Climate Emergency as Revelation: The Tragedy and Illusion of Sovereignty in Christian Political Theologies (original) (raw)
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God – Justice – Climate change
Stellenbosch theological journal, 2024
The climate catastrophe changes theology to think about the relationship between our faith in God, the endangered creation, and justice. Although the change affects a living beings on the planet-and not only humans-the human responsibility for dealing with the issue cannot be separated from how we practice faith in God. God is the God of all, and the precarious and vulnerable situation of humans who suffer from the consequences of climate change represents a call to prophetic action and to affirm a shared community among a living beings. The resources of the Christian tradition can be employed to support this task. Uncertainty and ambiguity emerge here as resources, because they force us to confront those things, we really want-not safely in some distant and contested future, but justice and self-understanding now.
Can the Earth be Sacred Once Again? Christianity and Climate Change
Journal of the Council for Research on Religion, 2020
The following paper takes Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change as an opportunity to re-open the debate, begun in 1967 by Lynn White Jr., on the theological origins of the environmental crisis. I note that the Pope’s critique of consumerist modernity is strong, but his lack of a genealogical account of modernity remains a weakness of the text. I argue, with White, that the technological revolution which has caused climate change would not have been possible without Christian assumptions. The original disenchantment of the world was the Abrahamic revelation which disjoined divinity and nature, and contra to appearances, the disjunction was only exacerbated by the doctrine of the incarnation. With climate change, modernity is returning to this revelation in the form of the sobering experience of the precarity of the planet. Nature is now experienced as finite once again, and it includes us. Modernity, however, cannot be disavowed any more than disenchantment can easily be forgott...
The issue of climate change is a complex one, yet we cannot simply neglect this problem because it is a pressing reality of the twenty-first century. Neglecting it will amount to neglecting not only the present generations, but most of all the future generations. We reaffirmed the findings of the IPCC that climate change is caused by human activities, though we cannot rule out the other factors caused by natural process. Science, politics and economics alone could not solve the problem of climate change which calls for the involvement of different faiths in the world, but in this study we have limited to one particular faith: Christianity.
Climate change and God’s work of election
2019
Gijsbert van den Brink Eva van Urk The doctrine of divine election is not the first theme that comes to mind when we examine Christian themes that might make a difference to one’s attitude vis-a-vis climate change. In a recent volume on systematic theology and climate change, terms like ‘election’ and ‘predestination’ do not even occur in the index – let alone that a separate contribution on their roles has been included. Yet, doctrines, notions and intuitions about God’s work of election have become deeply engrained in the Christian mindset throughout the centuries, and it should not be ruled out that they interact – for better or for worse – with practical attitudes adopted towards all sorts of ‘worldly affairs’. In fact, that this is the case has already been hypothesized more than a century ago when Max Weber formulated his famous thesis about the causal connection between Calvinism and...
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2020
After decades of critical scholarship calling attention to the dangers of emergency powers, many critical theorists and political activists are now turning to those same tools to combat climate change. The Climate Emergency Declaration movement advocates directly for the declaration of political states of emergency in jurisdictions across the globe. This article intervenes to recall the danger of emergency powers, with particular attention paid to the crucial role played by the political state of emergency (originally l’etat de siege fictif) in nineteenth-century France in the development of emergency power doctrine and twentieth-century authoritarian sovereignty. The second half of the article looks for an alternative, arguing that the radical and emancipatory response to the threat of climate change ought to be grounded in a political theology of ‘sojourning’, rather than the exception, drawing on the First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, as well as the commentary on that letter by Giorgio Agamben. This theologico-political response to the ethics of climate change furthers the scholarly debate on political theology and International Relations theory by engaging one of the crucial challenges of the twenty-first century and by developing a potential model for theological discussions of ethical problems beyond religious moralizing.
Pharos Journal of Theology, 2023
Climate change is devastating human communities, but it is more devastating to the poor and powerless, especially in the absence of accountable political leadership. This was evident in the recent climate disaster that struck South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where the deadliest storm in April 2022 killed about 489 people and devastated many more. This paints a frightening picture of the impending climate apocalypse not only in South Africa but in the global world. In the face of mounting evidence that the threat of climate change is indeed existential, this paper represents a tacit theological obligation to warn nations or sensitize governments to the impending climate catastrophe. Responsible public theology as per this paper’s version calls for pragmatic government policies and a renewed church mission for human security in the face of the looming climate crisis. Although unrelated to the phenomenon of climate change, the Genesis flood narrative is used by analogy to describe ...
Theology of Climate Change Mitigation , Stewardship And Adaptation: The Place of The Church
Abstract In this age of technology characterized by capitalist and materialist culture, Christian ministry pertaining to the natural world of creation has been relegated to the background in the teaching and preaching of many churches whereas on the other hand, it has long been held that the environment is among the most pressing concerns of this generation. While most Christians appreciate the beauty of nature, many do not realize that there is a strong biblical basis for creation care, and that, in fact, many ethical values, fundamental to the development of a peaceful society, are particularly relevant to the ecological question. The purpose of this research is twofold, firstly, to establish the basis for the Church’s response to the problem of climate change by correlating climate change with the Biblical mandate for creation care and secondly, to provide recommendations on how creation care can be integrated into the local church’s administration and ministry. Recent scientific findings on climate change alongside its environmental and social implications provided the framework upon which this research is based. This paper through descriptive phenomenological method of scholarship made an inroad into the role of the church as steward of the entire oikoumene-the entire inhabited earth. The significance of the research is that it has provided a document that spells out clearly why and how Christian Churches should be involved in tackling the issue of climate change and the resultant ecological problems facing the world today.
Religious Studies Review, 2014
Social engagement, social action, and social justice are buzzwords spurring a new wave of scholarship. This newest addition to the conversation investigates the place, contributions, and future of social engagement among Evangelicals. Given the stigma of quietism or narrow focus on a few issues often applied to Evangelicals, the essays describe a "new" Evangelicalism that is broader, more diverse, global, and not so easily pigeonholed. The collection begins by describing recent movements and developments including social engagement among college students, Catholic Evangelicals, women, and political trends. A second set of essays identifies