Christian Environmental Obligation - Catie Malone
Christianity morally obligates its followers to devote themselves to the climate crisis because the Bible calls for justice. Such justice is only possible by helping those most in need. In the Bible, death involves resurrection of the spiritual body for faithful and righteous individuals. Through spiritual resurrection, the world each Christian once knew passes away and they can come to know God’s recreation of heaven and earth. In spite of each person passing away to experience a new creation, the importance of sustaining our present earth remains. God formed a planet of harmony with a plethora of intrinsically valuable creatures. People have no right, then, to destroy the diversity of life God granted this planet. Beyond the focus on other creatures, actions affecting the environment and climate change have significant implications on human beings, especially those living in poverty. The Christian Bible establishes that individuals with plenty must assist individuals in need. By aiding others, Christians become more connected to God. Eschatology, or the theological study of death, judgement, and life after death, encourages the Christian call to sustain a healthy planet. So too, does the urgency with which God expects Christians to care for life on this harmonious planet, especially people living in poverty.
Adequate evidence exists throughout the Bible to conclude that righteous Christians will experience an afterlife in their spiritual body. Though humans exist within physical bodies in this world, through resurrection, God raises the human spiritual substance rather than the physical. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul declares that the human body “is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15: 44). Paul goes on to claim that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 15: 50). In both of these statements, Paul asserts that people will come to know God’s kingdom after death through spiritual means, suggesting the rising of a body unlike the one humans on earth understand currently. Moreover, the Bible acknowledges that the spirit of individuals who acted honorably in life will reside with God after death. For instance, an important book in the Bible that focuses on mortality, afterlife, and the characteristics of wisdom, called Wisdom, says that “[t]he souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead . . . But they are in peace” (Wis 3: 1-2, 3). The chapter goes on to say “the faithful shall abide by him in love” (Wis 3:9). If Christians hope to experience a complete existence with God in the afterlife, they must live righteously, upholding justice through their daily actions.
The Bible defines life after death as involving God’s creation of a renewed world in which people live closer to God without suffering. Revelation states that “[t]he former heaven and the former earth had passed away” (Rev 21:1). In Theology and Modern Science, James Wiseman agrees with the theologian Raymond Brown who suggests that the world of the afterlife “‘cannot be translated into human concepts’” (Wiseman 106). God recreates the world in the afterlife, but the precise details of this world, as described in the Bible, are only symbolic of a better life. The thought of afterlife should spark inspiration for Christians to live the best life presently possible until God grants them life in the new heaven and the new earth. The passage from Revelations goes on to state that God “will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain” (Rev 21:4). God resides with humanity in a distinctly spiritual way now, but the action of wiping tears away reveals a new closeness with humanity in the afterlife. People can look forward to not only existence without the suffering that currently plagues the human experience, but a deeper understanding of the Lord’s presence, as made clear with the description of physical touch. The Bible encourages Christians to remain steadfast and hopeful in their faith so they may experience the new world of God’s creation. Christians should not take this hope in a better afterlife to remain stagnant in the current world, however.
Despite the Bible’s assertion that this planet will pass away, it does not provide an escapist viewpoint through which Christians can understand their lives as a passive journey to the afterlife. Escapism involves the belief that humanity need not fight climate change because the world’s health rests in God’s hands alone. Based on the understanding of God’s power over creation that begins in biblical creation stories and reappears throughout the Bible in books such as Job, however, humanity should still care for the planet. After discussing various creatures of earth, land, and sky, Job realizes that “[i]n [God’s] hand is the soul of every living thing, and the life breath of all mortal flesh” (Job 12:7-10). Job was a man who experienced a significant amount of suffering in his lifetime, leading him to question God’s intentions. In spite of these hurdles, he came around to the realization that God still acts with purpose, and God crafted every last organism to fit into God’s intentions for creation. Who is humanity, then, to cause climate change and thus destroy the life created by God? Ultimately, God has power to decide when the current world ends for everyone, but people have free will to significantly alter the quality of life experienced by much of creation. Humanity, therefore, has an obligation to use this little power designated to them by God, free will, to preserve each aspect of creation that God has skillfully made.
By acknowledging the unity between humans and all life on earth, we gain a greater understanding of the importance of protecting life. Wiseman explains that humanity should “live in an ecologically responsible way, sensing our kinship with the rest of the created order” (111). The biblical story of Job offers a perfect example here. Job portrays harmony within creation when he groups all animals and humans together as existing under God’s dominion, with “the life breath of all mortal flesh.” If God created humans in unity with animals and all other living beings, people should view climate change as a significant issue requiring attention. We are all here because of the harmony God fashioned on the earth, and as only a singular component of such harmony, humans should not use their power to drive climate change and destroy the entire ecological system. As part of this harmony, each Christian, living with and for one another, needs to uphold the responsibility to acknowledge and aid poor and marginalized communities.
Many people often cannot even recognize harmony within their own species, unfortunately. Perhaps the most significant reason for humanity to care for the environment is that climate change affects the poorest groups of people the most. Changes in ecology stemming from global warming directly impact human beings. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s Encyclical on Care for our Common Home, Pope Francis describes multiple ways in which climate change brings devastation to the poor specifically. He points to pollution in the atmosphere (Laudato Si’ 1, I, 20) as well as water (1, II, 29), which exposes people to hazardous chemicals and makes them susceptible to disease and death. People living in poverty cannot easily uproot and transfer their lives and families to safer locations. Along with quality of life, many trades in which impoverished people work undergo depletion of resources and decreased reliability. Pope Francis states that “[m]any of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services” (1, I, 25). In the fishing industry, for instance, species migrate in order to compensate for changes brought on by global warming (Tarmario). Coupled with the overall depletion of fish, species migration hinders the reliability of the fishing trade, which produces critical problems for how fishermen will continue to survive and support their families. Not only are people living in poverty most affected by global warming, but they also have the fewest resources to rectify their situations.
Because caring for the poor is a Christian obligation, Christians must also look after the environment. As Pope Francis says in his encyclical, “[t]hose who are committed to defending human dignity can find in the Christian faith the deepest reasons for this commitment” (2, II, 65). The Bible has much advice about human dignity and supporting marginalized individuals. The Book of John explains caring for the poor by questioning as to whether “someone who has worldly means, sees a brother in need, and refuses him compassion . . . can [have] the love of God remain in him?” He answers this question stating, “Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:17-18). Destroying the environment through pollution and indifference, an act in which all wealthy nations take part, harms poorer nations and individuals. The responsibility of wealthy nations to nurture the health and safety of poorer nations inevitably means that preventative measures must be taken to ensure the current and future stability of poor nations.
This ethic is reinforced by Jesus himself. Jesus directly advocated for the poor, telling a rich man that in order “to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21). Alongside giving to people living in poverty, addressing climate change makes an individual more perfect in God’s eyes. Ending climate change prevents poor nations and peoples from falling susceptible to its devastating consequences and, therefore, provides a means through which Christians can become better able to give to the poor and to follow God.
As Pope Francis announced, “[w]e can be silent witnesses to terrible injustices if we think that we can obtain significant benefits by making the rest of humanity, present and future, pay the extremely high costs of environmental deterioration” (Laudato Si’ 1, III, 36). The Christian Bible proves that God will decide when each individual eventually passes away, but the universally impending end of our current lives and our personal afterlives do not detract from the human obligation to care for the earth now. These factors act instead as motivation to sustain goodness and God-ness in the present world. God created all life on this present earth to exist in union, and the human ability to destroy through free will should not overtake God’s power to create. In addition, global warming has significant ramifications on impoverished communities. According to the Bible, wealthy nations and individuals must reduce their luxuries in order to make those worse off more comfortable. The Christian call to give to the poor should compel wealthy nations and individuals to help alleviate the suffering of impoverished communities, especially when this suffering is a direct result of selfish surplus misuse by the wealthy. Christians have an obligation to care for the environment not only because of dictations based on afterlife, but because of a moral obligation to maintain God’s created harmony and care for all of humanity through care for the poorest among us.
Recommended Reading
Wiseman, James A. Theology and Modern Science: Quest for Coherence. New York:
Continuum. April, 2002.
Laudato Si’ (24 May 2015) | Francis.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_201505
24_enciclica-laudato-si.html. Accessed 6 Dec. 2019.
About the Author
Catie Malone is a rising junior from Wisconsin in the SFS. She is majoring in Science, Technology, and International Affairs with a concentration in Energy and the Environment and a minor in French.