Today the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest report on the state of the climate, ahead of the COP26 summit. Global temperatures have risen 0.9 degrees. Humans are causing it. The past five years were the hottest on record. Sea levels are rising.
The scientific, emotionless tone of the scientific report contrasts with the frantic headlines reporting it:
‘Code red for humanity’
‘Major climate change irreversible’
‘1.5 degrees slipping beyond reach’
We’ve heard it all before, plenty of times, and we know it’s worse every time.
What are the emotional response options? Despair? Guilt? Frantic activity? Eremitic or hedonistic disengagement? None of these are Christian responses. What does being a disciple of Love mean in the face of headlines like these?
The same as it always has — although it provides a context which means we may never hear those old words the same way again.
‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ — even when you vehemently disagree with them.
‘Who is my neighbour?’ — when they are flooded, dying of heatstroke, or their crops have failed.
‘Before we were yet sinners, yet Christ died for us,’ — our personal responsibility for climate change is not to be dwelt on...
‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’ — ... and nor is anyone else’s.
‘By these wounds we are saved’ — ... and nor is our personal success in tackling climate change.
‘Do not worry about what you will eat, or what you will wear’ — in fact, it’s people worrying about all that which has got us into this state.
‘But these three remain: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.’ — what does that mean though, in all this?
‘Come, follow me’ — we have a calling, we have the example of Christ to follow, of what it means to choose Love as your God.
But that isn’t going to change the worl ... oh, wait.
If you haven’t been troubled by climate change, you probably haven’t taken it seriously enough yet. But if you’ve sat and listened to the gospel every week and haven’t found in it a path through climate change, you perhaps haven’t been taking it seriously enough either.
Climate change is a huge existential crisis caused by people like us, and threatening life on the planet. You and I are only two of eight billion people, and have no earthly power over what is happening. We need a light more powerful than this darkness to guide us through it, as long as we are around to be part of this story.
Is our funny old, jargon-ridden, history-tarnished, unfashionable religion meaningful, relevant, and sufficient? It is to me. Climate change is going to be here every minute of the rest of my life. But so is the ever-present Love which we choose and summon as God, and call in our funny old jargon, Holy Spirit.
Come, Holy Spirit.
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