Spiritual Adaptation
Green Christian chaplain, Andrew Norman, presented these thoughts on spiritual adaptation at the 2026 Way of Life Annual Gathering
I love that verse which Bertolt Brecht wrote as an introduction to a collection of his poems:
When the times darken, will there be singing even then?
Christians should be able to sing even in the dark times, and that includes the times to come when we will begin to experience more fully the consequences of climate change. A lot of people are surely going to feel frightened and confused and not know which way to turn. We already have the words to sing in such times contained in the psalms, where there are songs of lament and of despair, but also of trust, hope and renewal. I’d stick my neck out and claim that ultimately it will be only the spiritual traditions of our world that will enable us effectively to adapt to the coming realities.
It’s a basic principle of the natural sciences that when change occurs, adaptation naturally follows. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when I heard a science writer called Gaia Vince being interviewed in a radio programme on the BBC World Service. She talked about her latest book, ‘Nomad Century’ in which she explores how because the world is heating up, and we’ve already had more than a year now 1.5C above the pre-industrial average, we’re seeing the migration of insects, of fish, of birds, and even the tree line. “We don’t think of trees being mobile”, she said, “but the tree line is moving north.” Change is occurring, and adaptation is naturally following.
But when the changes are severe only organisms that can adapt sufficiently will survive. Gaia Vince explained how in her work she has become particularly interested in the interaction between human systems and earth’s planetary systems, how we as a species relate to what is going on in the world of which we are part. She described in the interview that she has been exploring “how humans have got to such a position of dominance over the rest of the biosphere largely through our exceptional ability to harness energy, and that’s meant that we are actually having this huge effect on earth’s systems, things like erosion patterns, how and where a river flows, on the temperature of the atmosphere, on storms … we create these artificial landscapes which we call cities, farmlands, … we have made this dramatic change, but that itself even though it’s brought us longer lives, better standards of living, is actually now a serious threat to us, to our future”. She said that “we’re making the world increasingly unliveable, and we’ve got a population now of more than 8 billion people.”
The tree line is moving north and humans too are already having to move, and this is what her book is about. She points out how our “niche of habitability, of human activity, where we have lived and where we have farmed, has already shifted north and has shrunk, and that is only going to continue over the coming decades as we have to retreat from coastlines, retreat from essentially the tropics where civilization started.” And I suggest maybe it’s important that we begin by recognizing how adaptation is what all living things do. It’s how we respond and relate to our environments.
The point Gaia Vince makes in her book is that humans have the capacity to anticipate change and prepare to adapt. “The migratory movement north is”, she says, “already having implications politically, but as it continues, we are going to have to respond – and my suggestion is that we don’t try and ignore it or pretend that we can push back migrants indefinitely but rather that we manage it to all our benefits.”
Adaptation, as we all know, is coming to the forefront of our attention. The UK government already has an official National Adaptation Programme which they have pledged to review every five years. This sets out how we should aim to protect against existing and predicted climate impacts. Unsurprisingly it’s widely judged to be seriously inadequate.
We‘re going to think later on today about practical adaptation. But I’m introducing the concept of spiritual adaptation, which is fundamentally about finding meaning in chaos. For our evolving culture does have the potential to find meaning in dark times, and my ears pricked up as I heard what Gaia Vince went on to say in her interview. She said that humans “have this other thing that other life forms don’t have to the same extent, which is our human culture, our cultural evolution, which means that we can change our behaviour en masse, we can act more like a superorganism in our relationship to the biosphere and to the rest of the planet and that ultimately will be” (I would say, has the potential to be) “our salvation, even as until now it has put us in this perilous situation”.
This reminded me of what Rupert Read said in his keynote speech at our conference last November: “The great question of our time, for everyone, is, what will you do to make meaning out of our tragic contemporary predicament?” “ … for artists, it’s about the meaning of their work. It’s about what their work is about, what it helpfully says about this matter, how it points a pathway through what is coming. That’s the unique contribution and power of artists. It’s about the meaning they crystallise far more than it’s about their carbon footprint, in making their works. And for religions, for Christianity?” Again, it’s about the great existential questions of our times in the face of the climate crisis, “how … to make meaning … of it”. Rupert Read challenged us as Christians, “that question is doubly so for you … making meaning out of difficulty is your job.”
We still need to actively advocate for the mitigation of climate change and its consequences, but Rupert Read reminded us that “the crisis is at root a spiritual crisis”. For Christians to find meaning when the times darken we must start working to find a renewed and engaged language of theology and of spiritual practice. As Rupert Read said, “Any spirituality or religion now must be engaged with the lived world, with practice, with humanity, with what is now”. “Any spirituality that, by contrast, seeks to be a retreat from engagement with life”, he said, “is really an evasion: an evasion of our incarnation. With the rise of artificial intelligence, it’s more important than ever that we recognise and celebrate our incarnate, utterly embodied nature.”
So, Rupert went on, “we need to re-focus robustly on an eco-spiritual vision that is capable of helping us and healing us to have a future”. In each local community our churches will have the opportunity – and the calling – to be hubs of community resilience, working with other bodies to support the forms of practical adaptation that are most needed in those localities. But first we need the vision, the ways to find meaning in the prior and underlying work of spiritual adaptation. It’s like it says in the Book of Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” 29:18 This, said Rupert Read “is how … what I’m talking about can come most powerfully and appreciably together”, it will be both in “what you preach and what you practise. It’s how you can become the heart of the community again in these new times. When you’re a lifehouse, and you’re talking intelligibly about the real need for us to come together as a community in a spirit of love and neighbourliness and precaution and preparedness…” We should notice that when a crisis occurs somewhere and people are asking “how could this have happened?”, feeling it suddenly makes life feel really insecure, it’s appreciated that local churches open their doors and people can go there. I saw that recently where I live and there were those deaths of people going swimming at Christmas. It was reported that the local Methodist Church was welcoming people in to light candles. The Minister was heard speaking on national news. And sometimes there’ll be practical things that local churches can do, but we shouldn’t underestimate how it’s spiritual vision that will be needed and looked for to underpin any adapting to crisis.
So where do we begin? Where we might begin is by reviewing the four disciplines we commit ourselves to as Companions in the Way of Life Community, and we’ll be thinking about that later on today. Number one is prayer. On our website it says: “Prayer is how we respond to that divine breath which is in all of creation. At the heart of all our caring for creation it is prayer that inspires and then sustains it”. As ‘green’ Christians I suspect that many of us would want to say that while we may pray for nature it’s often more like our prayer is an encounter with the sheer power of life in nature. And I suspect that the spiritual help and reassurance people might need in adapting to the climate crisis could well be in opening up a deeper appreciative, valuing of nature. So a good question for today might be whether we encourage each other as Companions in that contemplative way of praying.
And prayer surely connects with all the ways in which we look for God – in words and in silence; drawing on the Bible and trusting the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in our imaginations. ‘Theology’ sounds like such a high-flying academic activity, but really it’s about how each one of us can receive understandings that deeply sustain us. I love that passage in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians when he encourages them to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure”. Maybe we could come to see our fourth discipline, that of encouragement, as including theological exploration? There is such a rich vein of eco theology and spirituality to mine.
But Rupert Read’s words to us in Peterborough were so powerful, his talk was so stirring. Let me end with some more: “The great work of Christianity now is surely to draw richly on its special resources, on its stories and traditions, on the respect that continues to exist for it, on its whole voice, to channel the cry of the beloved planet, of wonderful life, of the future generations who are asking not to be born into somewhere wrecked.”
Andrew Norman is Green Christian chaplain
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