Caring for Creation and the Greatest Commandment
By David McDuffie
In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report warning that the consequences of average global temperatures rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels would be more significant than previously anticipated. Predicted consequences included but were not limited to increased extreme weather events including storms and droughts, increased species loss, and increased human poverty.
When faced with such an alarming report from the world’s leading climate scientists, one response is helplessness and despair. Questions such as ‘What can we do to improve a problem that is seemingly so large and out of our control?’ are common. However, another reaction is a call to action to do what we can in our personal lives and in our communities to work toward addressing these concerns. A religious response to environmental concern has the additional advantage of necessarily adding the virtue of hope to such an effort. In other words, if we all play our small part, our collective efforts can begin to effectively address what at first glance may seem like the overwhelming problems that threaten the sustainability of the natural environments upon which we all depend.
Over the last year, the Chartered Committee on Environmental Ministry and the diocesan communications staff have offered weekly ‘green tips’(you can also see them every Monday on the diocesan social media channels). These are tips that can be easily implemented in one’s daily routine regardless of personal income and provide an opportunity for all of us to participate in environmental ministry on a daily basis.
As we begin a new year, we are expanding upon this project, and this is the first of a series of monthly reflections that will attempt to go deeper on a series of environmental topics, providing us with a framework of information and hope for how we can better address caring for God’s ongoing Creation from the perspective of our Christian faith as Episcopalians. In the past year, we have witnessed first hand the potential consequences of a changing climate through the devastation left in the wake of Hurricanes Florence and Michael. We know that environmental degradation will affect us all but has and will continue to disproportionately affect the poor among us, both on a global and local level. As members of the Diocesan Environmental Ministry Committee, it is our role to call us to action and to remind us that, as a community of faith, life is renewed through Divine grace, a grace that calls upon us to participate in that process of renewal.
We also recognize that, as Episcopalians, we are a community of diverse opinions, and some may have misgivings about mixing what they feel to be a political issue with religious practice. However, please let me appeal to you that these are not only political issues but also, and perhaps primarily from a religious perspective, matters concerning the valuation and protection of God’s good and ongoing Creation. Sound environmental policy formulated to address the concerns outlined in the IPCC report will also result in the protection of natural habitats and sustainable ecosystems, clean water and air, and reliable sources of fresh and nourishing food. While these conversations will inevitably be carried out in a political context, let us not forget that what is being protected is the Creation upon which we all depend to lead healthy and fulfilling lives.
When Jesus was asked in the Gospel of Matthew to identify the greatest commandment, he responded that all of the law and the prophets hung on the commandments to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-40). As Christians, it is our responsibility to follow Jesus’ call by constantly searching for ways to widen this neighborly circle in order to do our part to contribute to the Kingdom of God on Earth. The American environmentalist Aldo Leopold once wrote in A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There that a “thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Is it too much to ask that we view Leopold’s ethic as sharing the same sentiment with Jesus’s gospel message of loving our neighbor? When we view this from the perspective of the Creation, one seamlessly follows from the other. In protecting Creation, we are protecting ourselves as well as our neighbors, local and global, human and non-human, and we are also protecting the Divine gift freely given to us that sustains us all. This is where we should begin to live out the Gospel message. If we are to truly show our love for God, we have to protect the Creation.
In the coming months, we look forward to this opportunity to go deeper with you on a variety of Environmental Ministry topics offering a message of hope for ways that we, as a community of faith, can discern how we may best work to protect and conserve the living systems of our planet. We hope you will join us in this conversation and start conversations of your own among your neighbors in your congregations and wider communities concerning how we might better care for the Divine gifts of life all around us so that we may all be sustained and renewed in God’s Creation.
David McDuffie is the chair of the Chartered Committee on Environmental Ministry.
