Plenary on the Assembly theme

Ms Carmen Lansdowne is a member of the United Church of Canada, and is serving an internship in parish ministry in rural Saskatchewan

"Man is above, outside, and against nature. Man is part and product of nature.
These two visions of man... represent the two contrasting philosophies of our time."
-Mario Palmieri

This thought, articulated by Palmieri in the early 20th century, continues to hold true. Perhaps the scales have been unevenly weighted: for more than focusing on our being part and product of nature, humankind has focused on being above, outside, and against nature. We have objectified, violated, oppressed and negated the earth. Not only have we been perpetrators of destruction in the name of development and progress, but we have done it despite warning signs which foreshadow the disruption of the delicate ecological balance which supports life on earth.

I speak from the context of having grown up in North America. Not all cultures or societies share the Western worldview of economic development through domination of resources. Sadly, the world I see through 30 year old eyes is taking lessons from the economic superpowers and their reckless endangerment of the delicate balance of life in God's creation.

This assembly's focus on "Water" as an environmental concern, as an acknowledgment of the basic dignities necessary to human life, as a symbolic metaphor used to express our faith in the Christian tradition, leads us to the impossibility of further ignoring our relationship with the Earth. The call for the WCC programme emphasis on water states that reasons for the present water crisis include, " increased and unsustainable agricultural and industrial use of water, deforestation and land degradation that seriously change the water cycle, over-consumption and waste, pollution and population growth." Every one of these factors listed is the result of human behaviour affecting the earth. To pray to God for grace to transform the earth requires the ability to be accountable for our part as humankind in creating an earth that needs to be transformed.

Ecological theology has been influenced by feminist and liberation theologies. Feminist theologies would stat that in order to act with integrity and justice with regards to the earth, we must stop making the earth an objectified "other" and instead allow the earth to become a subject, just as we are subjects. This subject-to-subject interaction is the basis for a sound ethical treatment of the earth: one which will embody justice without the power imbalance of humankind always acting against or on-behalf-of the earth.

Renowned theologian Sallie McFague has this to say about Christian nature spirituality:

"To those who say, "But Jesus did not extend this love to nature," we reply, "But neither did he extend it explicitly to slaves, women, or people of colour." Christians in subsequent generations have done so, however, because "the oppressed" change over time. If God the redeemer is concerned for the well-being of all creation, then we have to extend the line we have drawn which puts us within the circle of divine concern and the rest of creation outside. And we must do this, first of all, for theological reasons. It is what Christian praxis demands. We do not do it because unless we care for nature, humans cannot survive or because Christianity had better get on the environmental bandwagon, but because commitment to the God of Jesus Christ demands it. A Christian nature spirituality is the logical next step away from a tribal God toward the universal God, away from a God concerned with "me and my kind," toward the One concerned with the entire creation." -Sallie McFague, Super, Natural Christian p. 12.

The ways in which we objectify the earth are infinite. The persistent worldview that humans are "above, outside, and against nature" has allowed us to take from God's creation at an unprecedented rate. We have created environmental catastrophes of which we even still cannot begin to comprehend the magnitude. This is becoming common knowledge. The awareness that something must change is juxtaposed against the belief (which has not significantly altered) that God has given humankind dominion over the earth. It is true that the book of Genesis states that people should have dominion over the earth. A quick look to the dictionary will define dominion as the exclusive right to have "control over". But a second definition will state that dominion can be a self-governing entity within a larger whole. Perhaps this is the definition which we ought to move towards. The earth has powerful abilities to regenerate, to recreate, to resurrect. Recognizing these powers may allow us to enter into renewed relationship with the earth recognizing that God is, and has been, always answering our prayer. If the earth is constantly transforming, then perhaps we need to pay attention to how our prayers are already being answered.

I acknowledge that the word "dominion" as translated from the Hebrew does, in fact, mean to have rule over. The Wester world, however, has appropriated that term for the exclusive use of economic development, when it was written as a liberation theology by the biblical writers. The people of Israel were oppressed and did not have access to land on which to subsist. It is still, then, appropriate to use the traditional definition of "dominion" in the case of the disenfranchised and oppressed in the world as a liberation text. It is no longer acceptable, however, to use it as a coercive force of human power over creation. To do so any longer is to deny that the whole of God's creation has inherent worth and is deserving of our embodied Christian love. One North American preacher wrote:

"The Genesis stories were written to exemplify the deep truths about how creative and purpose-filled God's acts were, and are. That God's willingness to consult and share power, and our human responses, sometimes lead to messy and less-than -desirable outcomes and to recognize that everything does not always turn out as God planned. Yet, through it all, God remains a faithful, covenant-making, covenant keeping God" (taken from http://www.godalming.org.uk/13-2-05.html)

The inability to see how God's spirit moves in creation is not new to us as humans. Throughout history we have often prayed for salvation, prayed for God's intercession in our lives, yet remained blind to see God's grace and radical love incarnate in the world. John 3:31-36 tells the story of John's testimony to Jesus as the messiah. The people of Israel prayed and prayed and prayed for a messiah. People were following Jesus and the disciples in their ministry, yet there were still those who could not see Jesus' true nature. It wasn't only the Pharisees and those with authority. Jesus and John's own disciples are described as been consistently unable to fully comprehend Jesus as messiah. John 3:32 states that, "He has testified to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony." Is this not what we are doing with our inability to see the earth as inherently worthy in God's creation?

Even our focus on nature as a means for spiritual connection to God can be, in a way, an objectification of the earth. For rather that using the earth for the extraction of resources, we are using it for the creation of personal pleasure - as if the earth exists solely for our use and sense of beauty. Even those who are responsible for decisions that create destruction in the environment have a sense of the aesthetic beauty in the world. It is not that each decision we make as individuals is catastrophic in itself, but rather the use of earth as pleasure which allows the denial of accountability for our use of the earth. If I was the CEO of a large manufacturing corporation, and my hobby was hiking in the mountains on the weekend, I can see how it would be difficult to admit that I was not loving the earth. For I would be just one person, and standing on a lush mountain top looking at the glory of God's creation below me, how could I not want to deny the fact that my actions at work were contributing to the destruction of what I held most dear?

Again, I turn to the Gospel of John (6:60-63a). "When many of his disciples heard it, they said, 'This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?' But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life;".

What the Spirit is calling us to is a re-evaluation of our global economic paradigm and how it affects God's creation. Theologians are beginning to learn that being able to speak to economists in economic jargon is a way to make progress in this area. Rather than viewing this form of dialogue as submitting to the status quo, it can and perhaps should continue as a form of resistance. Resistance which is consistent with our Christian heritage. Post-colonialist theologian R.S. Sugirtharajah writes that: "Resistance... is a 'rediscovery and repatriation of what had been suppressed in the natives' past by the process of imperialism.' Seen within the colonial context, resistance meant not simply a repudiation or rejection of Western rule or Western discursive practices. Rather, it was a profitable use of paradigm provided by the colonizer, in that it was successfully turned against him." - R.S. Sugirtharajah The Bible and the Third World p. 74.

The work of economists such as winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, Amartya Sen, encourages us as Christians to advocate on behalf of nature. If nature is not viewed as inherently worthy, then it becomes simply a utility for the use of humankind. Sen clarifies something implicit in the global economic model: economic evaluation based upon utilitarian principles excludes any non-utilitarian information. That means the exclusion of information such as the inherent worth of creation. It is sometimes easy to view the workings of global corporations as separate from the actions of individuals - indeed, that is why they were created. But the people in corporations who are making decisions which dictate our interactions with the earth are, in fact, people we know. Some of them are sitting in the pews of our congregations and worshiping with us. Our working theologies of how we take our faith out into the world need to be modernized to include a 21st century understanding which overrules the misappropriation of a utilitarian "dominion"-based theology. And those in our communities who are making good/healthy decisions about how to interact with the earth need to be held up as living examples of Christ's ministry. 

Our faith is one based upon the rebellious love of those excluded by society. Jesus ate, served and taught those who would have been considered the margins of society - those who could not speak for themselves. The earth has, with regards to its inherent worth, become disenfranchised. Our faith, through prayer for the earth, calls us to accept the Spirit says through our environment: to refuse to be offended by the need to look at the world as an intricately woven ecological web; to walk with grace and humility in creation; to show an incarnate love for the earth as a renewed form of Christian praxis devoted to the One concerned with the whole of creation. May it be so. Amen.