Western bishops, having cast off the shackles of musty dogma that have been accumulating around the church for the last couple of millennia, are searching earnestly for something that will make people pay attention to them. Something to make them relevant. Something to show the world that they are cool.
National Lutheran Bishop Susan Johnson has the answer. It doesn’t get much cooler than her jitterbug at the Anglican sacred phlogiston shindig:
From here:
Let us remember our first calling as human beings is caring for the Earth. So sacred is this calling that as Lutherans worldwide mark the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation in 2017 with an overall theme “Liberated by God’s Grace,” one of the subthemes is “Creation—not for sale.” So sacred is this calling to Anglicans worldwide that they hold among their Marks of Mission a commitment “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth.” This mark of mission is now reflected in the vows made in baptism.
I don’t dislike pollution any less than Fred Hiltz but, surely, “our first calling as human beings” – or, at least as Christians – is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the unsaved, not to “care for the earth.” The earth is not a sentient living thing made in God’s image, possessing a soul whose eternal destiny rests on whether or not it has received Christ’s free gift of salvation. It is just like the rest of the universe, a system which is subject to entropy; it is running down, degenerating gradually into disorder until God remakes it as part of the New Heavens and New Earth.
That is, unless, as appears to be the case for the purveyors of this Earth Day Statement, your god is Gaia.
On March the fifth, luminaries from Canadian Anglican and Lutheran churches, along with green politicians and assorted Gaia hangers on, will fast for climate change. The fasters include well known climatologists, Bishop Fred Hiltz and Bishop Susan Johnson. I hope they are successful because the climate needs to change: it was -24C in Oakville yesterday. Personally, I have set aside March 5th to have dinner at the local Mandarin where I will eat as much as possible.
The organiser of this worthy venture is Jennifer Henry from Kairos Canada. She reckons that the justice we most desperately need is not justice for the unborn who are routinely murdered in their thousands or for the increasing number of Christians who are being beheaded, tortured or displaced in so many places but climate justice, a incoherence which has no discernible meaning since climate is an inanimate phenomenon to which it is no more possible to act unjustly than to a bowl of porridge.
Still, to look on the bright side, Bishops not eating for a whole day will considerably reduce global flatulence; now if only they could be persuaded to stop talking.
From here:
“Fasting has long roots in our faith tradition,” says Henry. “The fast that God requires is justice and the justice we most desperately need is climate justice for all people who have been impacted, and will be impacted, by the current ecological catastrophe. Fasting for one day is a small gesture of solidarity for the hardship so many now face. Each and every one of our voices is essential to demand of the federal government an effective strategy to meet science-based emissions reductions targets in the lead up to the climate conference in Paris later this year.”
February and March are assigned to North Americans who are hungry for action on climate change. Notable leaders who agreed to fast one day during this period include the Rev. Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada (March 6); Rev. Susan Johnson, National Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (February 14); Rev. Mark MacDonald, the National Indigenous Bishop, Anglican Church of Canada (March 16); Mardi Tindal, Immediate Past Moderator, The United Church of Canada (March 19); Joe Gunn, Executive Director, Citizens for Public Justice (February 1); Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada (March 12); and Bill McKibben, author and co-founder of 350.org (March 30). Connie Sorio, KAIROS’ Ecological Justice Partnership Coordinator, will join the fast on February 28.
