Talking about climate change

A recent article in the Guardian got me thinking about the language we use when we speak about climate change. Looking back at some of my old articles on Christianity and the environment, I realize that I have not been particularly consistent in how I have referred to it. So, here are some thoughts on talking about climate change.

But first, it may be helpful to distinguish between weather and climate. Weather is what we get from day to day – rain today, sunshine tomorrow (or, since this is Scotland, probably more rain tomorrow). There is a degree of predictability to weather. In the UK, weather forecasts are usually reasonably accurate for the next week or ten days. Beyond that, there is a long-range forecast which is really just a broad-brush account of what we might expect over the coming month. But weather is (or, has been) predictable in another sense. Specifically, it is statistically predictable. It is possible to average the weather results over a number of years (typically 30 years) and arrive at reasonable estimates of the high and low temperatures or the average rainfall in a given month. This sort of statistical analysis allows meteorologists to define a number of climate types, such as such as Maritime, Mediterranean, Continental, or Laurentian. So, for example, Britain has (or had) a fairly typical Maritime climate with cool summers, mild winters, and fairly consistent rainfall throughout the year. To summarize, if weather is what we get, climate is what we can reasonably expect of the weather from season to season and from year to year.

That brings us to climate change. We have reasonably accurate weather records dating back perhaps a couple of centuries. In addition, we have historical, archaeological, palaeontological, and geological records that allow us to infer what the climates were at various locales into the distant past. From these results, it is clear that climates are dynamic. Climates change over time.

I want to underline that climate change is a neutral term. It encompasses both warming and cooling. And it applies both to natural cycles of warming and cooling and to human impact on climates. The term does not imply that such changes are gradual or continuous, but gradualism is a deep-rooted assumption of western science, so there is a tendency to assume that as climates change they will do so in a steady, predictable manner.

The term global warming (or heating) is slightly more specific than climate change. It reflects what has been observed over the past century or more – a steady, gradual warming of climates around the world. Again, note that the term is neutral as to the cause of the warming. My main criticism of ‘global warming’ is that it is too narrow. It focuses exclusively on one aspect of climate. As important are changes in rainfall over time – for example, the progressive desertification of formerly fertile land as rainfall patterns change. Changes in wind patterns and speeds are also significant, resulting, for example, in changing hurricane behaviour. So, perhaps we should avoid this term.

So far, so empirical. But scientists are not content simply to observe and categorize phenomena. Real science seeks to determine the cause(s) of observed phenomenon. In the case of climate change over the past century plus, there is a clear correlation between the degree of warming and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Granted, correlation does not prove causation, but it has long been known that atmospheric carbon dioxide has a significant insulating effect, so it is reasonable to conclude that this is the cause of the warming. Further, the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide correlates suspiciously well with the industrialization of the world since Victorian times. This has led the vast majority of climate scientists, meteorologists, and atmospheric physicists to conclude that the observed climate change is in large part a result of human pollution. In other words, much of the observed current climate change is anthropogenic.

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ because of the tendency to infer from such language that this is a gradual process. So, for example, Mike Hulme of Cambridge University recently asserted that

Rather than imagining cliff edges or crevasses, a better metaphor to think with is the picture of a gradient. Every 0.1C of global warming that occurs increases some of the risks associated with climate change; with every 0.1C avoided some of those risks are reduced.

There is some truth in what he says. But it downplays the very real possibility that relatively small changes in one part of the global climate system can lead to rapid and dramatic changes in climate types around the world.

In view of such a possibility, some people urge us to speak of a climate crisis. They do so from the best of motives, wishing to impart a degree of urgency to the social and political response to climate change. However, I am reluctant to go down this road because it creates the false impression that this is a relatively recent sudden event that can be addressed in the same sort of way as putting an economy on a war footing or responding to a pandemic. It is not. Any adequate response must be a long-term one. Other terms that sometimes appear in the literature are climate catastrophe and climate apocalypse. But this is the language of the fatalist who sees no hope for the human race.

How about referring to our situation as one of anthropogenic climate breakdown? This has the advantage of avoiding the gradualism implicit in talking about change or warming. If we keep pumping energy into the atmosphere and the oceans what we get will not be a simple slow (or fast) increase in temperatures around the world. Rather, what we will see is increasing turbulence and increasing unpredictability. For example, it seems increasingly likely that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (which underlies the Gulf Stream) will collapse by about 2050 (see Detlevsen & Detlevsen 2023). If that happens, it will have a dramatic impact on climates around the world. On the other hand, talking about a breakdown may be misleading. We are not talking about a failure of climate (whatever that might mean) but of dramatic changes in climatic types around the world (which will be unpredictable because of the sheer complexity of the global climate system).

Where does this leave us? Should we talk about climate transformations rather than breakdown? None of the alternatives seem terribly satisfactory. So, for the time being, I think I will opt for the ‘conservative’ position of continuing to use ‘anthropogenic climate change’. But I will keep looking for a better alternative.

The joy of photography

I am feeling really pleased with myself. Yesterday, I got the results of a photography course I took recently. The course was TG089 Digital Photography: Creating and Sharing Better Images run jointly by the Open University and the Royal Photographic Society. I passed with an overall score of 93%!! So, by way of celebration, here is one of the shots from the portfolio I submitted:

I suppose you could call it ‘New Vienna reflecting Old Vienna’. It shows the Haas Haus in the centre of Vienna.

All my Interzone reviews

There is a page about me on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database! It lists all my book reviews for Interzone. Here is the list for anyone who might be interested in such things:

• The Kingdom Beyond the Waves (2008) by Stephen Hunt
• The Mystery of Grace (2009) by Charles de Lint
• Lavinia (2009) by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Storm Glass (2009) by Maria V. Snyder
• Naamah’s Kiss (2010) by Jacqueline Carey
• Wolfsangel (2010) by M. D. Lachlan
• The Very Best of Charles de Lint (2010) by Charles de Lint
• Corvus (2011) by Paul Kearney
• Fenrir (2011) by M. D. Lachlan
• The Urban Fantasy Anthology (2011) by Peter S. Beagle and Joe R. Lansdale
• Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy (2011) by Ellen Datlow
• White Tiger (2012) by Kylie Chan
• Babylon Steel (2012) by Gaie Sebold
• Irenicon (2012) by Aidan Harte
• Helix Wars (2013) by Eric Brown
• Dangerous Gifts (2013) by Gaie Sebold
• The Warring States (2013) by Aidan Harte
• Hide Me Among the Graves (2013) by Tim Powers
• Drakenfeld (2014) by Mark Charan Newton
• Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction (2014) by Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson
• Son of the Morning (2014) by Mark Alder
• Retribution (2015) by Mark Charan Newton
• Chasing the Phoenix (2015) by Michael Swanwick
• Testament (2016) by Hal Duncan
• Children of Earth and Sky (2016) by Guy Gavriel Kay
• The Wolf in the Attic (2016) by Paul Kearney
• Isra Isle (2016) by Nava Semel
• Empire Games (2017) by Charles Stross
• The House of Binding Thorns (2017) by Aliette de Bodard
• Under the Pendulum Sun (2017) by Jeannette Ng
• Dark State (2018) by Charles Stross
• Revenant Gun (2018) by Yoon Ha Lee
• The Mortal Word (2019) by Genevieve Cogman
• A Brightness Long Ago (2019) by Guy Gavriel Kay

Back issues of Interzone are not archived on the Net, so I used to post my reviews to my old blog after a suitable time lag. I plan to repost some of them here (at least, those books I think are worth re-reading). If you would like me to post a particular review, let me know via the comments.

Evangelicals and climate change scepticism

Here is a paper I wrote some years ago for a meeting of a local group of Christians in Science:

Introduction

On 1st March 2007 a small but influential group of evangelicals headed by James Dobson wrote an open letter to the National Association of Evangelicals in the USA. The purpose of the letter was to complain about Richard Cizik, a vice president of the NAE. Specifically, they objected to his public support for action to protect the environment in general and, in particular, action against global warming, which they perceived as ‘dividing and demoralizing the NAE and its leaders’ (Dobson et al. 2007: 1). They feared that if members of the NAE took him seriously, they would be diverted from the real issues facing American evangelicals, specifically ‘the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children’ (Dobson et al. 2007: 1). Moreover, they feared that a growing concern for the environment could lead evangelicals into political alliances with ideological opponents. The combined effect could be to undermine American evangelicalism. Just a few months earlier, a larger group of evangelicals signed an open letter rebuffing ‘Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action’, a manifesto published by the Evangelical Climate Initiative in February 2006. A more extensive piece of work along the same lines was published by the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance in 2006.

As Richard Wright (2000) points out, scepticism about environmentalism is nothing new among conservative evangelicals. But it seems that, as public attention has focused on global warming as the key environmental issue, so too has the attention of the evangelical sceptics.

The Sceptics’ Strategy

The strategy of the sceptics has been to sow doubts in the minds of uncommitted evangelicals on a number of issues.

The reality of global warming

The sceptics do not deny that the earth’s climate is a dynamic system. They accept that the climate has changed in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

However, some evangelical climate sceptics put great emphasis on the theoretical nature of anthropogenic global warming, comparing it with Darwin’s theory of evolution, Hawking’s theory of information loss in black holes, and the phlogiston theory of heat. For example,

Ever seen a monkey give birth to a human? But, we’re told, the fossil record and the Galapagos Islands and the duck-billed platypus and a whole host of other factors are all best explained by the theory of evolution. So too, we are told, that various factors relating to the amount of ‘greenhouse gases’ and a measurable change in earth’s temperature are all best explained by the theory popularly known as ‘global warming.’ (Smith 2007)

The comparison with Darwin is, of course, an appeal to an evangelical shibboleth designed to sow doubts in the minds of conservative evangelicals for whom evolutionary theory is one of the hallmarks of secularism. Beyond that, the emphasis on the theoretical nature of anthropogenic global warming plays upon popular understandings of the term ‘theoretical’, which particularly in American English tends to be equated with ‘hypothetical’ or ‘speculative’.

The anthropogenic dimension of global warming

However, most sceptics do not deny global warming outright. Instead one of their main tactics is to question the scientific evidence for a significant anthropogenic element to global warming. According to Calvin Beisner and his colleagues, ‘our knowledge of climate history also reveals substantial natural variability. The mechanisms driving natural climate variations are too poorly understood to be included accurately in computer climate models. Hence, the models risk overstating human influence.’ (Beisner et al. 2006: 3) They contend that a range of natural causes such as fluctuations in solar output, changes in cloud forcing, and precipitation microphysics may be more significant than human carbon dioxide emissions. Writing in First Things, Thomas Sieger Derr is more definite:

The likeliest cause of current climate trends seems to be solar activity, perhaps in combination with galactic cosmic rays caused by supernovas, especially because there is some good observable correlation between solar magnetism output and terrestrial climate change. (Derr 2004)

In common with many climate change sceptics, both religious and secular, Derr also suggests that the recent warming trend is just a blip in a larger natural cycle and that temperatures at the present day are still lower than they were during the Middle Ages.

The effects and severity of global warming

In recent years, popular environmentalism has tended to play up the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming, presumably in the hope that the fear factor will galvanize governments into taking the problem seriously.

By contrast, the sceptics tend to minimize the possible effects. For example, Beisner et al. claim that a temperature rise of about 3 °C is unlikely to be catastrophic,

because CO₂-induced warming will occur mostly in winter, mostly in polar regions, and mostly at night. But in polar regions, where winter night temperatures range far below freezing, an increase of 5.4 °F is hardly likely to cause significant melting of polar ice caps or other problems. (Beisner et al. 2006: 4)

More generally, the sceptics tend to highlight the uncertainties in scientific papers on global warming and emphasize the most conservative estimates of the impact of global warming as evidence that fears of catastrophic climate change are unfounded. For example, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance cites the fact that the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Review has revised downwards some of the potential impacts of global warming as evidence of ‘the collapse of the catastrophic human-induced global warming dogma’.

But they are not just concerned to minimize the possible negative effects. They also highlight potential benefits of global warming: longer growing seasons in high latitudes; new living spaces in the tundra. Yes, a changing climate may mean drought in some places, but it will also mean increased rainfall in others. Global warming will increase the activity of the climate system, leading to a global increase in rainfall. Furthermore, they argue that increased carbon dioxide levels may actually benefit many food crops.

The efficacy of carbon dioxide emission controls

The sceptics maintain that Kyoto-style emission controls are simply not cost effective. This is hardly surprising, given that they believe human greenhouse gas emissions play only a relatively small part in climate change.

Furthermore, they point out that a system of such controls driven by Western economic interests could lead to greater injustice by denying development opportunities to the Third World. Specifically, ‘Because energy is an essential component in almost all economic production, reducing its use and driving up its costs will slow economic development, reduce overall productivity, and increase costs of all goods, including the food, clothing, shelter, and other goods most essential to the poor.’ (Beisner et al. 2006: 12) Ironically, given the political conservatism of the global warming sceptics, this is an argument first adopted against Western environmentalists by anti-colonialist neo-Marxists in the 1960s.

The motives of the climate change lobby

While some climate change sceptics argue that action to limit anthropogenic global warming will harm the poor, others discern a completely different political motivation behind policies like the Kyoto Protocols. Thus, writing in First Things, Thomas Sieger Derr asserts that

The IPCC is a UN body and reflects UN politics, which are consistently favorable to developing countries, the majority of its members. Those politics are very supportive of the Kyoto treaty, which not only exempts the developing countries from emissions standards but also requires compensatory treatment from the wealthier nations for any economic restraints that new climate management policies may impose on these developing countries. Were Kyoto to be implemented as written, the developing countries would gain lots of money and free technology. One need not be a cynic to grasp that a UN body will do obeisance to these political realities wherever possible. (Derr 2004)

Another possible motive imputed to those who are concerned about climate change by Derr is ‘a somewhat murky antipathy to modern technological civilization as the destroyer of a purer, cleaner, more “natural” life’ (Derr 2004).

The Underlying Theology

In light of Derr’s comments about the motives of those who are concerned about climate change, it would be tempting to dismiss the sceptics as simply having sold out their faith to the ideology of secular capitalism and Republican/neocon politics. And one might point to the fact that the leading theoreticians of the sceptics’ position belong to the Acton Institute for Religious Freedom, a think tank that has received significant funding from the Exxon oil corporation. (For a more detailed account of the political commitments of Christian anti-environmentalism, see Wright 1995). However, to limit ourselves to a political analysis would be to overlook that they believe they have good theological reasons for the position they have taken.

Rejecting the myth of the given

One of the more recent myths of (late) modernity might be called the myth of the given: we find ourselves in (Heidegger would have said ‘we are thrown into’) a finite world with finite natural resources. It is a closed system and the size of the cake is fixed. The finitude of the natural world did not matter during the expansion of modernity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But when every continent has been mapped, every ocean sailed, and much of the mineral wealth of the developed countries has been mined out, attitudes change.

Against the common-sense view that we have been thrown (as it were by chance) into this limited resource, which must therefore be husbanded carefully, evangelical environmental sceptics quite rightly remind us that the Christian doctrine of creation asserts an altogether more positive view. The world is not a hostile environment into which chance has thrown us. Rather, it is God’s good gift. Furthermore, it is open to God and it is sustained by God.

Drawing on the reality of God’s continuing care for creation, the climate change sceptics question whether God would allow the earth to be damaged by human activities of filling, subduing and ruling the whole earth as mandated in Genesis 1:28. According to the New Testament scholar Wayne Grudem,

It does not seem likely to me that God would set up the world to work in such a way that human beings would eventually destroy the earth by doing such ordinary and morally good and necessary things as breathing, building a fire to cook or keep warm, burning fuel to travel, or using energy for a refrigerator to preserve food. (Cited in ISA 2007)

It has to be admitted that God’s care for creation is a point often overlooked by Christian environmentalists. The world in which we live has not simply been left to its own devices by an absent God. On the contrary, God actively cares for God’s creation.

But how far can we take faith in God’s active care for creation? Grudem’s comment begs the question of which human activities in the modern world are ‘ordinary and morally good and necessary’. Some evangelical climate sceptics seem to think that in God’s covenant with Noah we have an implied promise that the earth will never be subjected to another environmental catastrophe on the scale of the Noahic flood. Thus Beisner and colleagues argue that

a Biblical theology of Earth stewardship will recognize the superintending hand of God protecting the Earth. Particularly when it is combined with our earlier observations about the resiliency of the Earth because of God’s wise design, this ought to make Christians inherently skeptical of claims that this or that human action threatens permanent and catastrophic damage to the Earth.’ (Spencer et al. 2005: 17)

While Beisner and colleagues are content with scepticism, others take this as a virtual carte blanche for human impact on the environment.

An anthropocentric interpretation of dominion

However, evangelical climate sceptics are not content to reassert that the world is God’s good gift. They also insist that it is God’s good gift to us. The raison d’être of the non-human is to serve the human.

Thus nature is ours to use for the benefit of the human race as a whole. It is but a small step from this to the assertion that it is sinful not to make full use of the world for our benefit. For example, the dominion mandate is seen as a manifesto for the transformation of the earth into a garden city. (Not so very different from the metaphor of spaceship earth that used to be bandied around by technocentric environmentalists – the nightmare vision of the earth as a totally managed environment.)

The absolutization of human freedom

There is a very strong emphasis on human freedom in the theology of the climate sceptics. And, of course, freedom is a fundamental part of any Christian anthropology (since we are made in the image of a God who is free).

However, it would appear from some of their writings that they believe human freedom to be unconstrained save by the direct moral commandment of God. And whatever is not explicitly forbidden by divine command is permitted.

I can’t help feeling that those who think along these lines fall easy prey to the modern notion that whatever is permitted is compulsory. Take, for example, a recent debate among American evangelicals about driving large gas-guzzling vehicles. The line of the climate sceptics seems to be that any attempt to question the morality of driving such vehicles is tantamount to an attack on our God-given freedom.

Dominium Terrae: an alternative interpretation

Our vocation to rule the earth is made plain in Scripture. The issue is how we are to exercise that vocation. My contention is that the evangelical environmental sceptics have badly misread Scripture at this point.

The etymology of the terms used in Genesis may suggest that dominion be equated with selfish tyranny, but the ideology of kingship we find in the Old Testament implies that the king is the servant of the people he rules. In any case, we are called not to be kings but representatives of the King of kings. The vocation to rule the earth is set firmly in the context of our being created as God’s image within creation: the representatives of the Servant King.

As part of that representative dominion, we are given freedom to use the earth’s resources to meet our needs. In the creation stories we are given the plants, while in the Noahic covenant we are given every living thing. But even that limited use of natural resources is hedged around by divinely imposed limits later in the Pentateuch. Gleaning to the edge of a field is forbidden as are double cropping and clear felling of an enemy’s orchards. And we are commanded to let the land lie fallow one year in seven.

Furthermore, the sceptics are simply wrong to assume that the world is God’s good gift to us alone. Rather Genesis 1 paints a picture of an ordered environment (including autotrophs) that is God’s good gift to all heterotrophs (including humans). A similar point is made in Psalm 104 and the later chapters of Job.

Contrary to the complacency of those who look to the Noahic covenant as a guarantee that no environmental disaster will befall us, the Bible repeatedly uses the motif of a reversal of creation (accompanied by the imagery of the Flood) as a warning of what will befall a disobedient people. To take just one example, consider the Bible’s interpretation of the reversion of the Promised Land to wilderness during the Exile.

So, we are given the freedom to use the world to meet our physical needs. I can agree with Grudem that necessary use of resources will not lead to environmental catastrophe. But there is no mandate within Scripture for our exploitation of the environment to satisfy the conspicuous overconsumption of the developed world (and particularly the United States).

References

Beisner, E. Calvin, Paul K. Driessen, Ross McKitrick and Roy W. Spencer (2006) ‘A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming’ Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. Available online at http://www.ecalvinbeisner.com/farticles/CalltoTruth.pdf.

Derr, Thomas Sieger (2004) ‘Strange Science’, First Things (November). Available online at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=395.

Dobson, James et al. (2007) Letter to Chairman of the Board, National Association of Evangelicals, 1 March. Available online at http://www.citizenlink.org/pdfs/NAELetterFinal.pdf.

Evangelical Climate Initiative (2006) ‘Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action’. Available online at http://www.christiansandclimate.org/statement.

Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (2007) ‘An Open Letter to the Signers of “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action” and Others Concerned About Global Warming’. Available online at http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/OpenLetter.pdf.

Smith, Jeremy (2007) ‘Petroleum Pundits’, reformation21. Available online at http://www.reformation21.org/Past_Issues/2007_Issues_17_27_/2007_Issues_17_27_Counterpoints/Counterpoints_March_2007/Counterpoints_March_2007/307/vobId__5439/

Spencer, Roy W., Paul K. Driessen and E. Calvin Beisner (2005) ‘An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical and Theological Implications of Climate Change Policy’, Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. Available online at http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/ISA_Climate_Change.pdf.

Wright, Richard T. (1995) ‘Tearing Down the Green: Environmental Backlash in the Evangelical Sub-Culture’, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 47: 80–91. Available online at http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1995/PSCF6-95Wright.html.

Wright, Richard T. (2000) ‘The Declaration under Siege’ in R. J. Berry (ed.), The Care of Creation: Focusing concern and action (Leicester: IVP), pp. 74–9.

Theology as stamp collecting?

Some time ago, I dipped into a widely used evangelical systematic theology: Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. On the very first page, he defines systematic theology in the following terms:

Systematic theology is any study that answers the question, “What does the whole Bible teach us today?” about any given topic.

This definition indicates that systematic theology involves collecting and understanding all the relevant passages in the Bible on various topics and then summarizing their teachings clearly so that we know what to believe about each topic.

This may seem innocuous enough to some readers, but it put me in mind of certain older philosophies of science. Specifically, the view that the task of the scientist is merely to gather and summarize observations in order to establish various more or less simple ‘laws of nature’. One suspects this was the view of science to which Ernest Rutherford was objecting when he said, ‘All science is either physics or stamp collecting.’

Like Rutherford, I think this ‘stamp collecting’ approach to science is inadequate. Science should be about more than merely summarizing observations. Rather, it involves the proposing and testing of theories – proposing models to explain how the world works – e.g. light behaves like a wave. Further, most physicists regard their theories as models of what is really going on rather than merely as heuristic devices for making predictions about the world. What is really of interest is not the prediction of particular experimental outcomes but the model itself as an understanding of reality.

Nor is ‘stamp collecting’ an adequate approach to theology. Theology is more than a mere summary of what the Bible says. Faith seeks understanding: drawing out the implications of what the Bible says to get a better understanding of God and God’s relation with the world. For example, there is no way you can arrive at the full orthodox doctrine of the Trinity if you strictly limit yourself to summarizing what the Bible says on the topic. And yet the doctrine of the Trinity is the very foundation of orthodox Christian belief.

How then should we approach theology? My own preference is for the answer given by Robert Jenson in the introduction to his little book Story and Promise: A Brief Theology of the Gospel about Jesus (Fortress Press, 1973):

Theology is the persistent asking and disciplined answering of the question: Given that the Christian community has in the past said and done such-and-such, what should it do now? The question may be divided: (1) What has the Christian community in fact said and done? and, (2) What should it say and do in the future? The first sub-question, pursued within the context of the whole question, gives historical theology. The second sub-question, likewise only when pursued within the context of the whole question, gives systematic theology. (p. vii)

Why human beings are essential to creation

Ursula Le Guin’s essay collection The Language of the Night is full of interesting and thought-provoking material about science fiction and fantasy. But the last time I read it, the passage that really jumped out at me did so because it strikes me as having real theological significance:

We are subjects, and whoever among us treats us as objects is acting inhumanly, wrongly, against nature. And with us, nature, the great Object, its tirelessly burning suns, its turning galaxies and planets, its rocks, seas, fish and ferns and fir trees and little furry animals, all have become, also, subjects. As we are part of them, so they are part of us. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. We are their consciousness. If we stop looking, the world goes blind. If we cease to speak and listen, the world goes deaf and dumb. If we stop thinking, there is no thought. If we destroy ourselves, we destroy consciousness. (Language of the Night, p. 100)

For me, this comes close to expressing what is meant in Genesis when it speaks of human dominion over the rest of creation. I could imagine finding these words in a text interpreting Maximus the Confessor’s idea of the mediatorial role of humans in the created order. I certainly did not expect to find them in an essay by a woman who once described herself as an inconsistent Taoist and a consistent unChristian!

John Chrysostom on capitalism

While preaching on 1 Corinthians 13, John Chrysostom makes some damning comments about the rich that strike me as directly applicable to capitalism. In what follows, by ‘the rich’ he means those who need not work with their hands because their capital provides them with an ample income. And ‘the poor’ are ordinary workmen and women.

[L]et us suppose, if it seem good, two cities, the one of rich only, but the other of poor; and neither in that of the rich let there be any poor man, nor in that of the poor any rich; but let us purge out both thoroughly, and see which will be the more able to support itself. For if we find that of the poor able, it is evident that the rich will more stand in need of them.

Now then, in that city of the affluent there will be no manufacturer, no builder, no carpenter, no shoe-maker, no baker, no husbandman, no brazier, no rope-maker, nor any other such trade. For who among the rich would ever choose to follow these crafts, seeing that the very men who take them in hand, when they become rich, endure no longer the discomfort caused by these works? How then shall this our city stand? “The rich,” it is replied, “giving money, will buy these things of the poor.” Well then, they will not be sufficient for themselves, their needing the others proves that. But how will they build houses? Will they purchase this too? But the nature of things cannot admit this. Therefore they must needs invite the artificers thither, and destroy the law, which we made at first when we were founding the city. For you remember, that we said, “let there be no poor man within it.” But, lo, necessity, even against our will, hath invited and brought them in. Whence it is evident that it is impossible without poor for a city to subsist: since if the city were to continue refusing to admit any of these, it will be no longer a city but will perish. Plainly then it will not support itself, unless it shall collect the poor as a kind of preservers, to be within itself.

But let us look also upon the city of the poor, whether this too will be in a like needy condition, on being deprived of the rich. And first let us in our discourse thoroughly clear the nature of riches, and point them out plainly. What then may riches be? Gold, and silver, and precious stones, and garments silken, purple, and embroidered with gold. Now then that we have seen what riches are, let us drive them away from our city of the poor: and if we are to make it purely a city of poor persons, let not any gold appear there, no not in a dream, nor garments of such quality; and if you will, neither silver, nor vessels of silver. What then? Because of this will that city and its concerns live in want, tell me? Not at all. For suppose first there should be need to build; one does not want gold and silver and pearls, but skill, and hands, and hands not of any kind, but such as are become callous, and fingers hardened, and great strength, and wood, and stones: suppose again one would weave a garment, neither here have we need of gold and silver, but, as before, of hands and skill, and women to work. And what if one require husbandry, and digging the ground? Is it rich men who are wanted, or poor? It is evident to every one, poor. And when iron too is to be wrought, or any such thing to be done, this is the race of men whereof we most stand in need. What respect then remains wherein we may stand in need of the rich? except the thing required be, to pull down this city. For should that sort of people make an entrance . . . they will ruin everything from that day forward. (John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians 34.8)

To be clear, he does recognize that God may grant an individual wealth. This is not directed against wealth as such. But in his view the only justification for wealth is that it enables the possessor to give generously to those in need.

On creative borrowing

Here’s an interesting passage on borrowing and creativity from an interview with the American artist Joy Garnett in the journal Cultural Politics:

[V]isual art functions according to the principles of open source, and it always has been open source – art can’t be made otherwise. In other words, borrowing and direct referencing – various forms of ‘copying’ – are the basis of creativity. You would think we might understand that by now, that our understanding of art history would take us well beyond the cliché of artist as lone inspired genius conduit. In truth, all creativity is collaboration, whether one is conscious of it or not. What we call ‘influence’ is nothing if not quotation and allusion. Our culture is generated and driven collectively, and the whole point is to dip in and take parts and change them, to make them ‘new’. To make art is to copy on some profound level, and to copy is of course to communicate: to act as receiver, transformer and transmitter.

The words jumped out at me because I have often thought the same about writing fantasy, and even more so about doing theology! Certainly, this is the case with Christian theology – novelty is not a theological virtue; theologians should only express themselves in new ways if the novelty is necessary for them to remain faithful to the gospel in the face of a changing culture and language.