I was thinking of writing a post on global warming and climate change, but there’s an insistent voice in my head that keeps saying, “No, don’t do it! Tell ’em nuttin’!”
What is that Voice? Why does it want me to shut up? Is it a crippled, evangelical social conscience that thinks that the Bible only has things to say about individual moral behaviour (like adultery or stealing or greed)? I don’t think so. I think I silenced that voice some time go when I realized that the Bible tells the truth about all of reality, not just what goes on in church, and that it points to the good life not just for Christians, but for everyone in God’s creation—and that we therefore have something to say to our society and culture on all manner of issues.
So maybe the Voice is just my well-developed sense of cynicism and scepticism that often leads me to take a sniping, contrarian view on public issues. But that doesn’t explain it, because if it was my sceptical contrarianism speaking, it would have been urging me to say something, and loud, and often—something bitingly critical of the politically correct bromides of the mainstream press, for example (oops, nearly lost it there).
Or maybe it’s a knee-jerk political conservatism. Maybe the Voice is a closet supporter of the interests of Big Oil, Big Business, Big Capital, Big Polluters, and all the other bogeymen who appear on placards held up outside meetings of the G7, and who also give us jobs and keep the lights on. But as much as I just love Big Oil, again I can’t see how that Voice would be urging silence. On the contrary.
Anyway, I’ve had a little chat to the Voice in my head, and gotten to know him better. Turns out he goes by the name of Christian Liberty. He says that he wants me to stay silent because whatever action Christians should take on global warming, they should take it as citizens, making their own judgements about the truth, practicality and utility of the various claims, views and courses of action being put forward. He reckons that while God commands us to be good and loving citizens, and to act with justice, compassion, honesty, kindness, integrity, prudence and grace, he doesn’t reveal in the Scriptures what particular course of action these virtues will motivate in any given instance. He doesn’t tell us which party to vote for or which economic policy to support. He doesn’t reveal whether smaller government or bigger government is the better way to achieve the goods of prosperity and justice. There isn’t a biblical teaching on de-regulation or public transport policy. Christian citizens will make different judgements on these matters, usually depending on whether they have a left-leaning or right-leaning cast of mind.
Likewise, the Voice reminded me, God doesn’t tell us whether to trust the UN and its panel on climate change, and whether their climate predictions are true, or true enough. And whether or not the computer modelling is accurate, God doesn’t tell us what the best course of action is, globally or locally.
And so the Voice in my head urged me to say nuttin’—not to reveal my own views on these matters, not to urge them upon others, not to make solemn pronouncements, as if my conclusions were the OBVIOUS ones (which, if only you knew them, you would realize they WERE), and not, under any circumstances, to seek to bind the consciences of my Christian brothers and sisters about something on which the gospel gives us liberty.
Because, said the Voice, that would make you a legalist.
Well put, Tony. But what we must all heed are the warnings in the book of Revelation that environmental disasters are present day judgments as signs of the final day of judgment. (Chapter 9:20ff) makes for chilling reading in Revelation, for the world does not repent. Yet John must prophesy concerning all the nations and peoples that judgment is coming.
I have mixed feelings about your post. I think I agree, but I also think I disagree.
For example, doesn’t the Bible teach that freedom is better than tyranny? Doesn’t the Bible teach that stealing is wrong even for governments? Doesn’t the Bible teach a doctrine of sin that should cause political systems to place limits on power? Based on such biblical truths I think we can safely say that systems of government and political philosophies that respect freedom over tyranny, private property rights, and checks on political leaders are morally better than those that do not.
So maybe the voice in your head is cautioning you about fulfilling your Christ-appointed role as a minister of the gospel, and not wanting anything to interfere with that. Ministers of Jesus Christ should preach the gospel first and foremost, and forego the legitimate political implications of the gospel for the sake of saving souls, who may not yet understand the ramifications of the gospel for political science.
Not entirely convinced.
If human behavior is proved to be imperiling life on earth, and if changing that behavior removes that peril, how is it legalism to point out that course of action as one that all should take?
(This question concedes neither proposition, or requires their acceptance.)
Those who accept both propositions would seem to have a moral responsibility to act. Christians support moral responsibility, individually and corporately.
Ah Tony, the truth will out, ye wee timorous, cowerin’ beastie.
But whatever your view on the nonsense that swirls around the debate on climate change, there has to be something worth saying about the distraction that this becomes for Christians of whatever political persuasion. Indeed, you’ve said some of it.
The risk for those who feel climate change is a genuine cause for anxiety seems to be greater, however. They’ll be tempted to be distracted away from preaching the greater apocalypticism that is the return in judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ. That global warming will put this one in the shade, if people only thought about it for a moment.
Whereas for the rest of us militant agnostics—some of us teetering now on the abyss of climate scepticism, it has to be said—it’s just gospel business as usual isn’t it?
(By the way, tell us your thoughts on Fair Trade Coffee some time
)
Ah Gordo, you left out my favourite word of that line: “Wee, <b>sleekit<b>, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie” (it’s from ‘To a Mouse’ by Robert Burns, as I’m sure ye know).
I’ve always thought of myself as rather sleekit.
Geoff, a brief answer to your good question (“How is it legalism to point that out?”): I’m suggesting that it is your duty and privilege as a citizen to point that out, especially since as a citizen you will have come to a view about the nature of the problem and its possible solutions.
But because the judgements about the nature, causes and remedies of secular problems (that is, problems pertaining to ‘this age’) are often opaque to us, we should be very careful about urging our particular position on our brothers and sisters, suggesting that it is a simple matter of Christian morality, discipleship, justice or love for us to do so.
TP
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Galatians 5.13-14)
Freedom is subordinated to love; we are free in order that we might love, and in love become slaves to one another. Christian liberty is the freedom to do good to my neighbour. Central amongst the goods I might do for my neighbour is echoing the divine call to enter into this very freedom to love. And so part of my free service will be inviting my brothers and sisters into the service of those around them. Let us serve our neighbours and do good to everyone, especially to the household of faith!
Yet this service is not exhausted by issuing such an invitation. There are many other ways of serving one another as well as proclaiming the good news of freedom in Christ. To be of service to my neighbours, some of the good things I can do will require more specific knowledge of my neighbours and their condition and context. Do they need food? Do they need to learn how to fish for themselves? Do they need medical aid? Do they need a friend they can trust? What fear or guilt is oppressing them? What about their context: can the legal system of their society be improved to pursue justice? Does corruption undermine the rule of law? Does their society encourage them towards the idolatry of greed? Towards superficiality of judgement? Does their lifestyle (and that of their society) contribute to reducing the freedom of others to love and serve?
The answers to these questions will not be easy or simple. They will not be found only by studying the scriptures (though that will of course be part of it!). To love our neighbour, we have to pay close attention to the world and how it works, including the disputed areas.
I guess what I am saying is that part of the issue behind this discussion is the relation of knowledge to ethics. Saint Paul prayed that the Philippians’ love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight – knowledge of God and the good news of Jesus, yes. But also knowledge of one another and the world. We cannot love our neighbours without some attempt at understanding them, their history and gifts, their situation and the world in which we live with its threats and possibilities.
For example, Christians amongst areas ravaged by AIDS will need to come to an opinion about whether HIV leads to AIDS or not (this is hotly contested in parts of Africa, and there are campaigns against the use of retro-viral drugs, and shoddy pseudo-scientists throwing mud into the air). Christian parents will need to come to an opinion about the benefits and costs of immunisation (where again, confusing signals have been sent by the media based on poor scientific work). And Christians with influence in energy, in public policy, or those with carbon-intensive lifestyles and with global neighbours who live in drought or flood-prone areas will sooner or later have to have some kind of opinion on climatology and carbon.
Not every Christian is able or obliged to answer every conceivable question about how to best love our neighbours. But we do each need to think carefully about who we trust in answering these questions for us, and what we do with that knowledge.
Tony, you are right when you point out that God doesn’t give us an exhaustive list of who to trust and how far. But that doesn’t mean the question is morally irrelevant or that refraining from the discussion is the best use of Christian freedom to love.
PS I agree that there are other poor uses of Christian liberty in this matter, such as obstinate refusal of legitimate evidence, deliberate repetition of known falsehoods, obscuring the degrees of certainty for various claims, misrepresentation of data, cheap points scoring, unnecessary name-calling, and in short all the kinds of discourse that are not part of edifying one another.
But why is it a transgression, rather than an appropriate expression, of Christian freedom to love when I gently point someone towards what experts in the field regard as the best available research and open a discussion with them on possible ways forward? Or on what the good news of Jesus might have to contribute to such a discussion? That is, are you against any Christian speaking on this topic as a Christian and to Christians (rather than as a citizen to citizens) or are you only against abusive forms of such speech?
Hi Byron
Thanks for these thoughtful comments.
You are certainly right that Christian freedom is not licence (that is, to self-indulgence or laziness). I hope you didn’t think I was suggesting that.
But say that you got to know your neighbour, and discerned that the best way for you to love and do good to him at this point was mow his lawn for him. And say that I had a neighbour but decided that mowing his lawn for him would be insulting and counter-productive (in the particular case of my neighbour and me).
Now I hope you would keep urging and encouraging me, as a brother, to “not become weary in doing good” (Gal 6:9). But I would have a problem if you kept urging me to cut my neighbour’s lawn, just because you had concluded that this was what love demanded from you in your situation. And if you started going around insisting that Christians everywhere should start cutting their neighbour’s lawns, and that they were being sinfully unloving if they didn’t, then you would be imposing yourself upon their freedom. We call this ‘legalism’ traditionally—the habit of universalizing a particular application and making it as singular and mandatory as the principle that originally drove it. (The move from ‘you should pray constantly, and not to do so is sin’ to ‘you should have a quite time each day for 1 hour and not to do so is sin’.)
OK, but what about when we are facing a common issue? Say we lived either side of the same neighbour? What if our judgements as to what would be best and loving for him were different? One of us might decide that someone from outside should step in and mow his lawn for him; that the unjust structures of society were what was preventing the guy from doing his mowing and that the whole problem required political action to change government policy. And one of us might conclude that it would actually be more loving to motivate and help this guy to mow his lawn for himself, perhaps by helping him buy a decent mower. (Let the reader understand)
I think each of us (as Christian brothers) should accept one another in this situation, and allow that our application of the love-principle may be different.
So what happens when the particularities about which we need to gain-knowledge-and-make-judgements-in-order-to-love are massive, complex and involve regional, national and international economies? And when the action to be taken will occur on a governmental and inter-governmental level? It’s even more reason, in my view, not to lay down the law as to what constitutes loving Christian action. We will all still form a view, and there’s nothing wrong with talking with each other about our views. But we need to be extremely careful that we don’t impose the application rather than exhorting the principle.
This is why Christian leaders and teachers and pastors are right not to tell their congregations how to vote. Byron, I am simply suggesting that analysing, diagnosing and determining what to do about global warming falls into this category.
And that’s why I won’t use the Sola Panel platform (which is a vehicle for public Christian teaching, read by thousands) to push my views.
Hope that helps. TP
Tony,
Thank you for clarifying. I entirely agree that insisting on one particular economic or political strategy as the only possible Christian strategy may in many cases be an example of what is usually called legalism. I do not think that Christian ministers ought to be (for example) arguing from the pulpit that it is a Christian duty to embrace Rudd’s proposed CPRS.
However, it seems to me your article does not sufficiently distinguish two kinds of actions. It seem to equate speaking with making solemn pronouncements that bind the conscience of Christian sisters and brothers. You title was not Why I am not binding your conscience, but Why I am sayin’ nuttin’.
Now it is clear in your most recent comment that you do indeed distinguish these two:We will all still form a view, and there’s nothing wrong with talking with each other about our views. But we need to be extremely careful that we don’t impose the application rather than exhorting the principle.
So perhaps I am making a mountain out of a molehill, but I think it is worth pressing a little on this, because there is a further relevant distinction. Not only does there exist between the extremes of silence and legalistic binding of consciences the possibility of discussion, but between discussion and binding consciences I take it that there exists the possibility of reasoned commendation. That is, it is possible as a Christian leader to recommend a course of action with good reasons yet refrain from making it obligatory or judging those all those do otherwise as living in sin.
I take it that your article makes at least two recommendations to Christian leaders, teachers and pastors. First, that they ought to exhort the principle rather than imposing the application. With this, I agree. But second, you also (somewhat paradoxically) recommend that they ought to be silent. Perhaps this was just a rhetorical point, an exaggeration for the sake of effect? I assume this is the case since you acknowledge that Christian leaders can indeed be exhorting principles that are relevant to climate change (while refraining from binding consciences on particular courses of action).
To this, all I wished to add was that not only do I think that it is possible for Christian leaders to do this, but that I think there are good reasons for recommending doing so (in many cases).
Grace & peace,
Byron
PS If we are to “pay respect to whom respect is due” (Romans 13.7), do you think that this includes some measure of epistemic respect for national scientific bodies? Not that we necessarily have to accept all that they say as gospel, but that perhaps we owe them the respect of having a default position in which we take their findings as bearing significant weight, not to be dismissed lightly?
TP – I hope this following comparison isn’t too emotive. I do think we need to heed the warning of the experience of CESA – our evangelical friends in South Africa. They chose a path of political quietism during the apartheid years. They were not a racist church. But they (according to Frank Retief’s public testimony) silent. I am sure it was a complicated issue. I am sure there were people in their pews who differed and they wanted to allow them their Christian freedom. And I am sure that they wanted to be obedient to the government. I am sure the pastors said nothing from the pulpit because the direct Biblical case against apartheid wasn’t that clear.
But it all looks a little hollow now with the wisdom of hindsight.
It is difficult to see what is right and what is wrong from the data we have in front of us. But just because it is hard, doesn’t mean we don’t have the responsibility to study the situation and come to judgements about them – all within the parameters we have given to us. I say this as someone who isn’t a completely convinced greenie, too.
<i>I hope this following comparison isn’t too emotive. I do think we need to heed the warning of the experience of CESA – our evangelical friends in South Africa. They chose a path of political quietism during the apartheid years.</i>
Michael, the comparison with apartheid may or may not be emotive, but it’s hard to see how it’s relevant.
Discrimination on the basis of skin colour is a sin, the only exception being the positive discrimination associated with the attractive and slightly olive coloured skin of me and my daughters.
By contrast, refusal to be persuaded about whether we’ve heated the world, and are continuing to do so, is not a ‘sin’ under almost any meaning of that word. Sure, it may well be silly. But being silly remains allowable even in these enlightened times, and not being at the top of the class is never singled out as being problematic—not by the Bible, and not even by the Roman Catholic church.
So average people like me still haven’t been completely convinced that the world is being heated to perdition, not unlike the biro I stuck on the bunsen burner back in Year 9, and remains fused (AFAIK) to the tripod Mr Boddy took away from me and into the Science staffroom for closer inspection.
And if the right wingers are to be believed, (and even the left wingers, according to this right wingers, the climate-change consensus is collapsing anyway.
Whatever the case, those who kept on with their rather foolish and simplistic gospel message will keep doing so whatever the barometer outside the building is telling them.
But those who wanted Christians to switch to the gospel of global warming are in trouble, if the promised warming fails to materialize. They will need to find another clever thing to scare us with.
And let’s not even begin to ask how many lives could have been saved if the ‘let’s stop global warming’ money had actually been spent on something that is currently killing people, like malnutrition.
In the meantime, I’m not worried about any of this temperature nonsense. I’m worried about gospel preaching. And what’s more, I’m worried about Peak Lithium, really I am. When the supplies of this important metal run out, where am I going to buy my rechargeable batteries?
…so you most certainly aren’t saying nuttin, then.
Apartheid IS a relevant comparison, because while racism is a sin, the system itself isn’t necessarily. Hey, even Broughton Knox thought it was a good idea in principle.
Quietism. It works for me.
I’ll shut up now.
What about the Iraq war? I am not in principle against war. I am not anti-American. I recognise that there are Christians who in good faith supported that war. Yet, I think it would have been appropriate at the time to say something from the pulpit about it, with all the right caveats. It would have been difficult to get right. It would have taken careful thought. But surely we can’t say nothing just because there is a risk we could be wrong?
I remember my dad saying that he had preached in favour of the Vietnam war at the time – which he later had decided was a mistake with the benefit of hindsight. Ought he to have said nothing?
There may or may not be a “gospel of global warming” (can you provide links to Christians who preach this message?), but surely the gospel of Jesus Christ is also for people guilty of overconsumption and greed, fearful of ecological degradation, sad at the extinction of beautiful specifies created by God, angry at the failure of governments and individuals (or angry at seeing so much time “wasted” on this discussion), or simply thoroughly perplexed by the whole situation?
Byron,
At the last General Synod of the Anglican Church in Australia, huge amounts of time were devoted to environmental issues (and many other social issues). Motions – some of considerable length and complexity – were debated and passed.
I didn’t mind the attention as much as some. What I did mind is that the same Synod that could grapple with these incredibly complex questions could not affirm orthodox gospel truths. That was apparently too hard. E.g. see my comments here.
It is not so much that some speaker at some Synod proclaimed a “gospel of global warming”, but that the weight, urgency and certainty with which some Christian leaders speak on that topic completely contrasts the lack of attention to evangelism and/or confidence in the biblical gospel.
As a pew-warmer, I’m sorry to say that this discussion isn’t helping me much. I would like to know how to think Christianly about political matters, and silence from the pulpit is itself a message. Unfortunately, so is preaching on politics: many people would consider their preacher’s opinion binding if he gave a political opinion, and be distressed to disagree with him. Things got so heated (sorry) on Crikey that they instituted a separate letters page on the climate change issue.So I certainly understand Tony’s position. Preachers are there to interpret the Bible for us, not scientific data.
OTOH, I am not at all sure that discrimination on skin colour is a sin… well, I am sure it is, but I’d be hard-pressed to prove it from Scripture without also proving that I should allow gay teachers into Christian schools.
Sandy, that is indeed sad. I hadn’t read your piece or heard about that (sidestepped) motion. It is a tragedy that central doctrines affirmed for centuries in creeds, prayer books and (most importantly!) throughout holy scripture are either ignored or openly rejected by those entrusted with the care of Christ’s flock. And it is a tragedy because it is those very doctrines that ought to be at the heart of a truly compassionate, faithful and hopeful Christian response to these crises.
<i>There may or may not be a “gospel of global warming” (can you provide links to Christians who preach this message?)</i>
Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church of the US, has abandoned belief in the orthodox gospel but eagerly fights for the right of practising homosexuals to be bishops, comes close with her ‘use the spork’ message from Earth Day 2008.
As Sandy has already pointed out by his example of General Synod, it’s the shift of emphasis away from gospel preaching that characterizes so much theological liberalism.
Functionally, the failure to preach the atoning death of Christ, and the substituting instead a message of climate change alarmism is the same as preaching another gospel— though it may never be referred to by its preachers in gospel terms.
Sandy and Gordon, IMNSHO Katharine Jefferts Schori and assorted liberal Anglicans at General Synod aren’t actually Christians, so you haven’t answered Byron’s question.
Moreover, there’s a whiff of guilt by association in Gordon’s response. Is contemplation of world issues always a “shift of emphasis away from gospel preaching” leading to membership of the KJS Fan Club? Because if it is, no preacher should teach me to think Christianly about such issues. We have nothing to say: nothing to say when it comes to personal decisions over those matters (eg Hummer or hybrid?) and nothing to say to our non-Christian friends or society about them either.
Tony,
Not having an authoritative voice on the right course of action is one thing, saying absolutely nothing on the matter is another. Your final course of action (or non-action, as it so happens) seems to go further than what is actually suggested by your argument.
I’m not sure what to make of your alternate “voices” in the opening part of your article. I know in the past you’ve played the “but it’s only satire” card, however, you have to ask whether you’ve crossed the ‘chaser’ line – the line where the jokes just betray more about the satirist than the targeted issue. Anyway, for anyone out there tempted to say “yeah big industry does give us good things”, think about the role of the word ‘us’ in that sentence, and who might be missing out on a job – or fair wages – for the sake of our comfort.