Climate change and Christianity

This edition of the journal features two themes: primarily, Christianity and climate change and, secondly, a selection of papers produced for the Scott Holland Symposium in Durham in 2023 on postcolonial Anglicanism. In this editorial, however, I want to focus purely on the former. Why produce an edition on this subject? Climate change is one of the most pressing concerns of contemporary society and, as it is also a major ethical problem, it surely needs to be something the Christian Church places at the heart of its ministry. For people of faith there is a double challenge with issues around climate change: the first is to respond as individuals to a complex global environmental crisis, the second is to respond to it as people committed to a view of a creator God, and of humanity as perhaps stewards of Creation or, as co-creators, depending what theological understanding you have about the role of human beings in Creation.

A brief read of some of the Christian Churches’ views and particularly of the Catholic Church’s pronouncements on climate change suggests that what is at stake is climate justice, since we are in a situation where the poor are most vulnerable to a climate that floods, burns, or poisons the environment. Other Christian traditions have developed their own eco-theologies, especially the Orthodox Churches, but much of the material in this edition of the journal references the work of Pope Francis. Francis named himself after St Francis of Assisi and is the first Jesuit Pope. As suggested by Jame Schaefer in her article ‘Venerating Earth’,¹ The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius has had a powerful effect on the Pope. Following the Exercises on retreat is the distinctively Jesuit practice which forms their spiritual development, and it is intrinsically about the natural world as sacrament, particularly the end of week four in the Exercises which culminates in the ‘Contemplation to Attain Love’. Francis has produced two documents which articulate the Catholic Church’s response to the crisis, and which aim to channel the spirit of St Francis as someone who dispossessed himself and for whom the natural world was of critical importance. The first in 2015 was the encyclical Laudato Si’² on care for our common home which spells out the consequences of the progressive destruction of land, sea, and sky implicit in the lifestyles of more privileged countries, and how this impacts on the poor especially. It builds on the earlier Liberation Theology (at one stage stigmatised by the Church and especially Pope John-Paul II) which outlines a ‘preferential option for the poor’. Pope Francis followed this up in 2023 with the exhortation Laudate Deum³ (praise God) in which the precise implications of Laudato Si’ are made clear in the run-up to COP28, the global climate conference held in Dubai. Here are the key points of the document:

1. Climate change is real, despite its challengers.

2. The technocratic paradigm where progress is envisaged as led by technology, has exacerbated the problem as it increases consumption. Technology and science have led to a focus on a need for constant improvements in lifestyle and consumption.

3. Multilateralism is the best way to fight climate change, seeking to involve government at all levels and all human groups and communities.

4. The human person must be seen as situated among other creatures – in other words, anthropocentric approaches to climate change are wrong since the non-human and the natural environment are sidelined.

5. Change is absolutely necessary.

6. A down-up approach is necessary where family action can produce a cultural change. If individual families are sensitised to the issues of climate change, these families can put pressure on others to change lifestyles and generate change from below.

Nonetheless, despite a huge groundswell of praise for his writing, Pope Francis has received criticism from some eco-theologians, women, and those representing indigenous peoples, about some of the views he outlines in Laudato Si’. Celia Deane-Drummond in her essay ‘Working with Catholic Forms of Christianity’⁴ has pointed out, in a largely laudatory article, that Francis’ views are problematic since he does not identify women as at particular risk from poverty and therefore from climate change. Moreover, he appears to have a fixed view of women as wives and mothers, rather than as climate activists as, for example, they are in Latin America (p. 250). Moreover, Francis has also not appreciated that, even if richer countries manage to reduce their consumption considerably, there is still a need to limit population growth (p. 251); the Catholic Church is still committed to a ban on artificial contraception. In my view, this ban also has implications for the reproductive health and flourishing of many women who are constrained to have larger families than they would wish or can deal with effectively. Other criticisms by Deane-Drummond include the Pope’s lack of awareness of the background in evolutionary biology of the current crisis in biodiversity and his lack of hermeneutic expertise in examining the parts of the Bible relevant to eco-theological concerns (p. 253). His understanding of indigenous communities is also idealistic and doesn’t explore any of the problems of incorporating insights from animistic religions into a sacramental monotheism (p. 254). An essay in response to Deane-Drummond’s from Maria Pilar Aquino⁵ underlines the former’s critique, additionally suggesting the difficulty of Pope Francis integrating the more Catholic traditional theology with an eco-theology which derives from a form of Liberation Theology (p. 257). Pilar Aquino also adds a very pointed remark to Deane-Drummond’s comments on the Pope’s approach to women in the fight for climate justice; the Pope apparently uses the term ‘feminism as a synonym of machismo’.⁶ Her incisive final remarks are certainly worth noting (p. 258): ‘Ecological conversion includes full recognition of women’s human rights in society and church. Integral ecology cannot take place without justice for women within the Catholic Church’.

However, there are non-negotiable elements of the climate crisis which the Christian Churches agree on, among them its potentially catastrophic effects, and Pope Francis has, by using his powerful voice, sensitised many thousands of people to this issue. It is also crystal clear that the climate crisis for the Christian Church is a situation created by human beings, and that many of the ecocides (events which destroy habitats and non-human life) mentioned amount to sin, since the destruction of non-human life, natural habitats and the concomitant loss of countless thousands of human beings is systemic, intentional, and utterly devastating. Every person, therefore, is called to eco-conversion, to move her to act against such individual and structural sin – see, for example, Hilda P. Koster’s essay⁷ ‘God’s work of salvation in and through us’.

In a conference I attended in October 2023 titled ‘Climate Emergency as an Ethical Challenge for Humanity’, run by Las Casas Research Institute in Oxford (Blackfriars Hall) many different aspects of the situation were made clear. Two of the papers in this journal are from scholars connected to this conference, Johannes Moravitz and Fearghas O’Béara. I have anonymised the names of all speakers, however, as requested by the organisers of the conference. Most of the attendees were speaking from a conviction, spoken about by Pope Francis, that the process of reversing climate change needs to be based around the idea of the conversion of heart and mind. A technocratic paradigm has destroyed human rapport with non-human creation; human beings have been alienated from Nature by a neoliberal notion of economic growth which depends on over-consumption. In this model, people are pushed to over-work and to consume excessively, solacing their exhaustion and alienation in expensive lifestyles – all leading to stress and obesity. Moreover, none of it is sustainable, because the resources required are running out, and burning more carbon exacerbates the climate crisis. Countries such as India which are already hot will become unbearable in the future, and only the rich can ameliorate this situation, by acquiring air conditioners, for example. However, the axiological virtues we need to break away from this situation are difficult for most people to acquire – virtues such as humility to downscale lifestyles in an age which values the autonomous individual, compassion on those deprived of means of livelihood because of the poisoning of the environment, and perseverance to combat the systemic issues involved. Intellectual skill, creativity, hope and fortitude are also required by each person who aims to tackle the issue. Moreover, we need an ability to see things in the long-term; at a governmental level there has to be a way of thinking which prioritises the future, since the British political system and many others is predicated on short terms in government (in Westminster five years).

If this sounds very remote from the way people actually live, some speakers mentioned how even locally in Oxford, people struggle with council rules on LTNs (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods) and 20 mile an hour speed limits, measures which seek to reduce congestion and pollution. There have been public protests about the measures, particularly from wealthier citizens who are more likely to drive their children to school. Oxford, moreover, is an area where disparity between poverty and wealth is particularly pronounced; there is a fifteen year difference between the lifespans of rich and poor. Emissions from cars might account for a significant amount of this disparity, but council leaders have problems trying to improve air quality when so many people are obstructive.

Other governance situations and the opportunities within them to improve climate change were also discussed; some speakers represented organisations within the EU which include churches such as COMECE (The Catholic Church in the European Union). The work of this group, focussing on subsidiarity and solidarity, has its roots in Catholic Social Thought. Its aims, to encourage green investment and reduce human alienation from nature following the reconceptualisation of ecology as integral human development, were first conceived by Pope Benedict XVI, and developed by Pope Francis, for whom politics is potentially noble and ethical when integrated with the needs of the natural world – since the human being is part of nature.

However, we heard also at the conference from the Laudato Si’ Institute that biodiversity is already succumbing as the first victim of climate change in the sixth global mass extinction event; this already has huge implications for indigenous peoples and the non-human world. The implicit theology of Pope Francis in his encyclicals is that the broken relationship between humanity and nature is a result of mortal sin, since it takes people away from their support systems. Practical consequences of a world formed by neoliberal values are that industrial pollution and environmental degradation are endemic. From 1070 to 2016 there has been a 68% drop in global biodiversity. Not only that but the complex eco-systems which are being destroyed also end up releasing the carbon they have sequestered. The institute is also researching regenerative methods of farming, however, which allow for biodiversity, following an ethics of agricultural development and animal husbandry, deindustrialising farming.

We can no longer insist on human exceptionalism and colonialism but must protect the welfare of other animals and insist on the land rights of indigenous peoples who once held 50% of the world’s land, but now hold only 10%. There are also issues of protecting women’s right to land in some countries, particularly for widows, and of mining key raw materials on indigenous land in an environmental and just way. Current patterns of meat consumption are also unsustainable, causing virgin lands to be cleared; some people are starving, others becoming obese. We need to produce a summary report on global health systems as a lens for understanding the world’s carbon emissions.

To recover from the crisis, we need to develop a spiritual response to green spaces, seeing them as potentially healing places for human woes, curing what Amirat Ghosh sees in The Great Derangement as our estrangement from nature. We should adopt a suitable reverence before the natural world and be against the profit-motive which destroys biodiversity and which, by promoting monocultures in Africa, for example, leads to food impoverishment and the proliferation of ultra-processed food, which is often cheaper than less processed food. The knock-on effects of this are poorer health outcomes.

Some charities are working with narrative to help indigenous peoples under threat. There also needs to be more education in the developed world which seeks to improve the spiritual state of those trapped in consumerism; we might want to introduce a Sabbath rest from consumption and draw on the ascetic practices of some of the early saints to reduce our spending. Developing a spiritual phronesis which draws on the beauty and calm of green spaces would also give people an education in well-being predicated on who we are as people in the natural world, rather than as what we do.

In the view of some people at the conference, Pope Francis argues that ecology should be integrated into our governance, society and churches; eco-theologians have been saying for fifty years that this destruction is against God’s will. The idea of ecological conversion is key and has been supported by various popes; it involves a radical re-orientation of self in love towards all creatures. For Francis, the suffering of the world should be envisaged as our own personal suffering.

In this edition of the journal, two of the articles discuss models of governance which would enable politicians to overcome the various obstacles which inhibit change to green policies, and two of the articles offer a more personal and, potentially, prophetic insight into the issues. This seems appropriate, because, as we have seen, all forms of human cooperation are absolutely necessary to reduce the chances of destroying our planet – from political action, to Church activity, to protest, to calling for major reform.

The first article by Johannes Moravitz, focussing on the connections of the Catholic Church with EU governance, examines how political solutions to the climate crisis depend on how politicians at many levels can negotiate the many different elements of their accountability to their electorate and their responsibility towards future generations. Moravitz works with the Catholic Church in EU organisations and explores the theology behind the Catholic Social Thought which deals with the climate crisis. A theology of stewardship of the natural world has been usurped by the technocratic paradigm where human beings try to assert an unlimited power over nature and claim that economic growth is infinite. People in this paradigm are thereby instrumentalized. Fearghas O’Béara, also working in the Catholic Church in EU political organisations, writes about the nitty-gritty of the relationship between Catholic concerns and the political concerns of the EU. Among the EU’s current priorities, both in terms of domestic policy and global strategy, the ‘Green Deal’ is centre stage. In striving for its 27 Member States to be world leaders in integral ecological and human development, the Union has found enthusiastic and like-minded partners in the churches.

The next two articles offer a non-political, potentially prophetic perspective. James Currall, a scientist and Scottish Episcopal minister, argues that there needs to be a revolution in the Christian Churches, as radical as the Reformation. For Currall, there is no point talking about Net-Zero and trading emissions whereby rich countries pay poorer ones to take on their carbon debt – since in this paradigm we end up trading that which can be bought or sold – the environment, non-human lives, and ultimately, the future of the yet-unborn; he is angry about this and likens this to Martin Luther’s anger at the selling of indulgences, which also tried to sell a free gift – that of God’s forgiveness, in the process kick-starting the Reformation. This seems an important corrective to members of Christian Churches’ discussing net-zero as though it were simply a matter of complex Mathematics and careful planning. The next paper by Ruth Dunster, an academic, a poet, and a teacher, is even nearer the bone for Christians, since she is discussing her own climate activism in the context of religious understandings of protest against injustice of many kinds. Her question to us is: are we simply going to let climate change overwhelm us because we feel unable to raise our heads above the parapet, afraid that we’re not entitled to or because it seems rude? She takes a very personal point of view, exploring how it feels to be stigmatised because of her activism.

As I write this editorial in the middle of Lent, I feel the need to articulate the sense of urgency which has stolen up upon me while researching this edition of the journal, and the dull and penitential progress of Lent seems an appropriate symbol for the situation. There seems a good deal for the Christian person to do to combat climate change, some of it involving difficult lifestyle changes, and leading a simpler existence with fewer consumer goods, as we might do traditionally in Lent, but it also needs to be achieved while activating multilateral strategies instituting political change or local governance and these are complex, long and uncertain negotiations. Unlike Lent, there is no prospect of the affirming grace of Easter to follow, only perhaps the certainty of a painful pathway where we are called to some kind of prophetic ministry or possibly even persecution in pursuit of what is right. We are then left in the unending experience of Holy Saturday – the suffering, the expectation, the doubt. And just as Holy Saturday had no necessary resolution, so we are also poised uncomfortably between a fragile hope and despair.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Wills

Kathryn Wills is a researcher in Theology and Literature and has published a recent book A Sacerdotal Poetics: Yves Bonnefoy’s Reforging of W.B. Yeats (2023). She also has an interest in Christianity and contemporary society – focussing on issues of gender and the environment, especially in the Roman Catholic tradition. She is a member of the Dominican research group Las Casas which focuses on issues of social justice and is the reviews editor of this journal.

Notes

¹ Christianity and the Environment, 250.

² https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.

³ https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20231004-laudate-deum.html.

⁴ Christian Theology and Climate Change, 244–54.

⁵ Ibid., 255–8.

⁶ Ibid., 258.

⁷ Christian Theology and Climate Change, 421.