Earth-honoring, Earth-healing are topics of ecumenical meeting on climate change
Episcopal News Service. April 22, 2008 [042208-02]
Phina Borgeson
When the Ecumenical Roundtable on Science, Technology and the Church assembled at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico, April 11 and 12, Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary, New York City, challenged representatives of the five denominations gathered to develop new practices and new thinking in response to climate change.
Rasmussen stressed that as we experience change of a magnitude we have not seen -- the consequence of accelerated and extreme climate change -- we are entering Christianity's ecological age. "The simple retrieval of themes and practices from earth honoring traditions in Christian faith is wonderful, but insufficient, because we've landed in a place we've never been before -- it's territory that faith has not mapped," he said.
Rasmussen reviewed three revolutions in earth-human relations: the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, and the current transition. The industrial revolution was dependent on compact, stored energy, primarily in the form of fossil fuels, he noted, and we are now called to develop new approaches to energy sources and practices.
"During the industrial revolution we forgot that every human economy is always and everywhere a part of nature," he observed.
"I have a renewed sense of urgency about climate change," said Derek L. Pursey, Ph.D., outgoing president of the Presbyterian Association for Science, Technology and the Christian Faith, after Rasmussen's talk. "I've studied the report of the Intergovernmental Panel [on Climate Change], but Larry's framework of three revolutions really made me think."
After Rasmussen's first presentation, Barbara Elliott, Ph.D., a member of the Executive Council Committee on Science, Technology and Faith, remarked that Rasmussen's input would affect her work "as soon as next week. I am part of a large, interdisciplinary project on economic sustainability in mining communities. When we meet I will be using his observations about humans using and using up the planet to ask how we can reposition ourselves as we look to the future."
Elliott, a professor in the department of Family Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth, where much of her work is in ethics, underscored the need for a transition, from one of dominant species to "a different relationship, yet to be defined, and for which we will need a new theological rationale and understanding."
In a second dialogic presentation, Rasmussen challenged conference participants to develop a new ethic for the long haul. "Our spiritual resources are bread for the journey and a different place to stand," he asserted, but warned that they must not be simply applied in an unreflected way. He urged the scientists and theologians gathered to reconsider the notion of panentheism, even if they had previously been resistant to it, and to pay more attention to the third person of the Trinity and the exercise of discipleship in the power of the Spirit.
"We need a critical integration of the deep traditions of faith with the work of earth-honoring and earth-healing that is before us," he said.
"I was particularly taken by his notion of a sacramental commons," remarked James Jordan, Ph. D., chair of the Executive Council Committee on Science, Technology and Faith [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/science]. "The idea that the physical commons, the resources we share, are sacramental suggests that respect for our environment can be a form of worship."
Rasmussen defined a Christian sacramental approach to life as one in which "we recognize that all material life is sacred and carries a value humans share but do not bestow." This view also suggests that it is vital to give the changes we make in our attitudes and practices ritual form.
"I understand nature to be the all inclusive focus of God's grace," commented Lou Ann Trost, Ph.D., a steering committee member of the ELCA Alliance for Science, Technology and Faith [http://www.elca.org/faithandscience/]. "I've been interested in environmental concerns for some time," adds Trost, who holds degrees in both environmental science and theology, "and every time I hear somebody who renews my commitment to them, it encourages me in my theological work."
Rasmussen's explorations will continue this summer in a week-long seminar, "The Power to Change: Energy and How We Live, "the first offering in Ghost Ranch's ten year commitment to "Earth-honoring Faith: A Song of Songs."
Two recommended books:
A New Climate for Theology: God, the World and Global Warming by Sallie McFague. Fortress Press: 2008.
Earth Community, Earth Ethics (Ecology and Justice) by Larry L. Rasmussen. Orbis: 1998.