Solving the Climate Crisis by a Chain of Small Positive Steps
Richard Smith 25th August 2018
Readings: Jeremiah 1: 4-9, Luke 13:10-17
“Listen, I am giving you the words you must speak”. With this command the young Jeremiah’s prophetic career was launched. Not to predict the future, but to warn of the consequences of failing to follow God’s law. A sacred law, whose revelation has been expanding over time by history and science to include the natural world in which we live and move and have our very being (Acts 17:28).
Recently, part of this prophetic mission has fallen to Climate Scientists to warn us of the consequences of our ever-expanding Carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Like Jeremiah many of these prophets are young, like 16 year olds like Greta Thunberg who is leading a strike for action on Climate Change.
An important feature of this moral challenge was illustrated by Jesus’ healing of a crippled lady on the Sabbath. Bent over for 18 years by an evil spirit, and only able only to see the ground; unable to respond to the wonders and beauty around her. By healing her on the Sabbath, Jesus challenged the Jewish belief that the Torah was infallible and eternal. Jesus was asserting that the Sabbath law is not absolute but relative to human needs, denying their belief in the Torah’s unchanging validity. Jesus was questioning its status as God’s final and complete revelation. The woman’s twisted body and narrow mindedness symbolizes people who lack hope, only see the negatives of our present time and never the amazing possibilities and opportunities before us. No matter our age, we are challenged, to lift our vision, have hope and mentally straighten ourselves to face the great moral challenge of climate change and turn from the easy way of burying our heads in denial and ignorance.
Jesus’ prophetic mission was confronted by what we now term Fundamentalism[1]. A characteristic response of people to the fear of losing their power over others and their freedom to live and do as they like. Fear of a world seemingly gone astray and beyond their control. Australia’s response at Tuvula can be characterised as the economic fundamentalism of self-interest: our right to the unfettered export of coal, oil and gas. Unwilling to see the many alternative to countering rising sea-levels in the Pacific through switching to renewable sources of energy.
Jesus was teaching in the context of the great moral crisis of his time of gross inequality, racial and religious discrimination[2]that was tearing their world apart and climaxed in the Jewish-Roman war of AD 66-70 with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Like the women healed, his followers after his death stood up straight and according to Acts 4:32-35:
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
These share communities spread throughout the Roman Empire. The Celtic Christianity branch, spread Jesus’ teachings and way of life north through western Europe, crossing into Ireland, then onto Scotland (Iona) and finally into NE England (Lindisfarne). According to Montero in his book “All Things in Common: The Economic Practises of the Early Christians”[3], they operated according to two complementary principles enunciated by Karl Marx as: "From each according to their ability and to each according to their needs". Compared with the materialism of Marx our reading from Acts indicates the “Apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord” that is continued Jesus’ teachings.
The theological basis for these early Christian practises were well embedded in the Torah’s sabbatical every 7 years and jubilee year every 7x7 years when debts were remitted, slaves freed and land returned to its original owners, a process of economic restoration.
Many look on these two Christian principles of Ability and Needswithdisdain as socialism or worse, communism. That anything deviating from the free market principles of absolute private property, self-interest, market exchange, and profit seeking is a recipe for disaster; and regard the dream of an ecologically sustainable world where we respect nature’s laws as a dangerous pipe dream.
However, these principles are capturing the imagination of many, particularly young people. We seem to have reached an impasse. There is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, the free market system will no longer exist, for the simple reason on a finite planet it is impossible to maintain perpetual economic growth dependant on spiralling pollution and debt.
John Gheradi a former Catholic Priest recently introduced me to the Citizen’s Climate Lobby and their Carbon Fee and Dividend Plan. A plan to begin a Chain of Small Positive Steps[4]. This revenue neutral plan I discovered meets the two basic Christian principles of abilityto pay the Carbon Fee and to compensate those adversely impacted according to their need.
For this Plan I will be supporting the Children on 20thSeptember to be part ofa Chain of Small Positive Steps towards solving the Climate Crisis.
“For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)
[1]Gerald A. Arbuckle, 2015, Fundamentalism at Home and Abroad: Analysis and Pastoral Responses. Liturgical Press. pp. 185
[2]Stephen J. Paterson, 2018, The Forgotten Creed: Christianity’s Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery and Sexism. Oxford Univ. Press. pp. 176
[3]Roman A. Montero, 2017, “All Things in Common: The Economic Practises of the Early Christians”, Wipf and Stock Publishers. Pp. 134.
[4]Richard Holden and Rosalind Dixon, 2018, Fresh thinking: the carbon tax that would leave households better off. The Conversation, November 21, 2018.