New book, booklet, and essay
A review by David Thistlethwaite of three recent publications: a Grove booklet, The Earth is the Lord’s: A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues by Hilary Marlow, alongside one of the essays from the excellent new collection Creation in Crisis (edited by Prof Robert White, JRI’s acting chair), and David Gustafson’s book Reaping the Real Whirlwind, on global warming and biblical prophecy.
Dr Hilary Marlow, a director of JRI, and staff member of the Faraday Institute, has written a succinct and concentrated, yet flowing and friendly introduction to the Bible’s account of our relationship with the environment. It could be ideal for personal or group study.
In the form of a Grove booklet, (a series with a justified reputation for tackling current issues from a Christian perspective), this is one of the best short guides one could find to current thinking on how to relate Scripture and ecology. Beautifully and clearly laid out, it has questions for study that make it intentionally useful for small groups.
An unusual feature of the booklet is that Dr Marlow first looks at the Prophet and only after that takes us through the Genesis account. Similarly, today we start with news of injustice and environmental degradation (things of which the prophets speak) and only then turn back to Genesis to discover how things might have been.
The learning behind this booklet is worn lightly, but Dr Marlow is aware of scholarly debates and also contributes her own insights. For example, she points out that the ‘command’ to subdue the earth and have dominion (Genesis 1: 28) actually forms ‘part of a divine blessing, rather than as many interpreters assume, a set of commands’. Likewise ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’, a word already given to fish and birds on the fifth day of creation, is an ‘expression of [God’s] desire for the flourishing and fecundity of the creatures he has made.’ In these and other ways, Dr Marlow takes the sting out of passages that have been used as a stick to beat Christians with, and which have been given associations of abusive power that were never intended.
In keeping with other books on Christianity and environment, there would seem to be two main goals. One is to further undo the Greek dualism that has beset our faith, almost from the outset, dividing spiritual life from physical matter, and so tempting us to carelessness towards the created order. Against this, Hilary sets so much in the biblical witness, the Psalms with their love of nature and reverence for God as the author of it, the Prophets with their empathy for the suffering of the land under the weight of sin, the Creation narratives showing so clearly that ‘earth’ is not only our home, but also our substance, and the New Testament witness to Christ, who took on that substance to redeem the whole creation. Having established that first goal, that we ‘belong’ here, a second goal is to show that as Christians, restored to the true Image of God, we have an active part not only in caring for the world, like Adam, but also in its restoration, ‘in Christ’. ‘The delegated responsibility given to humankind, as part of this image of God in us, is to participate in Christ’s sustaining and redemptive purposes for his world’. The Bible is unambiguous that redemption includes the whole gamut of creation restored to peace and well-being, and all our practical activities in creation care can look forward to that. So care for the earth is human ‘normality’, as God intended it, whereas abuse, living unsustainably, damaging ecologies etc (the apparent normalities of modern life), these are the aberration.
In 28 pages we have been given a complete biblical narrative validating Christian environmental concern, one that would be very useful, particularly for those in the churches who have never had the chance to think these things through. One would hope that with its questions for discussion, it would also set up some lively debate.
There are two areas for debate which, arising from the booklet, I find myself intrigued by, and would like to see taken further in future work by scholars such as Hilary Marlow and others. The first concerns our position in respect of nature and the kind of metaphors by which we describe it. The question all of us have is how to describe a relation with nature which is ‘part of’ yet ‘over’. For example, Dr Marlow describes us as ‘part of God’s creation, not in any way superior to it’ (p15). One might indeed not want to describe oneself as ‘superior’ to a lion or a whale in terms of quality (since everything God makes is perfect). But there is no doubt that the human’s position is ‘superior’, in the sense of ‘above’. Psalm 8 confirms the obvious reading of Genesis: ‘you have put all things under his feet’. The solution to this dilemma that Dr Marlow gives is the notion of ‘royal rule’. Royal rule, as modelled on God’s rule, is for the benefit of subjects. This is the kind of superiority we are called to; one that uses its powers to enforce justice between subjects and enhance their flourishing. This is exactly what happens when we try to sort out ecologies today, choosing to control predators for the benefit of more vulnerable species.
In contrast to the sense of royalty in respect of creation, is the notion that we are here to ‘serve’ it. As Dr Marlow says ‘As some commentators have noted, the Hebrew words abad and shamar often translated ‘to till and to keep’ could just as well be rendered ‘to serve and preserve’ (p16). Combining the two thoughts, she describes the position given to us in Genesis 1 as that of ‘servant kingship, ruling wisely and well over God’s world’. What does it mean ‘to serve’?
In terms of practice, whether it is walking dogs, cleaning out henhouses or ringing birds, every practical thing we do for creation’s benefit feels like ‘service’. But ‘position’ is nonetheless important. ‘Servant kingship’ (outstandingly exemplified by the present Sovereign) is a paradoxical term because the king is ‘over’ but can freely choose to serve. This has been modelled so perfectly by Christ who ‘took the form of a servant’, and taught us to carry an oppressor’s load the second mile, just to show we were free to serve, that for us, ‘servant kingship’ has become an integrated term. But we need to retain the sense of shock in the phrase. Royal service is freely given ‘from above to below’, and it raises and builds up the one served. Normal service is contractual and obligatory, from ‘below’ to ‘above’. I suspect that sometimes, in our desire to give the environment a square deal, we speak as though our service was towards equals or even from below to above. But this is to make our work more burdensome than the Creator intended.
In two other metaphors, we are described as ‘the royal gardener’ (answerable to the King who is God), and as ‘servants of the one great king…tending his garden, the earth, as an act of service and indeed worship towards him’ (p16-17). Here is the idea not so much of serving the creation, but of serving God by looking after his creatures. We value them because of who He is. Seeing the Creation as coming from God is the best way to see it as truly ‘other’ from ourselves and to respect its integrity, and to love it because we love Him is surely something many of us have discovered to be true in practice.
However as we read these undoubtedly correct calls to service, we might also sense that something is missing. The gardener, the servant, works the property but does not have a stake in it. We understand that: ‘the earth is the Lord’s’: God has absolute ownership and disposal. But also ‘the earth he has given to the children of man’ (Ps 115:16). In our efforts to take our hands wrongly off the environment, we risk misunderstanding the place we do have. Who looks after his house better? It is usually said to be the home owner, rather than the tenant.
There has to be a position between seeing ‘the rest of the world – “the non-human creation” – as existing purely for human benefit’ (p5), an attitude which is said to have led to ‘exploitative and damaging practices’, and that of seeing the world as purely for itself and for God, which gives us a purely servant or caretaker role. The former view is called ‘human-centred’. The latter view is quite clearly God-centred, but is it in fact God’s view? It seems to me that when we categorize the idea of creation’s purpose being ‘to provide a home for human beings’ as ‘human-centred’ and ‘self-centred’, and contrast the wisdom literature and Psalms, with their focus on ‘God’s goodness and creativity, rather than on human need’ (p 5) we are not really doing justice to all the relationships involved. God himself is, if one can forgive the term, quite human-centred and certainly has our well-being in view, and within the limits he has given we need not be ashamed of receiving from him. We must not try to be too holy to suppose we have no needs, or deny that the creation has been designed, in part, to supply them. Receiving a gift is not the same as becoming self-centred; it can be just the thing to bring us into relationship. In a properly reciprocal relationship, we experience Creation simultaneously as ‘from God’, ‘for us’, and ‘about God’ and there is no need for that to make us proud or spoilt.
This is where exponents of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity could help us to move from ‘either-or’ distinctions between God-centred, anthropocentric and creation- centred views to understand something of the reciprocity that allows us to love one part of the (unequal) triangle without in any way denying the others. This becomes more evident when we consider Jesus, the divine Son, who inherits the creation in his divinity but (I need expert help here) also in his humanity: ‘Now in putting everything in subjection under him [that is, man], he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see …Jesus’ (Hebrews 2: 8- 9).
The point here is not to try to unravel all that it means to be ‘in Christ’ in respect of the creation, in which we certainly cannot deny a position of authority (there is an excellent new JRI Briefing Paper by John Weaver on all it means to be environmentally ‘in Christ’). But we need to note one thing that seems to be missing in all our talk of ‘royal gardeners’ and ‘servants’: which is to observe that in God’s scheme we have been raised by adoption from ‘servants’ to ‘sons’. So often, it seems to me that in our efforts to give justice to the environment, and to pick up the work- sheet that the royal servant must be given, we forget that God has made himself our Father. As sons, through Christ, we have intelligent, intimate communication with the creator. We share something of his perspective on creation. The desires we have for its redemption are his desires. Therefore the remedy for abusing the earth is not (as sometimes seems to be the tendency of this book) to demote ourselves, but to be raised through Christ to the privilege of access to the Father’s mind, in which enjoyment of all his gifts to us would be a significant reason for not destroying them.
There is a second, perhaps equally well-trodden aspect of the subject that could still do with further discussion, which is our evangelical environmental relationship with the end of the world. As it happens, it is brought sharply into focus by a new book Reaping the Real Whirlwind, a Biblical Response to Man-Made Global Warming by David I Gustafson, which has been recommended by our colleague Rev Jim Ball, President of the Evangelical Environmental Network, as ‘A must-read for Christians sceptical of global warming. Everyone will find the parallels to prophecy quite provocative and original’ (which is not to say he agrees with them).
This book is very different in tone, style and churchmanship from anything that might be produced in Britain and as such it gives us a perspective from which to view ourselves. Humble, disarmingly frank and engaging to read, its argument could be summarised like this. Global warming is happening (and the history of its discovery is well told, at least from a US vantage point), but the IPCC is constitutionally over- conservative in its estimates, and the situation is so bad that there is very little hope of turning things back. The scientific arguments for this I cannot assess, or whether he should be taken seriously, but it is no doubt possible that the position is worse than the public, generally, has been told. One might therefore imagine that a self-confessed political conservative would recommend doing nothing. But this is where his understanding of prophecy takes him a very different route. For him, Scripture predicts just such a terrible climax to world history, and he sees parallels between the judgments of Revelation and those predicted through global warming. Indeed in many places, he points out, the Bible predicts, or enacts, climatic judgements (e.g. Deuteronomy 28: 24 ‘And the heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron’). He believes that the world is going to end with unparalleled distress and suffering partly as a consequence but also as a judgement on our sin and treatment of the earth. He marshals quite an array of verses (not all of them convincing) to show that judgement by fire is not isolated to 2 Peter. ‘The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left’ (Isa. 24:5-6). Gustafson sees no reason to doubt that, if the earth of Noah’s time was judged physically by water, a further physical judgement (by heat) is in prospect. As in Noah’s day, not everyone will be saved. We must do everything we can to proclaim Christ. But what should we do about global warming?
‘From a biblical perspective, I would argue that refusing to repent of excessive energy consumption is sinful on many counts. It is a form of idolatry (a violation of the second commandment), as it places the right of unlimited personal consumption upon the highest pedestal within our hearts, which is the rightful place of God. It is prideful, because it reflects an attitude that values personal freedom above all else. Third, it displays an attitude of disdain – rather than love- towards the fellow inhabitants of this planet. The vast majority of our global neighbours do not live in societies with the extremely high adaptive capacity and other resources that we have been blessed with here in the United States. Man-made global warming will harm our neighbours for before and far more than it will ever harm us…Continued mindless consumption of unlimited energy in a time such as this is simply not a loving act’ (p 135).
As a scientist, Gustafson clearly has some distinction in his field; as a theologian or biblical scholar it is really the plain man and ordinary believer that is uppermost. True scholars might say, looking at some of his exegesis: ‘don’t try this at home’. Nonetheless, however reluctant we might be even to read direct parallels between the mysterious metaphors of judgement used in scripture, and the predictions of contemporary science, he does leave us some questions to answer.
The great strength of Hilary Marlow’s brief treatment of eschatology at the end of her book, following other scholars, is the conclusion that whatever form God’s judgment takes at the end of time, ‘it is not God’s intention to wipe out his own creation, though it appears he will punish those who do!’ (p 23). In other words, it is to this creation, however it is transformed, that God is committed. There has been a tendency to read the prophecy of 2 Peter as if this world is to be destroyed in such a way that God will start again from scratch. But, as Dr Marlow points out, if we ourselves are ‘new creation’ (2 Corinthians 5: 17) already, without having been obliterated (though our remaking is not yet complete), then the earth’s ‘new creation’ ought to be at least as continuous. God has not redeemed this world in order to pull it apart and start again.
The theologian T F Torrance relates this commitment of God’s at a deep level to the humanity of Jesus: ‘The fact that he who freely created the universe has once and for all become incarnate within it, means that … the continuing existence of the universe is ontologically bound to the crucified and risen Jesus and destined to partake in the consummation of God’s eternal purpose in him’ (The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being, Three Persons, Edinburgh 1996. p 217)). Also ‘ That this created universe in which God has set us will one day be utterly obliterated in some final catastrophe is as inconceivable for Christians as the obliteration of Jesus Christ, and with him the undoing of the eternal purpose of God’s love embodied in him in space and time and fulfilled in his saving life, death and resurrection’ (ibid, p 244).
It is immensely reassuring that this is not a dispensible or throw-away world in God’s economy. To believe otherwise, would be like having a love story of a bride rescued after many trials and sacrifices, only to die and be replaced in the final scene. We must show the same care for the earth that God has. However, once again, I have a sense of something missing in Dr Marlow’s account, or at least under-emphasised, which is pointed up by Dr Gustafson’s rather more broad-brush view. Possibly it is that we are tempted to draw some wrong conclusions from the continuity of the earth.
A question we might ask is: ‘what is the door or bridge to the new or recreated world? It is surely not so continuous with this present creation that anyone may walk across. When we emphasise that it is this very ‘planet earth’ (and universe) that Christ has redeemed for eternity, we might forget what a purified world actually means. It means a world without evil or any capacity or propensity for evil. It means a completely new physics, in which our bodies, like that of the risen Christ, will be ‘spiritual bodies’ (1 Cor 15: 44) and ‘the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption’ (vv 52-3). There is no decay. ‘The last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (v 26). This is an end to natural processes as we understand them. Jesus tells us that our bodies will be incapable of generation, for we will be ‘like angels’ (Matt 22: 30). Where there is such a profound disjunction between this world and the next it is perhaps fruitless to speculate how future life will work, or what it actually means to retain our identities as different physical entities. But what we do know is that the bridge that God has provided to this future earth is Jesus, who has already taken the judgment of death on our behalf, ‘across whom’ we may walk by repentance and faith. Aside from him, there is no future world for anyone.
I rather think that when we smooth over the disjunction between the present and future earth, it might partly be because we also wish to smooth over the biblical disjunction between those of us who expect to enjoy it, and those that Scripture warns will be excluded, those not ‘written in the Lamb’s book of life’ (Rev 21: 27). Perhaps we find this lack of inclusion embarrassing. We do need to be clear that while we may be able to do something to limit global warming and further destruction of the planet, our fellow-inhabitants must still all face ‘the judgement seat of Christ’ and therefore still need to hear the gospel. There should be no bifurcation between those that want to mend the earth and those wanting to populate heaven. Dr Gustafson’s book, with his emphasis on evangelism, is a reminder that we need to integrate the two. Like him, we can learn to separate our global action from the issue of whether it will ultimately achieve its goals, and see it as a form of repentance in which we begin to behave towards the creation as we were designed to do. Besides which, as we are often reminded, ‘the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God’ (Rom 8: 19). We must find those whom God is calling to care for his creation. I like the way Hilary ends her book: ‘Will you join me in becoming part of God’s future for his world?’ (p 26).
In a timely fashion, the new book edited by JRI’s acting chair, Prof Bob White, has just been published: Creation in Crisis, Christian Perspectives on Sustainability (SPCK, available Faraday Institute), which contains an essay ‘Environmental unsustainability and a biblical vision of the earth’s future’ by Jonathan Moo. This essay would serve very well to deepen the discussion initiated by Hilary Marlow’s booklet (Dr Marlow also has an essay in the collection), as it goes carefully into the meaning of the words in the prophecy of 2 Peter. In sensitive and thoughtful fashion, he emphasises both the continuity and the disruption implied in the text, and says ‘we should not finally miss 2 Peter’s essential insight that God’s purposes for his creation and for his people cannot be realised unless and until all things are put to rights, and this putting to rights will require in the end a radical rupture with the past, God’s definitive judgement of evil, and his making of all things new’ (p 266). He also firmly places biblical hope not in our own efforts: ‘It is a hope that derives not from optimism in the ability of human projects to bring about God’s future or from Enlightenment notions that ever-increasing progress is simply what we should expect; it is a hope that begins and ends with the death, resurrection and exaltation of Christ. With such a hope, Christians are enabled to go on working even when failure seems the only prospect and to go on living in a way that is in keeping with a world where righteousness dwells…neither bland optimism, nor despair – both fatal enemies of environmental sustainability – is an option’ (p270).
In many ways, Jonathan Moo’s essay does help us integrate the different sides of the biblical picture; the sense of eternal destiny for the earth that would encourage us to care for it now, and the judgement that spurs us to invite others into its future. Only a decade ago, it was a rare Christian who cared that much about eschatology. Now the issue of what hope there is for the world is uppermost. We must be grateful to writers and scholars who have drawn our attention to God’s unbroken commitment to the world he has made, despite all that we have done to it, and his plan that will succeed (I would say with or without us, but creation is incomplete without us) to bring it finally to fulfilment.
The Earth is the Lord’s: A biblical response to environmental issues (Grove Booklets B50, 2008)
Reaping the Real Whirlwind, David I Gustafson (VMI, Oregon, 2008)
Jonathan Moo ‘A biblical vision of the earth’s future’ (in Robert S. White ed, Creation in Crisis, SPCK London 2009)
Creation in Crisis will be reviewed as a whole in a future review.