Abstract
The authors of Systematic Theology and Climate Change present us with the arresting claim that climate change is not merely one issue among many that face humanity at present. It is THE most pressing issue – threatening a large portion of the human race and up to a third of animal species. And it is a threat caused not by forces external to humanity, but solely by us.
The goal of this book is to think theologically about climate change by relating it to each of the traditional systematic theological loci, chapter by chapter. So we get a chapter each on the Trinity, Christology, Holy Spirit, Creation, Humanity, Sin and Salvation, the Church, and Eschatology. The authors also add a new locus, Creatures, which they find the problem at hand demands.
There are at least a few different purposes for relating these loci to the threat of climate change. One is to seek resources in the symbols and discourse of the Christian tradition that can be leveraged in opposition to climate change. A second is to clarify the opposition of Christian belief to the forms of idolatry that fuel climate change. A third seems to be a belief that the magnitude of the ecological crisis demands a corresponding rethinking of basic theological convictions. We live now in the Anthropocene era – one in which humanity has unparalleled power to destroy the earth. And so, at least some of the authors want to argue, we must seek for the Christ of the Anthropocene, revealed by the Holy Spirit in this new context.
The contributors to this collection span a wide range of theological traditions, including Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Orthodox. This means that the ‘systematic’ in the book’s title points more toward its format than toward its internal consistency as a theological whole. For example, Niels Gregersen argues in the ‘Christology’ chapter that we must oppose too strong an assertion of an ontological Creator/creature distinction – the Son and Spirit instead ‘belong to the nexus of creation’. In contrast, Celia Deanne-Drummond in the ‘Creation’ chapter argues almost the exact opposite: that, rather than resort to an immanent metaphysic, we need a Trinitarian account of God who is free from the world in order to be free for the world. It is creation ex nihilo and a recovery of the full meaning of the world as ‘creation’ rather than mere ‘nature’ that will properly call into question the human-centred projects that have led to effects like climate change.
The intertwining of systematics and climate change in this volume will challenge readers to think theology and ethics together as one complex entity. The authors are united in their determination to present us with theology that has an urgently practical bent, and that correspondingly attempts to transform our ways of imagining the world and living in it, so that we may better do our parts to care for the creation that has been entrusted to us. For this, we can be very thankful.