Deane Meatheringham.   June 2007

   It was early October 2006.  I rose early in the morning to prepare for travel to upper Eyre Peninsula. As I watered the trees we had recently planted in our yard, I shivered with the cold. On leaving home, the road passed the green Clare Valley vineyards, through open paddocks of grain crops, past the powerhouse at Port Augusta, on until I arrived in Kimba. As I stepped out of the air-conditioned car, the withering hot north wind whipped up dust from the barren paddocks and town streets. The impact of the drought clobbered me.

   We are always emotionally responding to the climate. We draw on masses of energy to protect ourselves from it. The subject of the weather is usually the beginning point of personal greeting and often of further extended conversation. We even give the weather a moral value as we declare some days "good" and others "bad".

   Creation is all around us. Our participation in the earth's vibrancy of life is what makes us human. This is a certain 'given-ness' of things. None of us brought creation into being. Rather we ourselves were brought into being.  As men and women, we contribute to the well being or the ill health of the creation. No reputable science now denies that climate change is happening or that to a large degree humans contribute to global warming.

   Very few days pass when we are not confronted with multiple media pieces and serious presentations of the human pollution of the environment and the consequent negative effect on the atmosphere. Australians find themselves acutely emotionally and financially taxed in their awareness of these matters and lately more so because we are experiencing one of our worst national droughts.

   We are told that the control of the Earth's temperature is dependant on carbon dioxide that continues a discriminating activity in maintaining the balance necessary for life.  Because of the huge amounts of carbon produced in the use of coal for energy and because we produce carbon dioxide every time we drive our large vehicles or fly in a plane we increase the proportion of carbon dioxide in the air we breathe. Vegetation helps maintain the balance of the earth's thermostat, but as we log trees and clear the land the carbon dioxide levels build up. Scientists propose that as a result, the temperature of the earth has a high probability of increasing, making a serious problem for all life on earth.

Gospel & Environment  

   How does the transforming and reconciling gospel of Jesus Christ connect with the environment? Throughout my ministry as a pastor, I have always maintained that the grace of God displayed and enacted in people's lives has a transforming impact upon the way they live. I would have included in this transformation the new way a farmer relates to her/his animals and land and the new regard of all those who love God for his creation. However, there was a lack somewhere. This was because of the way I was separating the gospel from the creation. I had developed a dualistic way of thinking and teaching. Then I heard a loved and respected mentor of mine categorically state that creation is the most important subject of the Bible. I began to adjust my theology.

   The event I will relate took some years before the full meaning of it shaped up inside of me. My first years as a pastor were spent in a parish on upper Eyre Peninsula, a low rainfall area. A couple who lived in our town was having troubles, financially and in their relationship. They did not attend Divine service but frequently came to the church manse when their conflicts boiled over. He had a job, but they were very poor. I provided some immediate practical assistance and took every opportunity to lead the conversation, when it was appropriate, to talk of a vital relationship they could have with God. After the woman had a miscarriage, they decided to leave the area. I took both of them with their meagre belongings to catch the bus.  We subsequently heard nothing from or of them.

   A year or so passed. One day the local funeral director asked me to conduct a funeral service at a graveside. "Bit of a strange one this", he said, "The bloke's been murdered". I did not recognize the name of the deceased.  As I travelled in the hearse to the cemetery, I realized through our conversation that the murdered man, whose funeral I was to conduct, was that fellow who I had put on the bus with his partner. He had been living in a remote farmhouse for several months and had been murdered there.

   On that day, we had the sort of wind you get in a dry year, squally, with the clouds looking as if they should produce rain, but only sending down a few spots to torment us. At the graveside, there were six men - farmers from nearby - the undertaker and me. I honoured the dead man as a unique human being and presented the promises of hope in Christ for life beyond this present existence. As I called on Christ's name and we began to lower the coffin into the grave the wind ceased, the sprinkling rain stopped, the scrub around the cemetery stood still. The leaves of the mallee trees glistened as if they were new. There was silence. None of us said a word. Unforgettable eye contact occurred. I knew that my companions had all felt the stillness as I had.

   It was years later when I needed to prepare a study on the work of the Holy Spirit in creation that I realized that humanity is one with creation, and the Spirit of God who empowers the gospel is working simultaneously in the creation. The creation is the theatre of the gospel, and he who sustains and renews human life does so for the creation.

"He who did not abhor the Virgin's womb that was to bring forth the Son of God: neither did he abhor the womb of creation which groans and travails in pain until all the sons and daughters of God are revealed", (Vincent Taylor, The Go Between God, SCM 1972, pp. 25).   

Whatever our point of view, as Christians we all live in the creation, gain from its wealth, and contribute to or drain its resources. We believe in a God who not only creates and sustains the creation but who comes to us as a creature in his incarnate Son by whom he will redeem us with the whole creation.

Should We Speak Of Nature Or Creation?

   In this presentation, so far I have used the word 'creation' rather than 'nature'. Should Christians concern themselves with such quibbling about word? Would it not be better to relate to terminology used in our culture? Society generally uses the word nature. In a discussion at a public forum, I would not want to be side tracked by a word when there are larger issues to be considered. However, the word 'nature' is slippery, and can have a meaning that is not consistent with the Christian ecumenical confessions, which say, "We believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth".

   The ancient Greek philosophers gave considerable attention to nature. Ultimately, Plato and Aristotle came to differing conclusions but both were dualistic. That is they drew a distinction between what we would call the physical world and the mind or the soul. Nature was a life or a power that descended through bodies shaping them and governing them. Such a philosophy could lead to an inferior view of the physical and a superior understanding of the mind or the soul. We have strong remnants of this in the way some people mistreat their bodies. Also in the way inordinate attention is given to developing the inner life of a person that is regarded as the superior object of devotion.

   Enlightenment thinkers believed in a creator God, but in dualistic terms. They separated the creation from the creator and developed important views that the world of nature could have its properties explained with reference to itself through the formulation of mathematics. Thus, Newton's arguments in favour of universal gravitation encouraged the view that the universe was a single uniform mechanism, governed at all times by the laws of motion. Nature had gained autonomy, yet was a mechanistic system of cause and effect.

In our post-modern culture where all boundaries are discarded and all history and ideas are deconstructed we have an ecological movement that "has tended to see nature as a self sufficient domain of intrinsic value, truth and authenticity, and has been somewhat dismissive of questions or representation and conceptuality. In the absence of any consensus concerning the ontology of nature, such notions as the environment become socially constructed entities. Nature is under siege - both physically (through bulldozers) and intellectually (through deconstruction), in that the very existence of the category has been challenged. The defences offered by well-meaning environmentalists are generally pragmatic ('this will lead to further exploitation of the environment') and have failed to appreciate that the real issues lie very much deeper - the need for an ontology of nature", Alister E. McGrath, Nature, T &T Clark, 2001, pp. 155f. 

What we need to know is not just what nature does but what it is.

From the revelation God has given us through the prophetic and apostolic canon of Holy Scripture, Christians are able to see nature as creation. The Christian doctrine of creation enables us to see that the world about us is not just a thing to be utilized or to be dominated by human beings who have placed themselves in the place of the creator.

 "The doctrine of creation ex nihilo allowed the scientist to approach nature with the expectation that the divine rationality would be reflected in its structures and workings", ibid, pp. 140.

God's Good Creation

If we were to bring together all the words and ideas that describe the creation in the Old Testament, we would see that creation not only has to do with the beginning. Other very important expressions such as the assembling of a structure, bringing order out of emptiness and nothingness and the imposition of a form also have to be reckoned with.

The correct place to begin looking at creation is not in Genesis chapters 1-3, as important as these chapters are for our understanding. Rather Christians begin with the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. John's gospel begins by revealing to us that he, who was the very communication or expression of God, because he was face to face with God, was the one through whom all things were created. He is the Word who was present and called creation into being. 

Paul follows this principle of seeing creation as coming through God's beloved Son.

   "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through and for him", Colossians 1:15-16.

   This means that creation did not spring from some deficient or malignant demiurge. Neither is creation the result of a fatalistic chance plus matter process. Rather God created all things out of the sheer goodness of his unconditional love as we see it revealed in Jesus Christ. This latter point is important pastorally because it shows us that the creator is not some dark unknowable or forbidding divinity somewhere behind Christ. Many people have made a dichotomy between the creator God and Jesus Christ with calamitous consequences for our understanding of creation.

   Creation is not an emanation of God or an extension of his divinity. Believing this way is pantheism. God is above the creation he has made and Lord of it. Yet in the incarnation of the Son of God, God has joined himself not only to humanity, but has also become a creature of the creation and is present in his creation.

Repeatedly the Scriptures tell us that the creation was functionally good in that it is whole and every part of it relates to the other. The New Testament says that the whole creation coheres by the power of Christ's continuing Word.

"In him (Christ) all things all things hold together", Colossians 1:17. "He sustains all things by his (Christ's) powerful word", Hebrews 1:3.

"Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected", I Timothy 3:4.

This is valid for the whole of God's creation and includes those things that at times we may consider threatening and harmful. When I was teaching at a bible college on this matter, I once said that the marijuana plant is good, along with opium poppies and tobacco. This brought a strong response. When he was teaching theological students the gospel of John, a former Methodist Principal of mine remarked that he could understand people not wanting to believe the gospel because Jesus turned water into vast quantities of wine. Is atomic energy a good thing? I believe so, but much depends upon our responsible use of these creation gifts. The creation is good because it contains and reflects God's free mercy and those powers that work to draw us to him and to save us in Christ Jesus. 

Fear of Creation

Joy and thanksgiving to God express themselves exuberantly in a variety of contexts in the bible. Many Christian hymns and songs adore the God of creation. In the liturgy for the Eucharist the company gathered by Christ joins with all the heavenly beings, the church in heaven and on earth and all the creatures of the creation singing "Heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna , Hosanna in the highest".

Yet human beings do not see creation as it is. We are often more inclined to see various forms of bogies lurking behind the good. Every day we should delight in creation, but instead we can be terrified of it. If our fear comes from the awe of the dramatic events and marvelous movement of creation, then we can understand people becoming deeply moved by the impact upon them. Nevertheless, we develop phobias about the weather or are fearful of the dimensions of the universe, while some live in dread of alien creatures invading us from another planet. 

I suggest that the fear of creation links with our fear of God. We do not trust a faithful creator. So much in the creation seems to speak against God.  When it comes to climate change and global warming our fears are reinforced. This is especially so when ecology becomes a religion with its own almanac dating the end of the world. When we hear predictions of Bondi beach being covered by the rise of the sea, the old guilt manipulation game is put into a process to force people to make decisions to change their habits. I do not believe this is an effective psychology for the proper treatment of the earth. Rather, the fear is more likely to produce hate for the planet and even more destructive behaviours.

When Creation Works Against Us

Humanity is an integral participant in the creation having close affinity with other creatures. Significantly God is all the time relating to men and women to whom responsibility is given to guard and care for the creation, (for example Psalm 8). We are told that when we fell out with God our bond with creation became distorted. Putting ourselves in the place of God we now choose what is right and wrong. The account of Cain and Able in Genesis 4 shows the consequences of false worship: murder, rejection of God's mercy and Cain becoming homeless and an alien in God's world. In this situation the creation that is still good and blessed works against humanity.

Is drought a judgment from God against human defiance? We do not like questions like this one. In Scripture, droughts (or famines) are often part of the natural rhythm of the creation and its seasons and are not connected with human sin.

Dorothea McKellar describes Australia in the second verse of the poem "My Country".

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of rugged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

The wide brown land for me!

 We may agree with this description and say that droughts are a feature of the land and we should expect them. It may mean that care and discipline need to be observed when deciding where to plant crops. In the late 1890's grain crops were grown in northern SA up to as far as Nackera. The rains were OK at that time, but further experience revealed that this was exceptional and the area was not a suitable place for cropping. Should rice and cotton be grown in those areas of Australia that consequently depend upon huge quantities of water drawn from the sources of the River Darling?

In some places in the Old Testament drought was linked with the failure of God's covenant people to honour their relationship with Yahweh. Elijah the prophet told King Ahab that the long drought in Israel was the consequence of the people's idolatrous behaviour and Elijah demonstrated that turning back to the true God would bring rain. Isaiah told God's people that their violence and defiant violation of Yahweh's covenant with them defiled the land resulting in it being devoured in judgment and famine, (Isaiah 24).

In an essay called "Progress and Abyss" Jürgen Moltmann describes the coming of the enlightenment and traces the pursuit of a utopia of blessedness through human discovery and conquest. By the time of the seventeenth century, Europe had learned from Virgil to expect a golden age. With the beginnings of modernity, the time of fulfillment had arrived. Times of revolution sought the future ideal by human force of arms. New scientific and technological discoveries trusted in a beginning without an end. Nature did not fair well under the industrial revolution with it emissions and rape of the lands for resources and the beginning of the greenhouse effect. The ecosystem of our planet was losing its equilibrium.

"This was not just a crisis of the natural environment. It was also a crisis of the industrial world itself. The destruction of nature that we can see every day with our own eyes is based on the disturbed relationship of modern men and women to nature. It is impossible to make oneself 'the master and possessor of nature' if one is still part of nature and dependant on it", Moltmann in The Future of Hope edited by Miroslav Volf and William Katerberg, Eerdmans 2004, pp. 14.

Modernity has ended in catastrophe. In the fight for progress, we have produced wars of nihilistic annihilation, and the destruction of the planet. Here is the good creation also working against human ambition and desecration and in God's governance resisting final destruction.

The Reconciliation of All Things

Peter tells us that we have a faithful creator to whom we should entrust ourselves, (I Peter 4:19). From the beginning, God's covenant has been not only with Abraham, Israel, or the Church, but also with the whole of creation.

In his sheer goodness and grace, the Triune God joined himself to our humanity by becoming bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ is the joining of God with our corrupt and death sealing humanity. Jesus Christ is not only the one through whom all things were created but in his flesh "God was pleased to reconcile all things whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross", Colossians 1:20.

As one of us, Jesus has entered the life of those who are alienated from God and

 the creation. He suffered the hostility of humanity toward God as we sought to remove the one we thought curbed our autonomy and caused our guilty pain. The narration of the crucifixion in each of the Gospels refuses to let Christ's death be reduced to a spiritual effect or merely a religious low point. God, as a creature in human flesh and blood, was one with the creation which responds to his dying. He was buried in the ground as a corpse, experiencing the totality of death and bearing the entirety of human evil. He was raised from the dead as a resurrected man. The whole episode is divine and human and it has to do with the creation. "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world".

In the light of the cosmic event of the crucified God the creation that was subjected to decay and futility in hope, waits with eager longing for the final liberation of the whole creation, (Romans 8:18-24). Creation will be set free when humanity is finally glorified as God's sons and daughters.

The Christian faith is not utopian, nor is it pessimistic or optimistic. It is realistic. It hopes for what God has promised though the salvation of Christ. It begins to live consistently in the light of what it hopes for in the future.

Living in Hope

Suggesting that a Christian response to the current climate change crisis is to hope may be criticized as being somewhat weak.  Am I merely saying just hope everything will turn out OK so that we can continue with our present life style?

Hope is not just wishful thinking or like buying a ticket in the lottery and continuing with your every day affairs while passively awaiting the results. Hope is really faith with a future look. Hope needs to be distinguished from what we see, for as Paul says, who hopes for what he or she already sees?

 A more accurate way to see it is that as we anticipate what "we hope for" we commence to shape up for it by ordering our lives accordingly. Without hope, we are hopeless and bereft of any future to live for.

• § Hope believes that this world belongs to God and not to us. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof". We will be skeptical, not cynical, of all utopian dreams and ambitions to bring in the final era of peace and tranquility. In 1964 Jacques Ellul wrote the famous treatise "The Technological Society" in which he seriously questioned the promises of technology to bring in an ideal society. It was heralded in some circles at the time, but it fell into oblivion. In 1990, Ellul wrote "The Technological Bluff" in which he says that techniques are bluffers that do not deliver what they promise. We have been deceived into thinking that computers are the real creators. Christians are not Luddites who reject technology or its benefits but they are the people of God who put their trust in him to bring in a final future from a realm beyond this present existence.
• § People of hope worship the living God and do not absolutise the creation or any part of it. Conservationism linked with the dynamics of creation itself plus spirituality, can be combined to become an object of worship. Christians do not worship the creation in the place of God, but they worship God and obey his commands for justice in the creation.
• § Looking to a future renewed creation, we do not spoil or destroy God's creation now. As a farmer who has inherited land that has been abused in various ways can work successfully to renew the soil through replanting trees, using less chemicals and not over working the land, so too we can work for the renewal of the world's echo system. Faith can lead to a decision to not consume as much power through inefficient air-conditioning or by driving vehicles with larger motors than we need. We can question whether a city like Adelaide needs the highly carbon producing entertainment of powerful car races in the city. We will not fight governments over developing clean coal policies and the use of developing technologies for sun and wind power. Christians can effect a powerful witness to Christ and his saving grace by their attitude and care of the creation.
• § Christians who hope will also pray in the strong name of Christ for his deliverance of the creation from tyranny and catastrophe. Providing we acknowledge our sins in repentance and trust the full forgiveness of all our transgressions, we should be bold enough to pray for rain and for our daily basic needs along with all humankind. We will be praying for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and for his ultimate kingdom to come.

Church with a Small "c"

Churches seem to have a natural thrust to offer help in times of crisis. The big drought has intensified this thrust. Drought is indiscriminate as people who belong to the Christian church and those who do not all experience crop failure and empty water dams and rainwater tanks. All face financial hardship and the possibility of ruin. Whatever action is taken should be with communities and the church working together with service clubs and government agencies. Providing help for people in trouble needs to done inconspicuously and without self-advertising. This is being church with a small "c".

The Uniting Church in South Australia has provided grants for food and drinks for congregations to arrange social occasions like BBQs in accessible, non-threatening public venues. At some of these, space has been made to assist farmers take care of their health, direct people to counseling services, and to unravel the complications of seeking government help. 

Gatherings were held in the Mid North , Eyre Peninsula and the South East Eyre. In reality, these occasions have given opportunity for listening to people and may have assisted in breaking the boredom of grief.

Early in 2007 thunderstorms brought heavy rain which washed away rural fencing to areas such as Orroroo and Hawker. For farmers already struggling for funds the rain filled their dams but it washed away valuable fencing. The South Australian Synod provided financial grants for the local minister to distribute to enable people to replace their fencing.

The church received valuable help from a government mental health researcher and practitioner who had wide experience of rural communities. Ecumenical seminars were held where he addressed ordained pastors and practicing pastoral workers to assist them in recognizing signs of depression and other mental health difficulties. These were invaluable.

Epilogue

It is late April 2007.  Again, I rise early to travel to upper Eyre Peninsula.  The Weather Bureau has been predicting substantial rain for the agricultural areas for today and the next two or three days.  The temperature is warm and the wind blows dust onto the road as I leave home.  As I pass the autumn grape vines, the rain starts to fall  slowly and lightly. It steadily increases as I progress on towards Kimba.  As I get out of the car, I need to negotiate a stream of water pouring down the street.  I cannot see the paddocks around the town for the heavy rain clouds and mist.

As the rain continues to fall over the next three days every conversation that I participate in or overhear starts with comments on the rain. People are jubilant.  The dry ground and trees look refreshed. Rainwater tanks are filling.  Dams again have water in them. Many paddocks are waterlogged and farmers are eager to get out onto their tractors to start seeding.  The impact of the rain has clobbered us.

Brief Bibliography 

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, The Doctrine of Creation, T & T Clark, 1991.

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, SCM, 1960.

Geoffrey Bingham, Creation and the Liberating Glory, New Creation Publications, 2004.

Carl E. Braaten & Robert Jenson Ed,  The Last Things, Eerdmans, 2002.

Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, Vintage, 1964; and The Technological Bluff, Eerdmans, 1990.

Loren Wilkinson Ed., Earth Keepers, Eerdmans, 1980.

Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers, Text Publishing, 2005.

Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, Bear & Co, 1983.

Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator, Edinburgh, 1998.

Alister E. McGrath, Nature, T & T Clark, 2001.

Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, SCM, 1985.

Miroslav Volf & William Katerberg Ed, The Future of Hope, Eerdmans, 2004.

Thomas F. Torrance, Divine and Contingent Order, T & T Clark, 1981.

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, T &T Clark, 1988.

Martin Luther, Luther's Large Catechism, Lutheran Publishing House, 1985.

Deane Meatheringham.   1/5/07  Rural Mission Planner with the MRN. Email   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it