3 - 2002
Love Must Not Become Paralysed
For a spirituality of the earth in the face on apocalyptic anxiety
by Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz
Christian spirituality suffers with the creation when harm is done to it, and becomes a creation spirituality, assuming responsibility and organising resistance.
In March of this year, masses of ice as big as the German province of the Saarland broke away from the Antarctic ice pack. Again in May, huge icebergs were calved. The reason: temperatures two degrees Celsius above average. The glaciers in the Alps are melting away at record rates. Floods are reaching the "highest levels in living memory", violent hurricanes following totally unpredictable courses, droughts occurring "such as we've never seen here", and so on. We are always reading of another lamentable "record" being set.
It is climate change, the experts say. To them the close connection between the Antarctic icebergs, the Alpine glaciers and drought in Ethiopia is obvious. Even so, we dismiss this as alarmism, preferring the sweet talk of those experts who say the only sure thing about the weather is that it will change, that there have always been climatic variations. As laypersons, this is what we would rather believe, since we can guess that climate change means something too awful to be true is on its way.
The media have never chattered so much about daily weather reports as they do today. What is lacking is a wide-ranging discussion about the long-term global climate changes, their economic consequences and the political decisions which are implied.
People are quick to say that world climate issues are much too complicated for ordinary mortals, or, let the Green Party worry about it. Even so, while the details may be complex, a few data will make immediately clear to any of us how explosive global warming is. The International Council on Climate Change told us in 1999 that rising average temperatures, anywhere from 1.8 to 5.8 degrees Celsius, will cause the ocean levels to rise. In rainy areas precipitation will increase, whilst dry areas will become drier. Storms meanwhile will become more violent, their courses less predictable.
These three factors reinforce one another, making entire regions of the earth uninhabitable, precisely those most endangered ones. This is true of areas vulnerable to spreading deserts, but especially for low-lying islands such as the Maldives, coastal areas such as the German and Dutch North Sea coast, and most of all for the densely populated deltas of great rivers such as the Ganges and the Nile. This body of experts has thus forecast that by mid-century there will be some 150 million "climate refugees".
2050 - many of us can say, "Well, I won't be here!" But our children and grandchildren will be, and just on their account, shouldn't it be our business? How can the world look after 150 million climate refugees - in addition to the streams of refugees that already exist? Are there government offices or international bodies which are already thinking about where the millions of Bangladeshis should go when their delta is permanently under water? Or, to come back to our region, where are the Dutch and North Germans to go if our dikes can no longer keep out the rising seas?
Global warming in our time is the consequence of "human activity", as the climate experts' report said so innocuously in 1999. "Human activity" refers to emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas or coal. These are essentially "activities" of highly industrialised and mobile societies. In plain language, our lifestyle, modelled on the "American way of life", is at fault. So this means that not everybody is to blame in the same degree for the global warming catastrophe, but mainly the people in the USA, Europe and the other urban zones of the earth.
The example of climate change shows that a Christian spirituality appropriate to our time has to take seriously what unimaginable power human beings have in their hands. It is false humility, a reckless underestimation of our power, to sing today Paul Gerhardt's words: "Leave to his sovereign sway To choose and to command; So shalt thou, wondering, own his way ..."
In a time when the democratic formulation of objectives is endangered, just when it needs to be expanded and put into practice in view of conditions worldwide, to speak of God's "sovereign sway" is actually harmful. Such a pious statement makes a virtue of its apolitical naiveté, and plays right into the hands of those who have no respect whatever for the "Almighty".
Does this mean not to trust in God any more? Absolutely not! But the relationship between our trust in God as the Creator and Sustainer of all life and the immeasurable power over life and death now in human hands needs to be redefined. We need a spirituality that envisions and makes clear to all a critique of human power - which holds fast to God's transcendental power and makes it an appropriate measure for human power.
But then we must be able to say what sort of power is God's power. And it is no longer enough to talk about the "Lord God Almighty" who has all things in his grip like an absolute monarch, and dictates fate according to his counsel "far, far above thy thought". It says much more that the New Testament is always insisting that God is love, which also unmistakably refers back to the Old Testament and its praise of God's mercy and kindness, patience and forgiveness.
But what does "love" mean in a time of apocalyptic anxiety due to the impending global warming catastrophe, and in which the bitterest conflicts of interest, hate and mistrust are only increasing?
Christian spirituality must not forget that, despite evil, violence and terror, this earth is still God's creation. It would be a flagrant lack of respect for this creation if we ignored its marvellous laws, its beauty and grace. To give up on the world and condemn to those who come after us to desperate conditions, as if we did not care, would be to separate faith from love, from compassion. It would be to separate the practice of faith from interest in and empathy with the creation's well-being, from suffering with it in its pain. Such a spirituality has lost its heart, and the love in it has become paralysed.
What we need is a faith clear and courageous enough to take the measure of climate change worldwide, not to capitulate intellectually in the face of its political and social consequences and not to freeze emotionally in the face of its demands for creative imagination. What we need is a spirituality that knows it is been sustained, "by gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered", as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, that even in times of greatest anxiety it stands on firm ground, can withstand sorrow and despair and remain curious and active. How is this possible?
Many people today think of God as something "above it all", who makes no difference in daily life. To the contrary, say others, I among them - God is the ground under our feet, the foundation that holds us up and keeps us on course. The power of such a God is not unreal and other-worldly, but down-to-earth and perceptible. Such a God is someone of "ultimate concern" to us, as the theologian Paul Tillich expressed it. Ultimate, because God provides a dependable base for our vacillating lives.
When I acknowledge God as the ground, foundation and base of my life, then that puts everything in a new light. God meets me in the earth that carries my feet. In the air that gives life to everything is God's vivid power. In water, needed by all living things, I recognise God as my spring and source.
I could go on - I could sing, with St. Francis, his Canticle to the Sun. Where does this lead me, this recognition of God's nearness and all-penetrating power? I become aware of a power that can contain even the immeasurable might which has been seized by human beings, and I let this power carry me and inspire me.
For God's power is rooted in love, hackneyed as this word may seem to us. It is love which is reflected in the beauty and order of the creation, which carries us through even the great breakdowns which have occurred in the history of our planet.
A mystic of our time, the American theologian Matthew Fox, calls this "creation spirituality". It is anything but a naãve romanticising of nature. Instead, it is a down-to-earth and robust faith that refuses to leave the earth in the hands of power-obsessed politicians and managers. It is a faith growing out of amazement at the great love of the Creator, which moves us to thankfulness and to a deep sense of responsibility for the weal and woe of our endangered earth.
In such a creation spirituality, does Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of Christian spirituality, play any role? Absolutely! Only in him do we really see how sacrificial and selfless God's love is. In Jesus we begin to get an idea of God's commitment to us in entering into world history. What Jesus did, and the way he died, reveals God's nearness in and for our world.
There is another way in which such a creation spirituality serves as a framework for criticism of modern human power in its enormity. It can make sure that economics and technology, commerce and politics respect the limitations represented by the ecological circulatory systems of the earth. The coming global warming catastrophe reveals that it is these limitations which have been transgressed.
It does not look as though we can save the earth in the sense that the best possible conditions for a life in human dignity could be created and preserved for as many people as possible. Anyone who still thinks there are tolerable solutions to the problem of climate change is most likely destined to despair. What can be attempted are measures to lessen the most severe effects of global warming. The Kyoto Protocol is a first step in this direction, a tiny one in view of the shortness of time. But at least it points the way for further steps.
Will we human beings succeed in preserving this earth as the home of life for everyone, and in living on it with humility and respect? There is no way to be sure. But a defiant and hardy spirituality of the earth will certainly try, in faithfulness to our world. It will endure not because of the prospects of success, but because of the Love which is greater than all reason and fortunately also greater than fear. Love does not need to have a reason. Its sense is in itself.
Dr. G. Müller-Fahrenholz is a Protestant theologian. He has worked in many parts of the world for the ecumenical movement, and now lives as a freelance author in Bremen. A much longer version of this essay has been broadcasted in June 2002 by Radio Bremen.