Is Christianity relevant in Climate Change?

Forty-three days before COP26 — is climate change relevant to Christianity? 

Is Christianity relevant in the middle of climate change? 

Daniel Sandford became Bishop of Edinburgh and built this church. It was the reward for developing a congregation from scratch over twenty-five years. He began at the height of the enlightenment, when young people were excited about science and progress of reason, and considered religion to be dangerous, outdated superstition. 

Teaching the young was Sandford’s favourite duty, and he was so successful in making religion relevant again for them, that when they grew up, they paid for this church through shares and subscriptions. 

Some of his teaching material was published, including a sermon on the text we’re about to sing in the anthem: ‘The fear of the Lord’. 

The sermon has a practical, self-help tone. To ensure we don’t go wrong, Sandford says, ‘it is necessary for us to have some rule and guide of life. Such a rule will be of easy and general application — it accompanies us every where, and is always at hand to be resorted to for the regulation of our conduct at all times and in all places.’

When I was a ‘young person’ in this congregation, our bishop called this, ’fridge magnet theology’. These days, of course, it’s a meme. 

So Sandford reveals his meme: ’Such a rule we shall find in the fear of God.’   [shrug]

It’s not self-explanatory, so Sandford goes on to explain, using phrases like ‘compounded sentiment’, ‘Divine Ruler’, ‘infinite attributes’, ‘Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent’, ‘the Redeemer, the Sanctifier, and the awful Judge of man.’ [head explodes]

What may have been meaningful to young persons in 1802, is not so immediately appealing today. 

But it’s not the long words that I find most difficult. It’s a monosyllable — or rather two, which Sandford uses interchangeably and takes the meaning for granted. God. Lord.

Who is God? Christianity prides itself on having revealed a previously mysterious God. Good news! Yet in my experience, talking to people outside these walls, perhaps even inside, as far as the word ‘God’ goes, we might as well have stuck with that clouded, unpronouncable set of Hebrew letters that came to Moses from the burning bush: JWHW. 

Yet in my reading of the bible it is extremely clear. God is Love. Love is God. We are loved. God is Love three ways: 

The one called ‘Father’: True love itself, incomprehensible, infinite, the deep root and heart of the universe. Who loved us into existence. Whom we put our faith in. 

The one called Son: The history of a man in one time and place who embodied love so perfectly it changed the world. Whom we follow. 

The one called Spirit: The visible, tangible love in every moment of our lives, if we can perceive it: in our interactions with people, nature and material things. Whom notice, explore, channel and multiply. 

Love is what Christians treat as divine: the Holy Spirit. 

In his sermon, Sandford went through some other rules for life he saw in Regency Edinburgh; and I see people around me following other rules. Human reason, common amongst the environmentalists I work with — despite being human-centred. Personal happiness — often blamed by the rationalists for the environmental pickle we’ve got ourselves in. Various sorts of geographic or demographic tribalism, set against one another. 

To me, none of those rules of life ring true. They believe they’ve rejected religion for something more real; but to me, it’s simply setting up other gods, gods other than Love.

To me, the Creed we’re about to say begins, ‘I believe in True Love’. But when people who hear I go to church ask dubiously, ‘so do you believe in God?’ and I explain that I believe in Love, and that Love is, to me, God, they say: ‘Well, yes of course I can believe that,’ — but they’re convinced there must be something else — something arbitrary, dodgy. 

I don’t believe so. I find in the bible — which we call the revelation of good news — the dawning realisation that God is Love: 

from the great Genesis stories like the extraordinarily powerful one we heard in which Abraham has the insight that — contrary to the cultural norm — God does not demand human sacrifice; to the revelations of the gospels and the new testament writers reflecting on what Jesus’ life meant; to the lives of Christians through the ages, demonstrating radical kindness, forgiveness and courage out of their faith that Love is God. It’s clear, simple, and very difficult.

Try going through the service sheet replacing words for God with Love, and vice versa:

‘Almighty and most merciful Love, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep’. ‘Love, open our lips, and our mouths shall shew forth thy praise’. ‘My soul doth magnify Love’. ‘Love be with you: and with thy spirit’.

Does it make more sense? 

But ‘the fear of Love — that is wisdom?’ Isn’t that an oxymoron? To fear Love? 

Yes! it is. 

Some of you will remember John Burdett, pointing out from this pulpit that whenever Jesus says ‘do not’, it’s almost always in the context of ‘do not worry; do not be afraid’. 

‘There is no room for fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’

Sandford preached during the French Terror, which felt like the end of the world. I’m preaching during climate change. The ecosystems which sustain us, are collapsing. If you examine the speed it’s happening, and the magnitude of the challenge required just to slow it down — which I’ve made my profession, it’s unimaginably appalling. This is very, very relevant to young people. I’m forty-three, my life will be massively impacted by climate change — and for each generation younger, the prospect is more terrifying. 

Where is good news? Where it’s always been: you can choose Love as God. On your fridge door, in your pocket, on your profile. At home, at work, online, in politics, as climate change, personal tragedy or life’s ordinary struggles unfold, Love, is your rule of life. And it’s empowering.

To paraphrase the message Isaiah heard from God: 

Don’t be afraid:

I’ve saved you, I’ve named you, I claim you;

I’m with you in drowning floods, in raging wildfire, as the climate changes.  

I am Love, True, Holy Love, 

and you’ve got one job, as you’ve always had: 

to love, as I love you. Amen. 

A sermon preached by Dr Eleanor Harris at evensong on 19 September 2021.