Learn from the mistakes of others

Jennifer Marohasy

Church to Campaign Against Climate Change

June 24, 2005

According to ABC Online, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has turned to the Church in its campaign to halt climate change.

The ACF has formed an alliance with the National Council of Churches to encourage Christians to write to, or visit, their Federal MP to lobby for a re-think on water and energy use.

Reverend John Henderson, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches, says Christians have a moral obligation to help fight climate change:

"These are basic issues through the teachings of the New Testament and the Old Testament," he said.

"This is not new to us. I mean the Christian Church comes out of a long community, in fact it comes out of more than 2,000 years of community life where people have learnt to live with the world in which they are placed."

While the ACF and mainstream Christian Churches are, in my view, both essentially faith-based institutions, how much of their base philosophy is compatible when it comes to the environment and how it should/might be managed/not managed? For example, while the ACF generally advocates a "hands off" approach to nature i.e. exclude people from the landscape and don't manage it, in the bible Noah took a "hands on" approach i.e. built the ark to save the animals.

What do you think?

One of my definitions of sustainability has been salvation in the church of the environment.

Posted by jennifer at June 24, 2005 11:21 PM

the acf and ncc are both faith-based in the sense that their sense of mission is based upon faith.

when it come to the environment, the churches have tended to display a more 'use it' than 'preserve it' approach. not that the acf's 'no touchie' and 'pretend we can live without it' attitude is a winner.

head-under-pillow is pointless. we live in the environment, and cannot live without it. we also cannot live without affecting it. we cannot pretend we can wrap the environment up in cotton wool and it'll be alright so long as we leave it alone.

"One of my definitions of sustainability has been salvation in the church of the environment."the environment isn't a church [it's not the collective body of worshippers]. methinks it might be more apt for a christian to say that sustainability enables the church to continue in its mission of salvation.

it might also be apt to consider whether the acf's appeal to the ncc might not be construed as reaching out to organisations with aligned views, but rather as reaching out to the members of the churches, through their leaderships.

[are the churches really "campaigning *against* climate change"?]

Posted by: maelorin at June 26, 2005 02:31 AM