Roscoe Lecture - Liverpool John Moore University
May 2003
Having sat at the feet of numerous Roscoe Lecturers over the last five years I am very honoured to be invited to be the lecturer this evening. I am nervous! Most of the lecturers come from outside the City. I recall the words of Jesus that a Prophet is without honour in his own country! Mind you, that proverb is double-edged for me. Being half Welsh and half Scottish I was bound to end up in Liverpool ! For this to be "my own country" says something of the generosity of you all in accepting me and adopting me as your Bishop and one of the Church Leaders on Merseyside. One of my proudest moments was when I learnt that having given the Church of England some grief at a National Level I was described behind closed doors as a "whinging Scouser"! I dispute the whinging!
This reminds me of a story of an Archbishop of Canterbury who was inspecting his portrait at Lambeth Palace and was heard to complain that it made him look pompous and prelatical. At which point he was asked by his Chaplain which of these two epithets did he take exception to!
I have chosen as the subject of my lecture "Citizens of the Earth".
My awareness of the importance of the environment was ignited three years ago when during Lent in the Millennium year I went around the Diocese of Liverpool and visited 14 Secondary Schools. I asked the Headteacher if I could meet with as many 16-18 year olds as possible so that I could hear about their dreams and dreads of the future and tell them why I thought that 2000 years on Jesus Christ was still relevant.
I met with thousands of young people sometimes as many as 250 at one time. To stimulate the discussion we produced three short video clips the first was about the future of the planet. After the video I asked the young people on a scale of 0-10 how worried they were about the future of the planet. 0 was "not at all", 10 was "very scared". I asked them to plot themselves on this scale and to put their hands up if they had placed themselves between 5-10. In every single venue 100% of all the hands went up! I then asked them to say whether or not they thought we ought to do anything about it. 0 was "don't bother", 10 was "we really should". I drew attention to the little word "ought" saying that this was a moral word and we would explore it in due course. I asked the young people to raise their hands and 98% placed themselves between 5-10.
I came away from that engagement with these young people throughout Merseyside deeply aware that they were passionate about the future of the earth. I know some would immediately say that of course doesn't stop them dropping litter in the street! However, in this they are no different from adults who also fall short of our ideals!
There is an increasing concern across the generations about what we are doing to the planet. I recently came across a bumper sticker the other day which read "Jesus is coming - look busy"! Thoughts are clearly turning to the end of the world. My daughters tell me that this slogan has even made it onto fashionable t-shirts. Serious minds are beginning to ask radical questions about our ability to survive. Martin Rees the Astronomer Royal and renowned Astro Physicist who written a new book called "Our Final Century - Will the Human Race survive the 21st Century". His conclusion is that we have a 50/50 chance of survival. He says that although we should be able to feed the hungry, save the planet and redistribute power globally "we are empowering more people with the potentiality to harm on an ever growing scale".
This is bleak stuff. It reminds me of an African proverb "We have borrowed the present from our children".
I make no apology but draw attention to the fact that I am speaking today from an explicitly Christian basis. I suppose that is part of the deal when you invite a Bishop to be your lecturer. Although when I was Bishop of Hull and held a series of meetings around the Diocese called "Meet the Bishop" a little boy of 8 who was learning to play chess asked his father if he could come to one of the meetings. "No" said his father "anyway what do you want to ask him?" The little boy said that he wanted to know whether I, as a Bishop, moved diagonally! This is of course meets most people's perceptions of a Bishop in the Church of England! Faced with a straight question that is exactly the direction we move in!
However, in this lecture tonight I want to speak unequivocally of the ethical and theological imperative of seeing the whole of humanity as 'Citizens of the Earth' with a responsibility before God to care for the earth.
A story which I never cease to tell especially in schools is of Isaac Newton who had on his desk in his study a model of the universe with the planets circling the sun. One day a friend of his who was an atheist saw this model on his desk and asked Newton who made it. Newton being a good Christian seized his opportunity and said "I am sorry I don't think I heard your question. Did you ask who made it?" "Yes, Isaac" said his friend "who made the model?" Newton continued "My dear friend, what a ridiculous question, I just came down here this morning and there it was it appeared out of nowhere overnight". The friend knew that he was being taken for a ride and exploded "Just tell me who made it". "My dear friend", said Newton "if you refuse to believe that this model exists on my desk without a maker how foolish of you to believe that the real thing a billion times greater could exist without a creator".
This of course does not prove that there is a God but it shows that it is not stupid to believe that creation has what that word implies a creator. Turning to the pages of the New Testament and to the primary chapters of John, Colossians, Ephesians and Hebrews we learn that all this has come into being through and for Christ. This is the beginning of an environmental ethic for Christians. The whole world has come into being not for the sake of humanity but as a gift of and for God. Those theologies and philosophies which suggest that creation is simply there for humanity to enjoy, indulge, exploit and abuse are not just immoral but contain the seeds of our own destruction. To rape the earth is not just a crime against humanity it is ultimately a blasphemy. To suggest that creation is simply there for our indulgence is in the end to dethrone God.
The centrality of the divine to the whole of creation is captured not just in theology but in poetry. The phrase the Liverpool Poets conjures up names such as Roger McGough, Adrian Newman, Stuart Henderson. Few would instantly think of Gerard Manley Hopkins. But of course he was a priest here in the city, in Everton. One of his poems captures the essence:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
One wonders if Hopkins would have written so optimistically after the Johannesburg Earth Summit. Nature is never spent? That is the big question. Have we passed the point of no return where the body is so injured that it will never be able to recover. When you learn that an area of the Amazon rain forest the size of France has been lost you realise how badly wounded the body is not least because the trees are the very lungs of the earth.
An Indian theologian Dr. Rakesh Lovan Sarkar has written in a book "The Bible, Ecology and Environment":
"All life on Earth is part of one great, interdependent system. It interacts with, and depends on, the non-living components of the planet: atmosphere, oceans, freshwaters, rocks and soils. Humanity depends totally on this community of life - this biosphere - of which we are an integral part.
In the remote past, human actions were trivial when set against the dominant processes of nature. No longer is this so. The human species now influences the fundamental processes of the planet. Ozone depletion, worldwide pollution, and climate change are testimonies to our power"
Environmental Scientists will be able to give you the statistics. For example:
Deforestation - an estimated 45% of the earth's original tree cover has disappeared.
Air pollution - an estimated 20-30 million died through it in the second half of the last century.
Water - the need to re-route water has led to the displacement of 40 million people mainly living in India or Asia .
Ozone depletion - in the last 25 years an estimated 1.5 million cases of skin cancer have resulted from the loss of ozone.
Christian Aid say that 9 out of 10 disasters are caused by environmental crises.
It has also been estimated that in the period before 1980 insurance companies paid out no more than £1 billion for claims based on environmental damage; claims for the period since 1980 total up to £30 billion.
The numbers of environmental refugees are increasing year on year. To date Egypt is supporting 14 million, Bangladesh 15 million, China 30 million and India 30 million.
There are apocalyptic scenarios staring us in the face. The next World War according to the Secretary General of the United Nations will be about water. It is not my business in this lecture to frighten you with statistics (although they are indeed alarming) but to go beneath those to the philosophy and the theology that might shape our thinking and hence our future.
As I became aware of the importance of the environment to the Mission of God I discovered that most Christian Ethicists go to the pages of the Old Testament to work out an environmental ethic. The question crossed my mind that if ecology was so central to the Mission of God why was there nothing in the Gospels and especially in the teaching of Jesus. This sent me back to the Gospels and last year I took as my subject "Jesus and the Earth : a Re-reading of the Gospels with an Environmental Awareness".
I also went in search of Muslim and Jewish ethics and had several conversations with Zaki Badawi the Principal of the Muslim College and the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I learnt a great deal from the Chief Rabbi not just about Judaism but also about Christianity. When I began to question him about the passages in Genesis he very graciously dismissed this as a very Christian way of handling the Bible! He said that Jewish ethics on the environment began with the command to the children of Israel as they took the Promised Land not to destroy the fruit bearing tree. The Chief Rabbi also reminded me that the origin of the phrase "Son of Man" which is the title which Jesus exclusively takes to himself is in Hebrew Ben Adam which means "Son of the one hewn from the earth".
This threw new light on my reading of the Gospels. It begged the question as to whether or not Jesus was aware of the earthy roots of the title "Son of Man, Son of Adam". Those of you who know the New Testament will remember that Paul clearly saw Jesus as the Second Adam (Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15). But did Jesus see himself in a direct relationship with Adam? I have to tell you that all the New Testament Theologians that I have consulted have urged me to be cautious!
As I kept reading the Gospels and noting in green marker pen every time Jesus called himself the "Son of Man" the thought came into my mind or rather a question, was there any occasion when Jesus spoke about himself as the Son of Man and in the same breath talked about the earth? There are at least six!
Before looking at some of these key sayings a word about how the Bible sees the earth. You ought to know that there are as many references in the Bible to the earth as there are to heaven and indeed more references to the earth than to love! The Bible is clearly concerned with the future of the earth.
Firstly, the word Adam comes from the Hebrew word for earth "Adamah". Adam is indeed an earthling hewn from and connected with the earth. Secondly, although in the opening chapters of Genesis it does indeed say that Adam is to have dominion over the earth it also says that Adam is to care for it and to serve it. These two words taken together speak of responsible stewardship in which human kind needs to see itself as part of the earth and not apart from it. Thirdly, when Jesus refers to the earth as God's 'footstool' this is not some demeaning put down of the earth. When you realise that the Ark of the Covenant is also described as God's footstool you realise that to describe the earth as such is to speak of its sacredness derived from the fact that God touches it with his presence. This point is reinforced by Jesus in that beautiful saying "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny yet not one of them falls to the ground without the Father". The Good Father is with us here on the earth.
One of the great joys of being a Bishop is to receive a variety of invitations to address Bodies and Conferences outside the church. Every year the British Council of Shopping Centres holds a major National Conference. They asked me to address them on issues of sustainability and social responsibility! To their surprise they heard me saying that God has made us all natural consumers and born traders! One of the great things about these opportunities is to be able to talk theology and to refer to the Bible in a way that connects with their world! But just as they were settling down comfortably to my theological exposition of Genesis I drew attention to the fact that it was through an act of consumption that sin entered the world! However, just as they were getting depressed about this fact I was able to encourage them with the truth that even though it may have been through an act of consumption that sin entered the world it was also by an act of consumption that the world is redeemed - Holy Communion!
As I explored the pages of Genesis and the scene from the Garden of Eden I was able to show them that God expected us to be discerning consumers. Again I am indebted to the Chief Rabbi for the insight that one of the reasons that Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the tree in the Garden is to remind them that although God had given these things for us to delight in they were not all for us!
Those of you who know something about Green philosophy will be aware of a famous attack on Christianity by Lynn White who said that Christian theology was largely responsible for the exploitation of the earth. She said that because we had emphasised the notion of dominion we had disregarded the needs of the planet. It is true that in the past and even today there are Christians whose theology of the stewardship of creation lays us open to this charge of selfishly exploiting the earth for our own gain. We need to repent of such self indulgence and to confess that we have made ourselves the apex of creation and not Christ. We need to recover a theology that sees Christ as the centre of all creation.
For all the church's talk about its prophetic role it has to be recognised that when it comes to environmental issues and the future of the planet the prophetic voice has been heard beyond the walls of the church. With a few notable exceptions the church has been the audience and not the prophet.
A Christian might well reply and insist on being told where in the Gospels did Jesus speak so explicitly about the earth and its futures. Let me take two of those episodes when Jesus talks about himself as "Son of Man" and in the same breath talks about the earth.
You may remember the episode when Jesus heals the paralysed man brought to him by friends and lowered through the roof. Jesus says to him and all around "The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins". We ought to ask why did he add the words 'on earth'. It was scandalous and outrageous enough for the Son of Man to claim authority to forgive sins. What value was added by saying that the sphere of that absolution was on the earth itself. If there is any hint of Adam in the title Son of Man then the combination of Adam and Sin takes us right back to the opening chapters of Genesis and to Adam's rebellion. One of the consequences of his sinfulness is according to Genesis 3 v17 that the earth is cursed. The only way that the earth can be relieved of its curse is for Adam's successors to repent, to be forgiven, healed and restored. Then the earth can breath again. It is not only Christians but the whole spectrum of environmentalism that identifies that behaviour of humanity as crucial to the earth's well being.
The Son of Man, Adam's successor, has authority to forgive sins on earth and thereby restore not just the human race but the whole of creation. This thought is echoed by St. Paul in Romans Chapter 8 where he to sees the future of creation integrally linked with the restoration and liberation of the children of God. If only the human race could act less selfishly then we would reduce the jeopardy inflicted upon the planet. For example, carbon emissions in the developed world are far in excess of what the planet can sustain. There needs to be a radical change in our lifestyle in order to restore balance to the cosmos. That is why people like Jonathon Porritt have said unequivocally that the future of the planet is ultimately a moral and spiritual issue. With that I wholeheartedly agree.
Another of Jesus' sayings is to be found in Matthew Chapter 12 "Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth". Without going into too much theological detail this reference evokes a story about judgement. Jonah tries to escape the presence of the Lord and ends up in the belly of the whale. If there is any hint of Adam in the title "Son of Man" and we combine Adam with the notion of judgement in the Jonah story then again we are taken to the opening chapters of Genesis and to another consequence of Adam's rebellion. Genesis 3 v19 has God saying to Adam "To the earth you shall return".
As Jesus takes upon himself the sins of the world so he retraces Adam's steps and is placed in the heart of the earth.
You may remember what happened when they laid him after his crucifixion in the earth's heart. It quaked. I was told by Archbishop Gregoru of the Greek Orthodox Church here in England that during the Orthodox liturgy on Good Friday when they tell the story of the Passion narrative and come to the earthquake the congregation shake the chairs for all they are worth. If there is a chandelier in the church they swing it and if there are crates of wine in the crypt they rattle them - all to recreate the sense of the earth quaking beneath their feet. Not only did the temple curtain tear from top to bottom (the temple which according to some theologians was a microcosm of the earth beautifully decorated with images of creation) but the earth itself quaked to its foundation.
You will recall too that when Jesus was raised from the heart of the earth at his resurrection the earth quaked again. The earth is an eloquent commentator on the death and resurrection of Jesus who dies to take away the sins of the whole cosmos and rises again to new life opening for us the gate of glory. There are four earthquakes in the Gospel of Matthew the first is hidden. It is on the Lake of Galilee . After Jesus has spoken again of himself as the Son of Man who unlike the foxes who have holes in the earth and the birds of heaven who have their nests, he has nowhere to lay his head then falls asleep in the boat and there is an earthquake on the lake. The word in Greek is sizemos. That accounts for the report of how the boat is nearly swamped by the wave caused by the earthquake. The fourth earthquake in the Gospel is when Jesus is speaking about the future of the earth and speaks of the birthpangs of the new age which again will be accompanied by the earth quaking.
All this raises the question as to what will happen to the earth and here the New Testament seems to speak in a divided way. On the one hand there is the language of continuity and on the other hand the language of discontinuity. There are a couple of passages that seem to suggest a theology of obliteration where the earth will end up in some great cosmic combustion. I think particularly of the passage in the Letter of Peter. On the other hand there is a series of passages in the Old and New Testament which speak of a continuity between this earth and the new earth with new heavens. Isaiah 65 and 66, Revelation Chapter 21 and 1 Corinthians 15 paint a picture of the earth giving birth to a new earth.
Without going into detail here I need simply to register my own view that the Bible gives us a vision of the future in which there is a renewed and transformed earth. Just as there is a connection between these bodies that we now inhabit and the spiritual bodies of the new age so too there will be a continuity between this earth as we know it and the new earth.
Those of you who may have seen my exchange with the Vicar of the University Church in Oxford at Easter in the Guardian will know that I believe that the bodily resurrection is important not just because of the veracity of scripture but because matter matters to God. There is a continuum between Luke Chapter 24 and the bodily resurrection appearances and Genesis Chapter 1 where God creates all things spiritual and material and deems them to be good. Furthermore there is an inextricable link between the bodily resurrection of Jesus and social and material justice.
The Lord's Prayer has us praying for the coming of God's Kingdom by specifically asking for "God's Will to be done on the earth as it is in heaven". I love the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version which reads "Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven". The preposition 'in' underlines God's engagement with the earth so that his purposes are worked out not only on the surface but in and through the earth's dynamic life. This again accounts for the sacredness of the earth for it is the very milieu in which the Spirit of God is at work. Christian theology does not personify the earth, it does not deify the earth but it recognises that the earth is the sphere of God's will. Mission is in fact the earthing of heaven and envisages the coming down to earth of heaven in a new world where the two are fused. Christians ought to be friends of the earth because God's is the earth's greatest champion.
Unfortunately the church has often been disconnected from the earth which is expressed in the way we pray the Lord's Prayer and separate 'thy Kingdom come thy will be done' from 'on earth as it is in heaven'.
The implications of such a theology of the earth are threefold - personal, parochial and political.
On a personal level we need to examine continually our own lifestyle asking to what extent we are needlessly wasting the resources of the earth. At a parochial level I believe that we should see our Christian communities as God given agents of the transformation holistically of our local environments both spiritually and physically. Parochial mission should be the earthing of heaven locally. On a political level I believe that we should be pressing for policies that take seriously the global dimensions of our environment.
Sir Crispin Ticknell, formerly British Ambassador to the UN, in his book 'The Doomsday Letters' said "really we know what to do but we lack the will to do it".
Leading environmentalists such as Sir John Houghton have argued that there should be four principles that cover international agreements:
1. The precautionary principle
2. The principle of sustainable development
3. The 'polluter pays' principle
4. The principle of equity
I have just returned from a lecture tour in America where I observed a chasm between Christian politicians and the Green Lobby. Environmentalists are very critical of the Churches for aiding and abetting those people who seem to exploit the earth and take political decisions such as pulling out of the Kyoto protocol. Christians on the other hand have little regard for the Green Lobby whom they dismiss as New Age at best and at worst pagan. Those Christian Groups that adopted a theology of obliteration towards the earth do feel that if the earth is going to end up in a ball of flames then you can milk the earth for all it is worth while you have time! That is not my view.
A truly Biblical view of the earth leads one to respect and revere the earth because of its God given sacredness. A Christian attitude to the earth and its future should be shaped by such reverence. "The Earth is Lord's and all that therein is". Unlike environmental Lobby Groups who will press for political action by painting terrifying apocalyptic scenes of the future, Christians should be motivated not by fear but by reverence.
This should lead us to press for policies that express our fundamental belief in the sanctity of the earth.
I come to my conclusion with a story:
Imagine that somebody invites you for the cruise of a lifetime. You come to the Pier Head in Liverpool and the person says to you "Just a couple of conditions; this is all on me but you are never to ask where we are going or when we are going to get there".
"Sounds fine by me" you say. You board this ship and it is luxury; you are shown to your suite on A deck and you cannot believe it. Within a few days you are sailing in the sun and you think "If there is a heaven, it must be like this". After six weeks of sailing around on this ship you think to yourself "I wonder where we are going" but, after all, you have made a promise and you are British - stiff upper lip - you keep the question to yourself and you carry on enjoying yourself.
After six months you cannot hold the question any longer. You grab your host one day and you say "Listen, I do not want to be ungrateful or anything but please, could you just tell me where are we going and when we are going to get there?" He says "Is there a problem? Is the suite not comfortable? Is the food not to your liking? "No, no" you say "It is all wonderful. I am having the time of my life but I wondered where and when". He says "Eat, drink, be merry". So you do your best.
After 10 years of sailing around on this wretched ocean liner the dream has become a nightmare. You scream at him "Please, please tell me where and when". Ridiculous? No. We are on this planet like a ship cruising through space and every now and again the question pops into the mind of every single traveller: where and when? - Questions of purpose and value.
Imagine you recover your composure and you say to your host "Well tell me, how many on this ship?" He says to you "Guess". Well, you are not in the mood for guessing games and you say "200"? "Wrong - 1000". You say "1000 people? You are kidding me; it feels like 200". "Yes" he says "That is what it feels like to you because here on A deck there are 200 people. But for the last 10 years in the hold of this ship there have been 800 people and they are all on bread and water".
Ridiculous? No. On this ship, planet Earth, 20% of us are on A deck and 80% are in the hold of this ship. I have seen it in Africa and India and the water is not even pure.
I use that story often, especially in schools, and what I want to draw attention to is what your reaction might be as you read it. I have two: one, it is a story about justice; two, it is a story about privilege. This story evokes a moral response: it begins to point up how it ought to be rather than how it is. It also induces - and this is not a fashionable concept in today's world but here goes - guilt. There is good guilt and bad guilt. Bad guilt leads to worthlessness and low self esteem; good guilt evokes moral responsibility and moral action.
I believe it's important to allow a good and proper guilt to shape our action. The history of social reform, not least in this city from the slave trade to child-welfare, was motivated by conscience and sense of moral responsibility. Recently at the service to welcome the new Rector of Liverpool I quoted from John Belchem's "Merseypride" in which he quotes from the Society of Lovers of Old Liverpool:
"For over a century Liverpool has been the advanced agent of Civilisation; our record as a pioneer of thought, of national, nay of world-service, is so splendid that any cultivated man who knows the history of the great cities of Old Time - Athens, Rome, Baghdad, Constantinople, Paris and London, and measure our effort against theirs, then this city, the pioneer of railways, nursing, lending libraries, blind asylums, ocean liners, cold storage, the city through which the virile life of the old world has flowed to fertilise the new, this, the chief city of New Time can inspire its sons and daughters to be worthy of the nobility, sacrifice and endeavour of their fathers, and our Society can play its part by keeping alive the story of our city's past glories, of the wonders of the present, and so prepare the way for the wonders of the future".
The truth is that although we now inhabit what people 100 years ago saw the future, the future that we in turn now contemplate is more at risk than it has ever been.
For that future to come and to be sustained depends upon us not being just good citizens of our city but good citizens of the earth.