October 2009 Archives

Imagine hearing that someone you love... someone for whom you feel responsible... someone who has been entrusted to your care... is very ill.  You are told that it is not completely clear how quickly, or how completely, she will recover even if aggressive treatment begins immediately.  Some doctors suggest that there is no time to waste in responding; it is a situation that should have been addressed long ago.  Other doctors say they cannot even be certain that she is sick and suggest it is probably best to proceed as if nothing were wrong while waiting for the results of further tests.  What would you do?

Many people think this situation is analogous to the one we are in with respect to the Earth.  We have a responsibility (to ourselves, to the millions of impoverished people around the globe, and, according to some at least, to God) to preserve and protect the environments on which our lives and the lives of future generations depend.  This responsibility has been neglected to such an extent that we cannot be sure how many threatened ecosystems, species, and cultures could still be saved even if everyone began to act responsibly right now.  Still, many people seem unwilling to take action...

So, what would you do if you were in this position with a loved one? Would you sit by calmly and hope that everything works itself out? Or would you begin doing everything you could immediately?  If you did nothing and she died, would you find comfort in being able to say that you couldn't have been certain she was actually sick? If you began treatment immediately, and it turned out she was not as sick as some had thought, would you feel your efforts had been wasted? 

Now, does what you would do in the case of a loved one have any bearing on what you think you should do, or even on what you will do, in response to the claims you are hearing about global climate change?

(Thanks are due to the Rev. Canon Sally Bingham for suggesting this analogy during her recent talk at the conference Stewardship or Sacrifice? Religion and the Ethics of Climate Change)  

The second session of the Stewardship or Sacrifice conference featured reflections on how the theology of stewardship and sacrifice might help us to address the ethical challenges presented by global climate change.  The aim of the religious scholars and leaders involved was not to provide a unified theology of stewardship and sacrifice.  It was, rather, to discuss various ways in which specific aspects of religious and theological traditions can be brought into discussions aimed at convincing their members of the moral significance of the problem. 

Christian Brady began by calling our attention to passages in Genesis that he interprets as telling us that "caring for the world is what it and we were created for". His reflections were supplemented by reflections on the ethical significance within Judaism (Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin), Christianity (Sandra Strauss), and Islam (David L. Johnston) of being entrusted with something that is not one's own and is to be shared for the benefit of all.  One might get the impression from these reflections that the threat of global climate change calls us to renew our commitment to a kind of concern for the earth that has really always been at the core of our Western monotheistic traditions.  To this perspective was contrasted the idea that climate change calls us to adopt an essentially forward-looking posture; one in which we determine the proper response on the basis of moral philosophical arguments concerning the threat it poses to human dignity, rather than on the basis of a creation narrative in which we claim to find a mandate for environmentalism (Rosemary Bartocci).

A response to the panel was provided by Mark Wallace, who argued that, like all great social movements in our past, the movement to address climate change will have to be spear-headed by religious leaders.  Sustainability, according to Wallace, is a spiritual issue that requires us to "recover hidden wisdom buried in our traditions" concerning such things as the sanctity of the bio-system that feeds us, and the "sacred, god-given power of the life cycle".

The Stewardship or Sacrifice conference continues all day tomorrow at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center and is free and open to the public.