By David Gushee
Under the impact of a globally recognized ecological crisis, Christianity finds itself today in the midst of a major theological transition. Globally, it is moving from a religion generally uninterested in ecological concerns to one whose major leaders and many adherents take creation care quite seriously.
From a historical perspective, this transition is occurring relatively rapidly. But from the perspective of that strong majority of environmental scientists sounding loud alarms about the limited time the world has to make major changes, the pace of change is simply not fast enough. They are especially worried about American Christianity, because so many Americans are practicing Christians and because of America’s extraordinary role in the world, including our disproportionate contribution to global ecological problems and sluggishness in addressing them.
I am convinced that default understandings of the Christian message — especially in the American evangelical religiosity of one-fourth of the population — do contribute to this sluggishness in addressing ecological problems. Theology is not the only source of resistance, but it is a quite important factor.
I propose the following five theological paradigm shifts that will be needed to move the mass of evangelical and Baptist Christians toward an ecologically sensitive posture:
1) We must move from a dyadic theological narrative of the God-humanity relationship toward a more holistic narrative involving God, humanity, the non-human creatures and the creation itself.
Many Christians still operate from a theological vision in which the entire story is of God’s relationship to human beings, and humanity’s sinful — and sometimes faithful — response. But the Bible also offers considerable material about God’s relationship to the entire creation, God’s care for the other creatures, and humanity’s responsibilities toward both. To the extent that our default version of Christianity treats creation and other creatures merely as scenery, we are not likely to become ecologically sensitive followers of Christ.
2) We must move from a Fall-Redemption paradigm to at least a Creation-Fall-Redemption paradigm.
If you ask most everyday Christians to recite the basics of the Christian message, they will probably begin by saying that humans are sinners but God loved us enough to send Jesus into the world to die for our sins. They have learned their Roman Road well. But Paul himself would be happy to tell them that Fall and Redemption are nonsensical apart from a prior Creation. You have to be created to then become a sinner. In general, we need a stronger theology of creation, and such a theology is a natural entry point to paying attention to the ethics of creation care.
3) We must move from an individualistic narrative of personal sin and redemption to a global narrative of God’s creative, sustaining and redemptive relationship to the entire world.
I have witnessed endless baptisms in which the pastor asks the candidate why they seek baptism. The expected answer is something like, “Jesus is my Savior and Lord. I am forgiven of my sins.” This is a fine answer in its way, but constant reinforcement can lead to a systematic obscuring of the global story of God’s relationship to the world as a whole. God seeks the redemption of the whole world, not just individuals.
4) We must move from a narrative that culminates in a personal entry into heaven to one that envisions and invests in the renewal of all creation and the reign of God.
The working eschatology of most Christians is a personal one — when I die, I go to heaven. Despite the Left Behind series, I don’t think most Christians are operating from a powerful global eschatological framework at all. Their theology of redemption is personal, and so is their working eschatology. We need to globalize default understandings of Christian eschatology. And as we do that, we need to draw people toward a Kingdom-of-God, or “renewal-of-all-things,” kind of eschatology (Matt. 19:28), rather than a global-Armageddon eschatology. Our creation-care efforts are invested in a cosmos that God intends to renew rather than destroy.
5) We must move from an ethic that is internal and interpersonal to an ethic that is also social, structural and global.
This last point may be primarily ethical rather than theological, but it is linked to theology. Hyper-personalized theology leads to hyper-personalized ethics. Most everyday Christians understand their ethical responsibilities in terms of the purity of their inner lives and the integrity of their interpersonal relationships. These are laudable qualities, but this vision blocks attention to issues arising at the social, structural, economic or global level. We need to nurture Christians who understand the ethical significance of, say, their own economic and environmental decisions as well as those of their churches, communities, businesses and nations.