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A Lutheran Theological Response to Climate Change Daniel R. Smith Published online: 19 Jan 2015.
Click for updates To cite this article: Daniel R. Smith (2015): A Lutheran Theological Response to Climate Change, Theology and Science, DOI: 10.1080/14746700.2014.987995 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2014.987995
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Theology and Science, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2014.987995
A Lutheran Theological Response to Climate Change
DANIEL R. SMITH
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Abstract This paper summarizes the science of climate change and offers a Lutheran theological response to address it. It focuses on Luther’s theology of the cross, the theology of incarnation and ecological ethics. Each of these areas of the Lutheran tradition has an important contribution to make in being part of the solution to the global climate crisis, in dialogue with science. Key words: Theology of the cross; Theology of nature; Ecological ethics; Incarnation; Climate change; Grace
As we march further into the twenty-first century, climate change has become one of the most pressing issues we face as a species on Earth. Some claim we have entered the “Anthropocene Era,” an era of human domination of the planet.1 How humans exercise their power over nature is an open question. The Planet Earth is in an interglacial warming period, but human burning of fossil fuels in particular appears to be exacerbating this problem in the extreme. The burning of such fuels releases greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as CO2. Methane (CH4), while less abundant, is much more potent than CO2, and is released by livestock and decaying food. A new awareness of this problem as a religious and moral problem has emerged in the past half-century, and an organized attempt to find solutions with the scientific and faith communities has emerged in the past few decades.2 Many now believe that the source of the problem is spiritual in nature, and that the solution must also include people of all faiths. The purpose of this paper is to review the science of anthropogenic climate change and to offer a proposal of how Lutheran theology in particular can address it. The theology of the cross, a core tenet of the Lutheran tradition, provides an interesting perspective on the environmental crisis. One of the fundamental philosophical questions underlying the scientific research summarized below is the question of the future, specifically the status of future generations. Without a vision of a redeemed future, action on intractable issues such as climate change is almost inconceivable. Another important issue is the value of nature itself, and why Christians should care for creation in the first place. Both of these are addressed by Lutheran theology. In theological terms, environmental abuse is the product of human sin and not being in right relationship with God and the rest of creation. This is a kind of despair; the turning away from a future promise of redemption. To use the language of John Haught, “What makes © 2015 Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
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nature deserve our care is not that it is divine but that it is pregnant with a mysterious future.”3 My hope is to stimulate a conversation between the scientific and faith communities to find solutions to mitigate climate change and transform our relationship to the non-human natural world for the sake of this as yet unwritten future. As David Tracy says, “conflict is our actuality; conversation is our hope.”4
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A review of research on climate change In the late nineteenth century, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius was the first to predict that global temperatures would rise with the increase of atmospheric CO2, which was the result of burning fossil fuels. Roger Revelle and Hans Suess built on Arrhenius’ findings, predicting in the 1950s just such global warming from a rise in GHGs. Revelle hired Charles Keeling at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, who began measuring CO2 levels at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.5 These measurements have shown a steady increase in the concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. The result of this research was a clear picture of the future: an increase in GHGs in the atmosphere would lead to global heating, and the trend showed that it could become unmanageable. In 2008, James Hansen of NASA published a paper on the level of CO2 emissions at which humans should aim.6 The paper begins with the claim that is the premise of the climate movement: “Human activities are altering Earth’s atmospheric composition.”7 The data confirm the postulation by mid-twentieth-century climate science of a correlation between warming global temperatures and the emission of GHGs because they have the effect of trapping the heat associated with surface albedo (the sun’s light reflected from the surface of the planet).8 Likewise, global temperatures drop when these gases are trapped in land areas, creating a yoyo effect between warming and cooling cycles over geologic time. The range Hansen estimates between an ice age and an ice-free planet is 6°C, but is reduced to 3°C when the planet loses its ice sheets.9 The carbon cycle in the Cenozoic Era caused a rapid decrease in CO2 due to the uplift of the Himalayas after the subduction of the carbon-rich Indian plate, which appears to have caused a great emission of CO2 and thus temperature increase. This led to global cooling and Antarctic glaciation—which has remained until very recently. The verification of this analysis is found in gases trapped in ice core samples from Antarctica, which indicate the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere at various times over the past 800,000 years, while data for the corresponding sea level rise that is paired with these concentrations come from Red Sea sediment cores. The data show a range of heating and cooling on the planet, driven in part by the concentration of these GHGs. The history of climate “forcings” on the planet accelerate as they grow farther toward the extremes—either cooling or warming—creating a “runaway effect.” Such conclusions are based on models that alone do not necessarily account for all feedback processes. However, the variation of these climate forcings has been fairly well bonded for the past 15,000 years, which corresponds to the rise in human population and agriculture that has led to the current state of the planet.
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Hansen refers to this as an equilibrium: “The approximate equilibrium characterizing most of Earth’s history is unlike the current situation, in which GHGs are rising at a rate much faster than the coupled climate system can respond.”10 The only explanation of this data is the addition of GHGs that are not part of the observed cycle present in the ice cores and sediment sources, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels in mass quantities by humans. This is a grave situation with an uncertain future. Hansen writes: “Thus if humans push the climate system sufficiently far into disequilibrium, positive climate feedbacks may set in motion dramatic climate change and climate impacts that cannot be controlled.”11 Warming is “in the pipeline,” he says, but has been delayed by negative feedbacks from ice sheets and the ocean. Hansen paints a picture of humans living on borrowed time. He distinguishes between tipping levels and the point of no return. Tipping levels are those global climate forcings that result in a certain outcome—such as the melting of ice sheets in Antarctica or Greenland.12 These can be exceeded for a short time so long as the cause of the forcing is brought under control. “The point of no return,” on the other hand, is when those forcings lead to outcomes that can no longer be brought under control. There is no way to determine with certainty the time frame of such tipping levels and the point at which the threshold of no return is crossed. However, it is certain that when tipping levels are observed for sustained periods, recovery to a stable state is unlikely. What does all this mean? Hansen draws the conclusion that “industrial civilization itself has become the principal driver of global climate.”13 The scenario for the future is not pretty. Although we are protected by the “buffer” of ice sheets and the ocean, the present course of buildup in GHGs is far quicker than their lifetime in the atmosphere, which could lead to catastrophic results—and we are already seeing massive melting of the polar ice caps in summer. Life as it has evolved in the Pleistocene and Holocene eras is not adapted to CO2 levels above 385 ppm, a level we have already exceeded.14 Hansen’s research is supported by virtually the entire scientific community.15 The target Hansen and his team suggest for atmospheric CO2 is 350 ppm. He notes that the continued construction of coal-fired power plants without an adequate plan to sequester the carbon permanently suggests that policy and decision-makers do not grasp the gravity of the situation. A significant shift must happen in the next eight to ten years (as of 2008) in order to put civilization on the right path, since the decrease in CO2 must take place over decades and not centuries. Hansen suggests several policies that could help—such as putting a price on carbon or creating carbon sinks through replanting of trees—but all move beyond the era of fossil fuel consumption as the foundation for our civilization and economy. Whatever path humanity chooses, the clock is ticking.
Lutheran ecological theology Many have turned to the religious community to find hope and the “moral-spiritual energy” to take action on climate change, as much recent literature documents.16
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The Lutheran communion has an important theological and ethical contribution to make toward resolving the worldwide ecological crisis. In fact, some have argued that Lutheran theology has led the way in the development of “ecological theology” as a discipline. H. Paul Santmire has argued for a “Lutheran maximalism” that will take into account its proper view of creation, rather than the narrowly focused doctrinal theologies that developed in the twentieth century from the dialectical school of Karl Barth.17 This section will focus on three aspects of Lutheran theology relevant to ecology: Luther’s concept of the theology of the cross (theologia crucis), the doctrine of the incarnation, and Lutheran ecological ethics. The Christian narrative of cross and empty tomb provide a vision of a redeemed future that ultimately belongs to God. This is a source of defiant hope in the face of data that has caused existential angst and despair.18
The theologia crucis In the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, Martin Luther coined the term “theology of the cross,” or theologia crucis. In fact, he refers to the “theologian of the cross” rather than to a generalized theology, which in itself is significant. The following theses from the Heidelberg Disputation are the core of Luther’s theology of the cross: Thesis 19: That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened [Rom. 1:20]. Thesis 20: He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. Thesis 21: A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.19
Luther is a dialectical thinker, and so the theology of the cross is always opposed to a theology of glory (theologia gloriae). The theologian of glory does not perceive God in God’s hiddenness, but seeks God in those places of power and influence. This attitude overestimates either the human intellect or the human will. Luther’s conviction is that both are utterly corrupted as a result of humanity’s fall into sin. For Luther, one speaks always existentially as a theologian of the cross—i.e. about one’s own personal salvation—and not about general or abstract knowledge. It is interesting to note that the philosophical theses of the Heidelberg Disputation come after the theological theses In this, he departs from medieval scholastic theology, which used Aristotle’s natural philosophy as the foundation of theology. This suggests that for Luther, general or abstract knowledge cannot be the basis for theological truth. In his view, Aristotle is useless for theology, although he is helpful for learning how to live practically and ethically in the world. To base theology on philosophy is only to encourage the theology of glory.
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The theology of the cross deals with two primary issues: the hidden God (deus absconditus) and Luther’s concept of faith, which are interdependent. The heart of this doctrine is the claim that God’s revelation is hidden under the form of its opposite (sub contrario). In this interpretation, the cross is the ultimate test to Christian faith.20 Faith is not knowledge or will, but that which is suffered by the individual believer coram deo, which is sometimes referred to as the vita passiva (the passive life).21 Because of this, faith is not a direct knowledge of God, and it can be grasped only indirectly. Experience, likewise, is derivative from faith and it flows back into it.22 “Works,” what might today be called social ethics, do not produce faith, nor do they per se create a proper relationship with God and others. Yet works cannot be separated from faith, either. Most fundamentally for the purposes of this essay, faith is initiated by God and exists only in relationship, a relationship characterized by God’s grace overcoming human sin. As Oswald Bayer claims of Lutheran theology, “The relation between the sinful human and the God who justifies is the only subject matter … of theology.”23 The theology of the cross is also a kind of language, a way of doing theology that is basic to the Lutheran tradition. We have seen that Luther puts the theological theses ahead of philosophy in explicating Christian revelation because he wants to put front and center the scandal of the cross. There is no explaining away this scandal. Theologian Vítor Westhelle claims that human beings would rather domesticate this scandal rather than confront it.24 He notes that in early Jewish/ Christian theology about cross, the cross itself is not salvific, but rather the place of God’s absence. The most basic paradox of both the incarnation and the cross is this: God dies. This stands in sharp relief against worldly wisdom, which cannot comprehend it. In fact, it is foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18). Luther’s approach to theology included a “new definition of righteousness,” as a gift of grace. Justice is always alien (iusticia aliena). In this, there is an inherent tension with worldly justice, which makes a demand and moral claim on the subject. The reconciliation of this tension is irony. Irony is the language of theology that begins with the cross and stands against analogy, which presupposes likeness within difference. The scholastic method seeks to explain rationally as that which can be understood on the basis of correspondence of truth in reality. With the theology of the cross, life coram mundi, requires reason. In practice, reason is helpful, but for life coram deo, faith comes before reason, and stands in tension with it when reason is not used properly. The theology of the cross, then, does not expound on philosophical truth, but rather unmasks human pretense in rationalizing about the Christian message. In biblical terms, this is a form of idolatry, of replacing God with something else. The cross in a sense lampoons human reason when it overreaches and attempts to say too much about God. It also upends attempts at self-justification by doing good works. Such ironic language always points beyond itself to something greater that is hoped for but never fully grasped. The cross as a statement of irony can be demonstrated historically. The intended purpose of this symbol was to instill fear into seditious people in the Roman Empire. It was a final, fateful statement about the consequence of rebellion. Yet it was subverted by Christians to become a symbol of hope for those oppressed, the exact opposite of the intended meaning by the Empire, which was terrorism
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and tyranny. The Lutheran tradition takes this approach to theology seriously.25 From a Lutheran perspective, theological utterances are at once homiletical utterances. Proclamation and theology are interdependent. There is no true theology that does not speak directly to the individual about that which is a matter of being or non-being; death or life. The theologia crucis thrusts the believer into a crisis about the human condition and its absurdity, yet it also communicates hope beyond whatever suffering the individual may face. Theology so defined is not an abstract philosophical system, but a transformative language of relationship that provides clarity about the broken nature of these relationships and provides a teleological image for the subject to be part of their transformation.
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Theology of deep incarnation The second aspect of Lutheran theology relevant to the dialogue with ecology is the doctrine of the incarnation. Central to Trinitarian thinking about God, this doctrine also says something about the Christian understanding of nature. The twentiethcentury American Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler developed a nature-centered theology based on the theology of the cross. He was convinced of the need for Christians to develop a proper love of the earth. For Sittler, the basic triad for the theologian is: God–man–world (sic). This is the fundamental reality. He follows the German aphorism, “Ein Mensch ist kein Mensch” (a solitary person is no person), and embraces instead the view that the individual is really part of a community, a view that is supported by ecology and the Bible. Part of the problem for Sittler was that earth itself is so magnificent and so profound that the lack of an adequate Christian “theology for nature” as he called it would be supplanted by inferior versions of theological naturalism that would impoverish not only Christianity, but the world itself.26 The best exposition of nature’s wonder, for Sittler, is Christian theology itself, if it will but claim the task. Earth will not be silenced, but will Christians take full account of it in their thinking? This renewed focus he calls “holy naturalism”: a call to love earth from within the Christian tradition for reasons intrinsic to Christianity. The “problem of material” in economic activity, Sittler claims, does not lie in the thing itself, but in the relationship between humans and those “things.” God, humanity and nature all belong together, when seen from a biblical perspective. They are meant to be together, and unless they are, Sittler says, “restlessness will stalk our hearts and ambiguity our world until their cleavage is redeemed.”27 The relationship between God, humanity and nature endures; the only question is the state of its health. The environmental crisis cannot be solved by planning and management, for, as Sittler once more beautifully points out, “there will never be enough for both love and lust.”28 This Augustinian emphasis on the concupiscence of the human heart points to a more fundamental—and quintessentially Lutheran—emphasis in Sittler’s work: the prevenience and omnipresence of grace. In his understanding of nature and grace, he makes a simple but important point (again very Lutheran): “Nothing natural is the cause of grace; anything natural (or historical) may be an occasion
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of it.”29 Thus grace does not complete nature, as an entire strain of Christian theology would claim, rather grace is present in nature and history. And if grace is present in nature and history, then the scope of grace is clear: the world as it is, including the natural world. Awareness of this presence gives the theologian eyes to see the natural world in a new way. From a Christian perspective, the primary occasion of this grace is the cross. “The disclosure of grace in the enormous paradox of the cross is the ‘focal point’ for man’s encounter with grace.”30 In this sense, the cross is a kind of lens through which to view nature as the occasion(s) of God’s grace, not the other way around. One does not build a theology of grace on an “objective” view of nature, but rather one sees nature through the eyes of faith, and thus as the graced “theater” of God’s presence. This mirrors Luther’s aversion to using natural philosophy as the primary interpretive lens for theology. There is more to say about incarnation, however. More recently, Niels Henrik Gergersen has developed a theology of “deep incarnation” in his dialogue with Norwegian ecologist Arne Naess. The incarnation of Christ, Gregersen claims, is not merely about God becoming “a human being,” as so much of church language describes, but rather, that God has become integrated into the evolutionary history of the universe, and into the “deep tissue” of biological existence. Gregersen notes that nowhere does Scripture say that God became human, but that “the Word became flesh (sarx)” (John 1:14). He further points out helpfully that, although sarx is usually identified with “sin,” as in the fallen nature of the body and of matter, it can also be understood as an expression of the frailty of flesh. Through this there is a “natural” connection between the incarnation of the Son of God and the cross of Christ. “In this perspective, the incarnation of the Son of God is not only an event associated with the birth of Jesus, but also a process that extends through the life story of Jesus and ends in his death.”31 This implies God’s deep presence in evolutionary history, and avoids otherwise common anthropocentric misconceptions of the incarnation. More specifically, evolutionary continuity—that human beings are part of a larger phylogenetic tree of life— is important to the incarnation and thus to the Triune God. Gregersen writes, “The incarnation also extends into Jesus as an exemplar of humanity and as an instantiation of the ‘frail flesh’ of biological creatures.”32 In this way we can see in the Trinity the evolutionary history of the universe taken up. The universe dwells in God, just as God comes to dwell within and among mortal beings (Rev. 21:3). In Christ, God is conjoining all creatures and enters into the biological tissue of creation itself in order to share the fate of biological existence. God becomes Jesus, and in him God becomes human, and (by implication) foxes, sparrows, grass and soil.33
The importance of this argument for expanding the vision of humanity and its location in the universe cannot be overstated. Gregersen’s approach allows a high Christology—the incarnation of the divine Logos—within an evolutionary worldview, which is firmly grounded scientifically. The source of this theology is in fact Scripture, and it dignifies matter and biological existence in a most unique
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way. Most importantly, for ecological thinking, it disallows Christians from referring to a “human Jesus” as the scope or means of God’s redemptive action, undercutting the very common Christian view that all of creation is the stage on which the divine–human drama plays out. In other words, because God became flesh (sarx), not just “a human,” God is redeeming all flesh, and thus must be involved in evolutionary history. Therefore, I would argue, Christians—even those with a high Christology—must reason from and in dialogue with a view of nature that is evolutionary and ecological. Lastly, the theology of the cross is the theology of an empty cross. Faith in the Incarnate and Crucified One means at once faith in the resurrection of Jesus. To affirm faith in this Messiah means to affirm the God of the future.34 While an eschatologically based doctrine of resurrection is a challenging subject in our scientific era, it is perhaps the only Christian doctrine that addresses the underlying angst about the future that humankind is now creating by its degradation of the nonhuman natural world.
Lutheran ecological ethics The “moral spiritual energy” to address climate change requires a change in thinking about human ethics, expanding it to include the non-human natural world. The Lutheran emphasis on the cross as the place of God’s revelation and the earth as an “occasion of grace” (Sittler) provide a unique perspective on the value of nature as God’s creation, and a solid rationale for taking action to care for it. Luther’s emphasis was on God’s incarnation in Christ, and on God’s presence in Word and Sacrament. That the Christian message was communicated through human, earthly means was never in question for Luther. The physical elements of bread, wine and water have always been a part of Christian worship. Of these elements Luther said, “not because of them, but never without them.” God is truly present in these “means of grace,” together with Word and faith, just as God is present in the historical and biological person of Jesus Christ. Some ethicists have claimed the power present in this tradition, to see that God is truly present in the earthly, in human communities and in the elements of the earth themselves. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, for example, critiques economic globalization, which in her observation has caused as much suffering and harm as it has good, including great harm to the natural environment. Theologically, she relies on Luther’s “indwelling Christ” and the link between justification and justice—both of which are formed in community. The holy is earthly, and moral formation happens through worship, specifically Eucharist and solidarity with the needy. She suggests democratic engagement in local, “bioregional communities,” challenging the Christian community to advocacy. The Christian community through which God’s grace is mediated, in other words, can become what it already is: the Body of Christ; a body of memory, vision and hope.35 Ethicist Larry Rasmussen also critiques globalism and free-market economics as a primary driver of ecological distresses such as climate change. He wants to make clear that this is not really a problem of nature, but a problem created by people.
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Earth’s distress is a crisis of culture. More precisely, the crisis is that a now-globalizing culture in nature and wholly of nature runs full grain against it. A virile, comprehensive, and attractive way of life is destructive of nature and human community together—this is the crisis.36
Rasmussen suggests “sustainable community” as an alternative framework for living properly on the planet. He attempts to discern from nature what humans can learn about living with nature.
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Sustainability, if it happens, will issue only from careful listening to nature and mimicking its basic design strategies. Learning from nature to mimic its design strategies is the first answer to the question of what on earth is to be done.37
He cites several case studies where efforts are being made to do just that, such as Kalundborg, Denmark. There residents attempted to build a community that is zero-waste and energy neutral. They did this by mimicking the “closed systems” of nature: waste is food, decay is “natural” and energy has to be harnessed and used wisely and efficiently. This was one small part of a growing global movement to think cyclically as a way to live differently on the planet. As humans plan for an uncertain future, this will be ever more important. The great ethical task of our age is to bring the “big economy” of humankind into proper rhythm and balance with the “great economy” of nature. In other words, we need an ecological economics.38 Ultimately, however, the Christian vision is future oriented. Ecologists looks to the future with fear and trembling. Climate change has become an existential threat. The “message about the cross” provides an alternative story: it tells of a God rooted both in history and nature, a God reconciling all things to Godself in Christ. Fear about the future is addressed by hope in the Resurrection of Jesus. Based on this hope, Ted Peters claims we need a holistic vision of the future as part of the community of nature: We humans share community with nature as well. The complement of the ecu-ethic is the very comprehensive eco-ethic. The eco-ethic incorporates into its vision the health of the whole biosphere. It recognizes that there is value in loving nature because humans are an indelible part of nature, and because all that God is in the process of creating is a target of divine love.39
This eco-ethic is critical because the future survival of humanity is dependent on the wellness of ecosystems. As Peters himself points out, an ecologically sustainable society is also an ecologically and economically just society, one that distributes the means of subsistence to all who need it, and combats the gap between rich and poor in human populations. Ecological and economic justice go hand-in-hand: “An ecologically sustainable society that is unjust can hardly be worth sustaining socially. A just society that is ecologically unsustainable is self-defeating.”40 This call for ecological justice is also a call from the future. The current generation has an obligation to future generations, for our waste will become their problem. Ethically speaking, the Lutheran charism of grace gives Lutherans a unique calling: to affirm nature’s goodness, while still speaking out against injustice. The emphasis on the Incarnation affirms the goodness of creation and the presence of
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God both in beauty and in suffering. On the other hand, being “theologians of the cross” is a call to speak and live ethically in a way that contributes to the solution of this crisis.
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Conclusion The ecological crisis, particularly climate change, is daunting. Human action to limit carbon emissions is necessary, yet seems impossible. There are many small things that must be done to address this. The theology of the cross is a call to humility on the part of humankind, and a language for critiquing the overestimation of human reason and human action, as mentioned earlier. It is important to recognize that we as fallible humans will not always get things right. Any theology of grace acknowledges this. However, being “theologians of the cross” means “calling a thing what it actually is,” which is a call to prophetic speech. The church must have the courage to speak out, even when it may be unpopular. The message about climate change and its anthropogenic cause is not a popular message, yet it must be named. Human beings are at least partly responsible for the problem, and so they must be part of the solution. In addition to bearing witness to the goodness of creation, ecological ethics means speaking out on behalf of public policies that protect creation’s integrity and limit humankind’s sinful overreach in terms of a neo-liberalized, global free market economy. It also means advocating for laws that will mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Saving energy and waste is part of the solution, but personal efforts to do this, while necessary, are inadequate. Consumers need access to better choices. This includes better public transportation and sustainable urban planning and food production, among other things. The oil industry in particular must be challenged, since it has regularly and systematically challenged sound reason by attempting to discredit the clear science that establishes warming global temperatures. It is also important to speak out on behalf of those populations who will be most affected by the damage from climate change, but who are ironically least responsible for it, especially the global poor in coastal communities. Without question the heart of this problem is spiritual: it is a question of how humankind wants to live on the planet that people of faith trust is God’s gift. The concupiscence of the human heart is an enduring problem for the planet. Will we accept the limits placed on us by the biophysical world? Or will we continue to act as though there are no limits? Creation is a gift, but it is not simply given to humanity as a present to be managed. Rather, as Larry Rasmussen says, humankind exists as an articulation of earth, even if it is given the charge to be stewards. It is critical for us as a species to recognize that, while we care for creation, creation also cares for us. The history of human intervention into natural processes does not leave one with much hope that things can improve. However, hope in the midst of sober realism, as we have seen, is necessary. Humankind cannot afford to delude itself about what it can and cannot accomplish, but by the same token, it can afford to despair either. Both future generations and the species with which we share this planet have a claim on us, and now both are depending on us to live differently
A Lutheran Theological Response to Climate Change 11 with the planet. Our religious traditions, such as Lutheran Christianity, together with the science that teaches Christians about God’s good creation, must work together to be part of the solution.
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Selected bibliography Bayer, Oswald. Theology the Lutheran Way (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007). Cobb, John B. Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology (Beverly Hills, CA: Bruce, 1972). Daly, Herman E., John B. Cobb, and Clifford W. Cobb. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989). Gillis, Justin. “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans from Polar Melt,” The New York Times, May 12, 2014. Gottlieb, Roger S. A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Gregersen, Niels Henrik. “Deep Incarnation: Why Evolutionary Continuity Matters in Christology,” Toronto Journal of Theology 26:2 (Fall 2010), 173–87. Hansen, James. “Target Co2: Where Should Humanity Aim?,” The Open Atmospheric Science Journal 2 (2008), 217–31. Haught, John F. “Christianity and Ecology,” in This Sacred Earth, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 2004), 232–47. Huetter, Reinhard. Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice, trans. Doug Stott (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000). “Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment” (1992), http://www. webofcreation.org/DenominationalStatements/joint.htm. Loewenich, Walter von. Luther’s Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J.A. Bouman (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1976). Lull, Timothy F., ed. Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989). McDuff, Mallory D. Natural Saints: How People of Faith Are Working to Save God’s Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Moe-Lobeda, Cynthia D. Healing a Broken World: Globalization and God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002). Peters, Ted. Fear, Faith, and the Future: Affirming Christian Hope in the Face of Doomsday Prophesies (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1980). Peters, Ted. God—the World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000). Polkinghorne, John, and Michael Welker, eds. The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000). Ruether, Rosemary Radford. New Woman, New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation (New York: Seabury Press, 1975). Russell, Robert John. Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2012). Santmire, H. Paul. “American Lutherans Engage Ecological Theology: The First Chapter, 1962–2012, and Its Legacy.” 2012. Santmire, H. Paul. Brother Earth; Nature, God, and Ecology in Time of Crisis (New York: T. Nelson, 1970). Sittler, Joseph. Essays on Nature and Grace. Philadelphia,: Fortress Press, 1972. Sittler, Joseph. “A Theology for the Earth,” in Environmental Stewardship: Critical Perspectives —Past and Present, ed. R. J. Berry (London: T. & T. Clark, 2006). Skrimshire, Stefan. Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination (London: Continuum, 2010). Tracy, David. The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981). Weart, Spencer R. The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).
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Westhelle, Vítor. The Scandalous God: The Use and Abuse of the Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006). White Jr., Lynn. “The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155 (1967), 1203–07. Wilkinson, Katharine K. Between God and Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
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Endnotes 1 James Hansen, “Target CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?,” The Open Atmospheric Science Journal 2 (2008), 217–31. 2 The paper that really began the eco-theology movement was Lynn White’s 1967 essay on the historical roots of the ecological crisis. Many theologians have worked on this since then, falling on all sides of the theological and ethical spectrum. See Lynn White Jr., “The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155 (1967), 1203–7; H. Paul Santmire, Brother Earth: Nature, God, and Ecology in Time of Crisis (New York: T. Nelson, 1970); John B. Cobb, Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, Faith and Life Series (Beverly Hills, CA: Bruce, 1972); Joseph Sittler, “A Theology for the Earth,” in Environmental Stewardship: Critical Perspectives—Past and Present, ed. R.J. Berry (London: T. & T. Clark, 2006), 51–55; Rosemary Radford Ruether, New Woman, New Earth : Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation (New York: Seabury Press, 1975); Ted Peters, Fear, Faith, and the Future: Affirming Christian Hope in the Face of Doomsday Prophesies (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1980). More recently, a “joint appeal” in 1992 launched an effort by leaders of the faith and science communities to work together toward a solution to this crisis. See “Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment” (1992), http://www.webofcreation.org/ DenominationalStatements/joint.htm. 3 John Haught classifies Christian ecological theology into three categories: apologetic, sacramental and eschatological. He favors the latter view, as best exemplified by Moltmann, because a purely sacramental view (earth as divine or quasi-divine) cannot account for the shadow side of ecological sin. I would tend to agree. “Why should we be concerned about our natural environment? Not only because it is sacramentally transparent to the sacred, but even more fundamentally because it is the incarnation of a promise yet to be fulfilled.” See John F. Haught, “Christianity and Ecology,” in This Sacred Earth, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 2004), 245. However, some contend that there are problems with future-oriented, eschatological theology, especially that which is engaged with the natural sciences. Big Bang cosmology predicts either a heat death or a cataclysmic explosion as the universe’s ultimate destiny, and evolutionary biology insists that there is no directionality to evolutionary history. Both of these are serious issues with which theologians must struggle. Physicist-theologian Robert John Russell suggests a reconceiving of time based on Jesus’ resurrection which, following Wolfhart Pannenberg and Ted Peters, is an eschatological event present proleptically in human history. God’s future (adventus) penetrates back into history with its ordinary future (futurum). In the New Creation, God redeems the present from the future, incorporating time into eternity, thereby redeeming it. See: Robert John Russell, Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2012). John Polkinghorne, another physicist-theologian, makes the important point that the death of the universe in millions of years is not different than the death of the individual in tens of years. Both require “trust in the everlasting faithfulness of the living and eternal God. This is the only reality that can be set against the reality of the scientific predictions of catastrophe.” John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker, eds., The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 12.
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A Lutheran Theological Response to Climate Change 13 4 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 363. 5 Revelle and Suess predicted in 1957, and Revelle later in 1965, that we would experience a “greenhouse effect” from increased carbon dioxide emissions, which recent research has confirmed. Cf. Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, 84. http://www.ipcc.ch/ publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthesis_report. htm. 6 Hansen, “Target CO2.” 7 Ibid., 217. 8 Revelle, as noted above, was a player in this process, especially as a spokesperson. However, according to some, he was not the most important one in developing the science. Earlier in his career, he claimed that the oceans would absorb atmospheric CO2, until he was convinced otherwise by Harrison Brown of Cal Tech. Later in his career, he switched positions again. Cf. Spencer R. Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 25 ff. 9 Hansen, “Target CO2,” 220. 10 Ibid., 218. 11 Ibid., 225. The question remains, however, how “in control” we are right now. This may be part of the illusion of modernity so grandly explicated by Comte. See below. 12 The New York Times has just reported that the melting of the western Antarctic ice sheet is “unstoppable.” Justin Gillis, “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans from Polar Melt,” The New York Times, May 12, 2014, p. A1. 13 Ibid., 228. 14 As of June 14, 2014, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was 401.88 ppm. Reading taken from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Information taken from CO2now.org. 15 Cf. Naomi Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Global Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?,” in Climate Change: What it Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren, eds. Joseph F.C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 71 ff. There is no controversy in the scientific community. The only question is how severe the effects of climate change will be. 16 Cf. Roger S. Gottlieb, A Greener Faith : Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future (Oxford: New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Mallory D. McDuff, Natural Saints : How People of Faith Are Working to Save God’s Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Katharine K. Wilkinson, Between God and Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Unpublished paper delivered to the Conference of ELCA Lutheran teaching theologians. 17 “On the other hand, would it not be possible to be a Lutheran maximalist? To begin with, you would of course, affirm those Lutheran breakthrough moments and never for a moment let them slip through your hands. But you would also explore the paradoxical promise of having it both ways: faith and works; justification and sanctification; the theology of the cross and a theology of eschatological glory; the hearing of faith and the seeing of inspired contemplation; the revealed God in word and sacraments and the God encountered in, with, and under nature; the immediately present Christ, given for me, in word and sacrament, and the immediately present Christ in all things, given for the whole world; the Spirit of God who calls me to faith and the Spirit of God who hovers creatively over the whole creation; and the book of scripture and the book of nature.” As cited in H. Paul Santmire, “American Lutherans Engage Ecological Theology: The First Chapter, 1962–2012, and Its Legacy” (2012). Unpublished paper delivered to the Conference of ELCA Lutheran teaching theologians. 18 Apocalyptic language is now commonplace in describing the ecological crisis, particularly climate change, although it is not always exactly clear what is meant by it. Cf. Stefan Skrimshire, Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination (London: Continuum, 2010).
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19 Martin Luther, “The Heidelberg Disputation,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 31. 20 “The highest and most difficult test of faith is when God in his activity not only delays but even conceals it under the opposite appearance.” Walter von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J.A. Bouman (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1976), 96. Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). 21 Cf. Reinhard Huetter, Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice, trans. Doug Stott (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000). 22 Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, 99. 23 Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2007), 16. One may criticize this as too narrow or anthropocentric. However, traditionally, this has been the focus of Lutheran theology. 24 Vítor Westhelle, The Scandalous God: The Use and Abuse of the Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), xi. 25 This is especially the case in the work of Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard, whose doctoral dissertation was on “The Concept of Irony in Socrates.” For Kierkegaard, theological speech is always necessarily indirect, and it intends to communicate an existential truth to the believer rather than general truth. 26 “When Christian orthodoxy refuses to articulate a theology for earth, the clamant hurt of God’s ancient creation is not thereby silenced. Earth’s voices, recollective of her lost grace and her destined redemption, will speak through one or another form of naturalism. If the Church will not have a theology for nature, then irresponsible but sensitive men [sic] will act as midwives for nature’s un-silence-able meaningfulness, and enunciate a theology for nature. For earth, not man’s mother—which is a pagan notion— but, as St. Francis profoundly surmised, man’s sister, sharer of his sorrow and scene and partial substance of his joys, unquenchably sings out her violated wholeness, and in groaning and travailing awaits with man the restoration of all things.” Joseph Sittler, Essays on Nature and Grace (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 52; emphasis mine. 27 Ibid., 54. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 87. 30 Ibid., 87. 31 Niels Henrik Gregersen, “Deep Incarnation: Why Evolutionary Continuity Matters in Christology,” Toronto Journal of Theology 26:2 (Fall 2010), 183. 32 Ibid., 181. Gregersen, building on the work of Wentzel van Huyssteen, also notes that for the sake of Christology, God also became human, as the creeds indicate. But the “height” of Christology interpenetrates the “depth” of Christology as well—and begins with flesh, not humanity per se. He also develops this notion in dialogue with Arne Naess’s concept of deep ecology, but disagrees with the systemic approach to nature in deep ecology, primarily because it ignores the frailty of individual creatures and relative value of different kinds of creatures, e.g. those creatures who are more sentient and self-aware have more of a moral claim on us; that is, deep ecology’s holism must be balanced by the singularity of individual species and beings. 33 Ibid., 182. 34 Jürgen Moltmann completes his theology of the cross with such an affirmation, together with Wolfhart Pannenberg and Ted Peters. This school of “future-oriented” theologians make the case for thinking differently about the future based on God’s revelation in Christ. 35 Cf. Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Healing a Broken World: Globalization and God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002). 36 Ibid., 7.
A Lutheran Theological Response to Climate Change 15 37 Ibid., 323. 38 See Herman E. Daly, John B. Cobb, and Clifford W. Cobb, For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1989), 159. 39 Ted Peters, God—the World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 383. 40 Ibid., 383.
Biographical Notes
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Daniel R. Smith is Pastor of Lutheran Church of the Incarnation in Davis California, and holds a PhD in Systematic and Philosophical Theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.