Helios – How to be – in Church and in the Public Sphere
A response to something new under the sun by Green Christian member, Margaret Roberts
This talk was given at Liverpool Cathedral under a 7 metre sculpture of the sun. The Net Zero Carbon 2030 programme team of Faiths4Change invited representatives from churches and other groups on Merseyside who are engaged in grappling with climate change to network with others and I was invited as a speaker from Green Christian. Greetings to all the wonderful people I met there.
Isn’t it great to be here. To network with others who share the same concerns. Those in this room I know are like me, we never stop thinking about the poly crises that we are witnessing everyday, from the excessively warm and dry spring, beautiful as it is, to the plummeting stock market and the economic instability that it fast forwards.
Part of the urgency we feel is that how closely we are interconnected is just not recognised. So tonight, take the opportunity to make a connection with at least one new person.
We are grateful to Liverpool Cathedral for hosting this, for the Net Zero Carbon 2030 programme team of Faiths4Change and the Diocese of Liverpool for organising the event, to Luke Jerram for this inspiring installation and to each of you for coming along.
All the churches represented here tonight have either committed to the Net Zero Carbon 2030 programme or are engaged to commit. If you are on the cusp or need more info or want ideas on how to reach more churches, speak to someone on the Faiths4Change stall
For me, being here this evening, is like coming home. My mother and grandparents came from Everton, I grew up in the north end of Birkenhead. My home church was Laird Street Baptist.
I’m here with you today as a representative of Green Christian, but I’m also a member of Christian Climate Action. I currently live in the High Peak and I’m a licensed lay minister for the 5th Mark of Mission at Glossop Parish church, which is an A Rocha Gold Eco Church. I bring greetings from them.
Our purpose in coming together this evening is to celebrate and encourage. Celebrate that there are so many people and organisations on board and encourage us to get the urgency of the message out there as widely as possible.
For you here this evening, you all know the future we are facing. No one needs to convince you. Ecclesiastes says ‘There is nothing new under the sun”. But there is! We have stepped beyond the earth’s boundaries to a new and uncharted future.
The World Economic Forum in Davos fleshed this out in January this year by explaining how we have breached 6 out of 9 planetary boundaries. I would urge you to find out for yourself, but just let me explain one of them. If you were to see a graph of the earth’s temperatures throughout time from the very beginning It would look like this with large fluctuations in temperature over time1
In the distant past the earth experienced many ice ages and interglacial periods. Then there was the rise of Homo sapiens about 250,000 years ago. As a species we have lived through two ice ages and warmer periods in small tribes as hunter gatherers. For about 240,000 years. Then you reach a point about 10,000 years ago known as the holocene when the weather stabilised in this sweet spot referred to as the corridor of life. This remarkable stability allowed for agriculture and subsequently civilisations.
But we are now aware of the rise of temperature due to human influence that that started to take effect from around 1950. What is alarming is that in 2024, we have just exited this corridor of life.
There are possible trajectories from this point onward – the most alarming showing that it is reasonable to assume that we could even be heading beyond the wider corridor, the fluctuation temperatures before the Holocene when a few small tribes of subsistence hunter gatherers were able to exist.
At this moment in time, there still remains the window of opportunity that we can decarbonise fast enough so that the earth could renew and return to the corridor of life over the next century or so. But even if we achieve that, it will get worse before then: fires, floods, droughts, loss of species integral to the balance of life, social and structural breakdown.
Remember back in 2020 -who can forget 2020, the year of lockdown, – when we knew we had a decade to change things around. We were full of hope because we believed we could ‘build back better’ after Covid; that people would recognise that what matters most was relationships and that a slower pace and less consumption was good for us.
But that didn’t happen and what we have half way through the decade is an acceleration in science’s dire predictions. Both in the natural world and in our social constructs.
What we DO know and celebrate this evening is that people like us are going to fight as hard as we can, for every fraction of a degree, for every species from microbes to mammals.
So what can we do? What is our role? I’m speaking as a Christian and as I say to my Celtic Gathering people who are from all faiths and none -I come from the Christ tradition, (the Anglican branch), this is the way I express it, take what you can, translate where necessary to your own understanding and leave what you don’t need.
So there are two places we need to be: the Christian Sphere and the Public Sphere. We are to be climate activists within church and we are to be Christians, or peaceful people of faith, in the public place.
1. How to be a climate activist within church?
We need to expect to be a pain in the neck, or to express that more theologically, a prophetic voice. We need to be proactive. We are to make converts to the understanding that this is the issue of the age. Everything we do relates to creation care.
We are the folk who will do all we can to limit the excesses of warming, to join in ourselves and to support those who put their lives on the line, in this country and worldwide, but also to prepare people for a radical shift in our expectations of how things are ‘supposed’ to be.
There may well be a need to challenge the underlying theology of your church. Most churches are not ecological. The Sunday sermon is not about the flourishing of God’s whole creation. The good news, the gospel, is usually only addressed to human needs and failings.
A movement of privileged individualism, which began in the Reformation, was glorified in the Enlightenment and has been throughly exploited in our consumer culture, has had its day.
We need now to return to the oldest and deepest theological understandings: a communitarian rather than an individualistic view of humanity The environmental crisis is a theological and ethical one. If we see ourselves as superior to other life forms, it permits and encourages unjust and destructive actions
We should be viewing ourselves not as the apex of creation, the most beloved, seeing the rest of creation as resources at our disposal, but as interrelated, interdependent creatures who need one another to survive and flourish. We are the neediest of all creatures, very dependent on the earth and its life forms, more so than they are dependant on us.
In the Genesis account of creation – the story says that we were made of the dust of the earth. They called it dust, because they didn’t know anything smaller. We call it atoms and quarks and biochemicals. Scientifically we are learning more and more about how interconnected all things are. It was always there in the Bible. The Adam, the earthling, taken from the adamah, the earth, was recognised to be made of the same matter as everything else.
In the Genesis narrative we are shown how God’s self, love and creative power, was poured into creation proclaiming at each stage that it was good and in the 6th period, when all animals, including ourselves, came into being, that it was particularly good. God loves the earth and expects us to as well. God’s household is the whole planet. We are not our own; we belong to the earth
If we are interdependent and interrelated with all of life, and the earth itself, then the good news must include it all. Salvation means the flourishing of all creation. Irenaeus said “the glory of God is every creature fully alive.”
Care for the earth is our primary vocation as God’s partners in helping creation to flourish. We were told to work the land. The word work in the original Hebrew – ‘Abad’, is nearly always translated elsewhere in the Bible as ‘serve’ and sometimes as ‘worship’. The word ‘shamar’,‘take care of’, is used elsewhere to speak of the priesthood’s responsibility for the tabernacle (Numbers 31:30) It carries the senses of ‘keep charge of’, ‘guard’, and ‘protect’. So our God-given job was to act as protectors, serving the land.
Also, in the Genesis narrative of beginnings, we are shown that humanity’s ‘sin’ is that we take and consume where we are not meant to.
And in the flood story, God makes a covenant with Noah, and ‘every living creature of all flesh’. This is repeated at least three times and the theme is throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The covenant that God makes is not just with humans but with the land and all life upon it.
This is hammered home in the New Testament, where the incarnational nature of God is shown in all its fullness in Jesus. The distinctive characteristic of Christianity is its insistence that God is with us….in the flesh…here and now…on this earth.
Jesus is the pattern of God in flesh. How did he live? He called out injustice at all levels, he prioritised the marginalised, he preached that God’s feast is for all not a select few. He demonstrated non-violent resistance and underlined through parable and example that salvation, healing, is matter of societal and planetary flourishing for all
We don’t have a distant uninvolved God that is only interested in the spiritual, not the secular: not just our inner lives, but in what car we drive, food we eat, clothes we wear, how we dispose of the things we have, how we vote and hold our politicians and leaders to account.
The image of the invisible God becomes incarnate, enfleshed in visceral bones and sinews, atoms and molecules as an act of ultimate solidarity with all living matter. An incarnational religion demands that we pay attention to the body, and to the basic bodily needs of others.
It is Greek philosophy to separate body and soul. As a Jew, Jesus would never see it that way.
What we do with our flesh matters, as it is all that we have been given to worship God, just as it was for Jesus. We have a deep connectionwith the planet and all creation and everything we do can be an act of worship, from buying seasonal food to taking the bus.
So what does it look like? What should we do? We need to be bringing people with us on this journey, while at the same time not watering down the message. None of us can afford to be paralysed by the enormity of the changes that are upon us and action is an antidote to fear.
We can make sure that we are properly informed. There are lots of resources to help our congregations become ecologically literate. Ecochurch a useful starting tool, and there is so much on the Green Christian, Christian Climate Action, and Faiths4Change websites. PLEASE look them up when you get home. Join a group somewhere and be directed to the latest environmental news. Guardian articles are usually very good
We can do our best to ensure that climate is mentioned in every service, be it in the liturgy, the prayers, the songs, the notices, the notice boards, or on the website and the social media page.
We can use our outside space to highlight the facts and our responsibility. My church uses our railing regularly to inform on something seasonal such as Earth Overshoot Day (when we also tolled the bell in lament) or facts about carbon footprint, or Pope Francis’ prayer for the environment. We have a wildflower garden which the community really enjoy.
We can get onto PCCs and synods. We can push for Environment to be a standing item on the agenda in these meetings
We can keep mentioning that Climate Care is missional and tie it to other missional activities.
The aim is to normalise climate talk and help people join the dots. Look for what your church does and link it to climate. Eg link food banks to global food insecurity and LOAF principles. Link missionary support to climate awareness for that region. Link historical information to plans for the future
We must demonstrate that living a life of limitation, of ‘enoughness’ is joyful. Green Christian has a programme that you can dip into called Joy in Enough
The Green Christian article referenced below has more ideas.2
Here’s one for tonight When the occasion arises, whatever you get involved in locally or nationally, represent your church and the wider deanery or circuit. Act on their behalf and then tell them what you’ve done. Tell them you will be there as their representative. Assume they want you to do so until you are told otherwise. So on Sunday I told my congregation that I was coming here. When I go back I will write something up and put it in the church news sheet and deanery environment bulletin. The drip drip drip approach works
Don’t let anybody say you are harping on too much.
YOU ARE NOT!
People who can put this on the back burner are not living in the real world.
‘The three prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial and express hope in a society that lives in despair.’ Walter Brueggemann
2. How to be a Christian in the public sphere
Here we are not a pain but a solace, offering what we do well, sacred space. Be a voice of peace, love and unity, steady and strong, knowing that we are speaking not for ourselves but for everything in God’s creation.
At such a time a this, when the firm ground that we have come to rely on crumbles to sifting sand, there is an uptake in spiritual searching. What can we offer as Christians and people of faith to the world at this time?
We show up. We bring our five loaves and two fish and offer them to be multiplied. We immerse ourselves in a Jesus mindset of non violence and compassion.
There are opportunities in every encounter to talk about climate and offer an appropriate response. The climate, the poly crises is always lurking underneath the surface of people’s thoughts and often they don’t know what to do with it. Every time you meet with family, or friends, or the postman or your hairdresser, or the person you pass the time of day with in the street, use the opportunities they give. Conversations like ‘lovely weather’ ‘ Yes isn’t it glorious but don’t you think it’s too warm at this time of year?’ Some may want to take it further, others will not, but you will known as a person who carries these things and can be turned to when it gets tougher.
We want systemic change that will help all of us to live as we ought and want to live, particularly us who have got used to the comforts of a high energy consumer culture, so there needs to be more than only looking for individual’s change.
We join in public witness whenever we can, particularly if it’s local. Be aware of what’s happening locally and be a Christian there. If you want other ideas, visit the CCA stand/website to find out more about the current peaceful and friendly actions prompting cathedrals and dioceses and bodies like the National Trust to switch banks to one that does not finance fossil fuels.
There are two ways of being a presence in public places – I’ll leave it to you to discover your own path, but in my experience our template of offering peace and compassion is highly effective. I’ve been in a demonstration where there has been a lot of very loud shouting and chanting and I’ve joined in, because that’s what you do in a crowd, but later reflected that I’m uncomfortable with that. Shouting just makes people put their fingers in their ears more, literally and metaphorically. Whereas I’ve been sitting in silent prayer on a pavement with others and was amazed at its impact. I was at the end of a row at COP 26 and people stopped by me to say thank you for what you are doing. I wondered what it was we were doing: bearing witness to a higher morality, showing steadfastness, offering hope, a better way. Both the participants and the watchers take from it what they need.
We can take our faith based rituals onto the streets and enact them there.
Demonstrating repentance for structural sin by having an Ash Weds service outside the offices of oil companies or those that finance them.
Demonstrating unity and incarnation – ‘God with us’ in a street Eucharist
Organising a die in: a powerful tableau illustrating the effects of climate change
Or sitting in a silent Quaker meeting outside Scotland Yard as a reaction to the Police breaking down the door of the Friends Meeting House with intimidation tactics designed to stop peaceful protest.
Join with others in whatever they are doing to sustain the integrity of the earth. If it’s a non church based group, all the better
Be good listeners to those who agree with you and to those who don’t. Ask folk what they think and listen well. People are so much more open when they feel that they have been genuinely heard. Share stories, yours and theirs.
We have a job to do: to stand rooted in love, to draw from deep wells, to offer companionship for the journey ahead. We help solve our community’s problems when each of us faces our own sorrow, authentically and creatively.
We are not the only ones doing this, but the wisdom of our tradition, based on love and incarnation is supremely up to the task. Let us not engage with anything that deflects us from that.
Every Eucharist is a remembrance that we are one body, not just with those within the church, but with the whole earth
Resist every pull – and there will be many- to divide into ‘us and them’. It’s never about proving a point or changing others by force. Remember the fable about the sun and the wind. It wasn’t the wind that could wrestle the coat off the man but the gentle persistence of the shining sun.
Celebrate and praise everything that we still have. Recognise and acknowledge beauty and joy wherever you see it. Make sure you have at least one ‘wow’ moment everyday. That’s an act of worship.
Finally
Standing under this sun, we are reminded of the importance of light, a formative metaphor in the Christian faith, and warmth
We are called to reflect the light and warmth of the love of God. And everyday in the sky there is visual reminder of that.
Let us be light within in our with groups – and warmth for those outside.
I’dike to finish with part of a prayer by Pope Francis. He was a huge advocate for speaking the truth about the changing world of climate chaos and standing up for the marginalised. He is sadly missed, but he has left a large and useful legacy for us to draw upon.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognise that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.
So. Go in peace to love and serve the lord of all creation
In the name of Christ
Amen
This talk was first published in Margaret Roberts’ blog
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