Church And Environment

Here are my notes from last night’s meeting of the Chelmsford Cathedral Theological Society. Claire Foster is the Church of England’s national adviser on environmental issues. She also serves on the 10 Downing Street Climate Change Group And David Cameron’s Quality Of Life Commission.

 
‘A New Deuteronomy’ is a new rule of life. Christians need
to perceive things spiritually and contemplatively first of all, in four ways:

1. The Creation
Covenant
I.e., this is renewed after the flood with Noah. The Hebrew
words for ‘covenant’ and ‘creation’ both have in their meanings the sense of
‘binding’. Creation is bound to God, and all the parts of creation are bound to
each other.

2. The Sacrament Of
Creation
Nowhere in creation is God absent. Therefore there is no
‘other’ and there is no ‘away’ for ‘throwing away’. Whatever other philosophies
and faiths believe about ‘matter’, Christians believe that ‘matter’ leads us to
God.

3 The Rôle Of
Humanity
(a) Prophets – seers of God, lovingly attentive to creation,
who then speak.

(b) Priests – actively passing things through their hands,
standing between God and humanity, blessing the earth.

(c) Kings – in a ‘servant king’ sense, where dominion is not
domination but vice-regency consciously under God. It is stewardship of the
earth. [Refreshingly Foster clearly believes Genesis 1 is redeemable for
creation care, in contrast to Celia Deane-Drummond, who prefers ‘Creation
Through Wisdom’ and finds it hard to rehabilitate Genesis after its misuse.]
Adam was called to till the earth and Christ is the Second Adam; we, the
children of God, are looked to by creation in its groaning (Romans 8).

4. Sabbath – The
Feast Of ‘Enoughness’
Sabbath is the word ‘stop’ in the face of consumption. It is
the word of peace to creation. Sabbath, the seventh day, is the crown of
creation.

Questions
In response to questions, especially those asking why she
had not given more specific advice about taking action, Foster said that
contemplation of creation and its Creator was primary, because this motivated
action. However she referred to various websites:

Shrinking
The Footprint, the Church Of England’s national environmental campaign,
featuring ‘The 40% Church’ – measures to help churches reduce their carbon
emissions by 60%, in line with the concern that world carbon emissions need to
reduce by that amount by 2050.

Seat 61 – travel
anywhere in the world by train, ferry and ship, not using air travel.

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