Creation Centred Theologies

Isaiah 65:17-26;John 1,3 Luke 13:18 Mark

A sermon by K. Toivanen at EMUC, 1/18/2009

Ways of Seeing & Being, Part Two:

Creation Centred Theologies

Isaiah 65:17-26 Selected Gospel readings from John 1 & 3, Luke 13:18, Mark 16:15

I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that wherever you go, the least plant may bring you the clear remembrance of the Creator…One blade of grass or one speck of dust is enough to occupy your entire mind in beholding the art with which it has been made.
(Basil the Great, 329-79 in ‘The Germination of the Earth’)

The initial step for a soul to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature.
(Irenaeus 120-202)

Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, God set before your eyes the things that God had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?
(Augustine 354-430, in De Civitate Dei)

The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God.
(John of Damascus 675-749 in Treatise)

Christ wears ‘two shoes’ in the world: Scripture and nature. Both are necessary to understand the Lord, and at no stage can creation be seen as a separation of things from God.
(John Scotus Eriugena (810-77)

If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.
(Hildegard of Bingen 1098-1179)

Any error about creation also leads to an error about God.
(Thomas Aquinas 1225-74 in Summa Contra Gentiles)

If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature - even a caterpillar - I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.
(Meister Eckhart 1260 - 1327 in Sermons)

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
(Martin Luther 1483-1546)

The creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells us of God.
(John Calvin 1509-64 in Institutes)

Open your eyes, and behold, the whole world is full of God.
(Jacob Boehme 1575-1624 in The Way to Christ)

Where did all of these quotes about God and creation come from? A bunch of tree-huggers? A romantic New Age religious group?

Would it surprise you to learn that all of these statements come from Christian theologians and writers and scholars who lived prior to the 17^th century?

Basil the Great, Irenaeus, Augustine, John of Damascus, John Scotus Eriugena, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jacob Boehme to name just a few.

So how is it that with such a rich heritage of Christian writers and thinkers who made such strong statements about understanding and experiencing God in and through creation, that we now find ourselves living in a world that is toxic with our waste; wounded and despoiled by our greed; dying because of our lack of care and respect? How did we get to the place where in 1967 (way before any talk of climate change and global warming) an historian named Lynn White wrote for ‘Science’ magazine in which he charged that the roots of the ecological crisis are essentially religious? He said, ‘The problems derive from Christian tradition in particular which has taught people to view themselves as superior to nature, contemptuous of it, willing to use it for our slightest whim.’ (quoted from 1-88 in The Green Bible)

Bruce Sanguin, a United Church minister and author of a book on ecological Christianity (Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos) says that,

Modern Christianity has largely ignored creation. Its role in the Christian faith has been primarily to serve as an inanimate backdrop to the drama of the salvation of our private souls. The real action has been between a God who sits on a throne outside the Universe and human souls. We have tended to skip right over creation in order to get to God. Likewise, God has been portrayed as skipping over creation to get to us.

In a National Council of Churches, USA, Statement ‘The Earth is Sacred’, Christian scholars and theologians state that that the damage we have done and still do to the earth is a consequence of bad theology. In fact, they call it a "false gospel." They write: "We have listened to a false gospel that we continue to live out in our daily habits – a gospel that proclaims that God cares for the salvation of humans only and that our human calling is to exploit Earth for our own ends alone."

So what are these theologies, what are these ways of thinking about God, humanity and creation that have led us into this disregard for creation?

Sallie McFague, who is currently ‘theologian in residence’ at the Vancouver School of Theology, has written a number of books reflecting on God and Creation. In her most recent book, A New Climate for Theology, God, the World, and Global Warming, she outlines some of the dominant Christian theologies that have influenced our ways of seeing and being in creation.

Now some of you may be nervous about the word theology - isn’t that an area of study for scholars or for folks who choose a vocation or career in religious studies or church leadership? Sallie McFague points out that ‘every Christian is a theologian and each of us has a theology.’ Each of us ‘has a picture, a set of assumptions, usually not conscious, of how think God and the world are related. And all of us can and do express through our words and actions who we think God is and who we think we are. These unconscious or implicit theologies are very powerful. They control many of our decisions and actions; we rely on them as justification for what we do personally and as a nation. Theology matters!’ (p. 5 in A New Climate for Theology, God, the World, and Global Warming)

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the most predominant theological models in the Christian faith outlined by Sallie. For a fuller explanation, I commend Sallie’s book to you.

Deistic model

• arose during 17^th century scientific revolution
• imagines God as a clockmaker who winds up the clock of the world by creating its laws and then leaves it to run by itself

• God intervenes occasionally in natural disasters, accidents & personal crises
• God is externally related to the world as a mechanic is to a machine; God only tinkers here and there when necessary
• the world is totally secular, divorced from God and from human beings, except as a ‘machine’ for our use.

Dialogic Model

• God speaks and we respond
• a central theological model within Protestantism, particularly highlighted during the 20^th century existentialism
• is currently popular among some New Age spiritualities and in some conservative evangelical expressions of Christianity
• focus on the individual and on personal morality
• personal spirituality is the only thing that counts
• God connects and touches us, but only on a personal, individual level
• God is indifferent to the natural and social world

Monarchical Model

• God as the all powerful king who controls his subjects and who in turn offer him loyal obedience
• this is the oldest of theological models and is still extremely popular
• both a personal and political model; with primary importance on human beings who are God’s subjects
• Christian life is a life of loyal service to God, the King
• but God is only king over one species on a recently arrived minor planet in an extra-ordinary galaxy
• although the created world is God’s kingdom, it is viewed as the property of the king - something to subdue and control or to exploit for its riches

• God is an agent, a ‘person’ whose purposes are realized in history
• God is the personal agent who oversees the world in every way as creator, redeemer and caretaker of the world
• God creates the world for God’s own pleasure and glory
• if God is like a personal agent who influences the world, how does this take place?
• how does God intervene in world events to direct and control them?
• tension with science
• focus is on God’s mind and how God will create, save and bring life to fulfillment.
• the actual life that God creates - the world doesn’t get much attention
• not much focus on the physicality of life for after all, God is all spirit

Realizing that all theologies, all models of understanding God and the world are limited, partial and imperfect, Sallie offers a new model, a new theology (or perhaps this is just an ‘old theology’ that we need to recover in our time)

The world as God’s Body

• what is central to Christianity is that God chooses to dwell among us as one of us.
• In the person of Jesus, we celebrate that it is in God’s nature to be ‘embodied’ to be ‘enfleshed’ - the word we use for this is ‘incarnation’
• it is the way of God to be ‘incarnate’ - that is God celebrates what we call matter, or what is physical in our world and in our universe.
• it is God’s way to be in us and our way to be in God.
• Sallie would argue that it is God’s way to be not only in human lives, but also in all of life.

Sallie proposes a theology where we understand the world and all that we would call ‘creation’ as God’s body.
What does she mean by this?
That we meet God not only in the realm of the mind or the spirit but also in the physical, we meet God in the world, especially in the ‘flesh of the world’.

That the universe; all creation is a reflection of God’s being and God’s glory;

that meeting God is not a ‘momentary spiritual affair’ but rather that we meet God in the nitty-gritty of our lives.

This doesn’t mean that God and the world are identical, but that God is in the world, just as we individuals ‘in our own bodies’

Such a theology understands creation to be all about God’s love - about how we can live together - all of us within God’s body.

It focuses our attention on the world around us, on the neighbour beside us, in the earth beneath our feet, on the air we breathe, on meeting God not later in some heavenly realm, but in the here and now.
for in a creation-centred theology we meet God in the world, in loving, healing, in caring for and cherishing all that is enfleshed in the world - people, creatures, the air, the waters, the earth.

If we decide to take this model of God seriously, Sallie says that there are three implications for us:

We must know our world and where we fit into it

• We must become ‘ecologically literate’ understanding the earth’s most basic law: that there is no way the whole can flourish unless all parts are cared for
• and if we see the world as our garden home, we need to learn ‘home economics’ the basic rules of how our garden home can prosper and what will endanger it

• this means we live with awe and gratitude in the world; realizing that we could not live one second without the gifts of God’s body - air, food, water, land and other creatures
• it means that we hold all life to be sacred
• and it means that because God is with us in the ‘nitty-gritty’ of all life that God infuses us with power and inspiration to live so that all life on this planet can prosper

• This doesn’t mean that God controls all events - remember this is not the model of God who holds all creation on strings like a puppet
• This is a model that says that God shares power with the goal of helping life to flourish
• this can be messy business because creation is made up of billions of different species and individuals; each with a desire to live and so inevitably there will be those who do not survive or flourish which can lead to what we might call ‘natural evil’ like the tragedies that come with floods, storms, some infections and diseases
• However, we must not be too quick to dismiss natural evils with the evils that we have created by human behaviors that have upset the delicate balance and torn the intricate web of creation
• by saying that God is in charge and so are we, we are saying that we are partners in God’s work
• this is a work that brings into reality God’s dream of a creation that is full of goodness and delight.
• And because God is committed to make this dream real we are strengthened and hopeful in this work

I also find much hope and strength for living out the implications of a creation centred theology because of the exponential growth of interest, attention and action that has been generated in the last few years.

All major Christian denominations, not just here in North America, but around the world are calling on their people to embrace and act upon a faith that is rooted in God’s love for creation. Many unique partnerships are being developed to explore and implement a new ‘home economics’ for living in creation. At the grass-roots, many faith groups and churches like EMUC are realizing that environmental or ‘green’ issues are not peripheral to their Christian life and witness, but rather that they are just as central as pastoral care of people and gathering regularly to worship and learn from scripture.

And many folk are deepening their faith as they discover a renewed connection with God that is strengthened and nurtured not only in the words of sacred scripture, and in human relationships, but also in learning and living, celebrating and tending, repairing and mending the earth; which is sacred and holy, the body of God, and where we can be at home with God.

And so in the words of Jesus, may we ‘Go into the world and proclaim this good news to the whole creation. Amen.

Resource Sheet "Creation Centred Theologies", January 18, 2009.

"Finding ourselves in a world of beauty and mystery,
of living things, diverse and interdependent,
of complex patterns of growth and evolution,
of subatomic particles and cosmic swirls,
we sing of God the Creator,
the Maker and Source of all that is.
Each part of creation reveals unique aspects
of God the Creator,
who is both in creation and beyond it.
All parts of creation, animate and inanimate are related.
All creation is good.
We sing of the Creator,
who made humans to live and move
and have their being in God.
In and with God,
we can direct our lives toward right relationships
with each other and with God.
We can discover our place as one strand in the web of life."

-"A Song of Faith" - a Statement of Faith of The United Church of Canada, adopted at the 39^th General Council, August 2006.

The United Church of Canada has a long history of working to protect the integrity of creation. Concerns were first expressed at General Councils as early as 1968, with the first policy position adopted in 1977.

In 1992, the 34th General Council adopted the policy statement "One Earth Community" which affirms 12 key ethical principles. As well, in 1995, the church added the line "to live with respect in creation" to the New Creed to remind us of our commitment to care for the Earth.

Currently, the United Church is focusing on issues related to climate change, nuclear wastes, genetically modified food, the patenting of life and seeds, and water.

Climate change work began in 1988 and now includes advocacy on implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, energy conservation and retrofits for church buildings, and linking to global efforts of solidarity with those already being affected by climate change.

Energy is another key area of concern with particular focus on ethical problems related to the long-term management of nuclear wastes.

The church has also done considerable work on issues related to food, agriculture, and fisheries. In 1990, the 33rd General Council affirmed a policy on sustainable agriculture and expressed concerns about over-fishing. Recently, the church has developed a policy on genetically modified food and the patenting of life and seeds. - United Church of Canada (from the UCC website)

Christians are now called to be agents of healing and hope for Earth. Christians have a responsibility to care for Earth, rather than view it as a piece of disposable matter ready for the wastebasket of eternity. Earth is not just another planet. Earth is a sacred site in the cosmos, a planet chosen by God as the focus of life in all its majesty and mystery. Even more significant, perhaps, is that God has chosen to fill this planet with God's presence and glory. Earth is a sanctuary, and we, as Christians, are summoned to revere the Earth and to work with Christ to restore its full fruitfulness and flourishing. - Seven Songs of Creation, by Norman C. Habel

Jesus was a bit of an earth-nik himself. He looked around at the natural world and saw God everywhere; in sparrows, in mustard seeds, in harvest festivals, in fig trees bearing fruit, in a gardener adding manure to a struggling tree. The natural process of the growth of a seed becomes a metaphor of the grace of God. Lost sheep reflected the condition of humanity. The wind was a metaphor for Spirit. He tells us to consider the lilies, and the ravens, if we want to understand the non-anxious life. Light is an image of God…For him, all of creation was charged with Holy Presence. - Bruce Sanguin

Print and Website resources:

A New Climate for Theology by Sallie McFague

Christ of the Celts, The Healing of Creation by J. Philip Newell

The Book of Creation by J. Philip Newell

Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos, An Ecological Christianity by Bruce Sanguin

The Green Bible by HarperCollins Publishers 2008 (www.greenletterbible.com)

www.united-church.ca/ecology The United Church of Canada

www.greenchurchproject.org/green/ A United Church of Canada site featuring

'greening the church' ideas from Montreal

www.faith-commongood.net Faith and the Common Good Coalition, Toronto

www.kairoscanada.org/e/ecology/climateChange/ KAIROS Canada, Ecumenical Forum

www.nccecojustice.org The National Council of Churches USA

www.theregenerationproject.org The Regeneration Project of the Episcopal Church USA

www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/ecology.html The World Council of Churches Earth Page

www.earthcharter.org The Earth Charter is a global consensus statement on