garden (Genesis 2, 9). Respect and awe, not pride and selfishness, were the appropriate responses.

As a Jewish prophet, steeped in his own Semitic culture, and as a poet who observed his native, Galilean landscape, Jesus too shows a deep appreciation of the natural world and how its processes can speak of God’s active and creative presence in the world. This awareness of the sacredness of the Earth causes him to walk lightly on it: “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

It also made him aware that the fruits of the Earth were to be shared by all in an inclusive justice, one that privileged the poor and the marginalised, because of the greed and acquisitiveness that had prevailed in his homeland for several centuries.

The theologians gathering in Limerick have much to ponder this week and much to offer to the ongoing discussions of what is best for our global world. The economists and politicians in whose hands all our futures are held may be less than pleased with the outcomes.

Dr Seán Freyne is former professor of theology at Trinity College Dublin and is one of the plenary speakers at the Sixth International Congress of the European Society for Catholic Theology. The congress takes place at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, from Thursday until Sunday next.