DTS-Studies-God_creation-2009_127-144.pdf

Wisdom Cosmology and Climate Change 125 result is an atmosphere overloaded with greenhouse gases and a disrup- tion of the existing balance in the “ways” or laws of nature. The...

Wisdom Cosmology and Climate Change 125 result is an atmosphere overloaded with greenhouse gases and a disrup- tion of the existing balance in the “ways” or laws of nature. The dilemma we now face is a change in climate patterns. The pre- vious codes which governed the cycle and pattern of the winds, seas, storms and droughts seem to have been disrupted. The laws that govern the weather patterns seem to have changed. I illustrate from the 2009 bushfires in the State of Victoria in Australia. As a boy on the farm, I knew the “way” of bushfires. I knew the force of the hot north wind, the speed of the fire and the time needed to prepare for the actual flames. I knew how to burn firebreaks to retard the fire. With climate change, all of these factors have changed. On Black Satur- day, all the known patterns of a bushfire were transcended. Instead of a cluster of eucalyptus trees engulfed in flames, imagine a tsunami, a wall of fire crashing through towns and leaving nothing in its wake. The intensity of the typical bushfire had changed. Instead of plumes of swirling smoke and burning leaves flying into the sky, imagine a tornado with massive balls of fire leaping over an entire valley and landing on houses on the opposite hillside. The height and force of the typical bushfire had changed. Instead of ferocious flames fanned by a hot north wind, imagine a hurricane like Katrina, with temperatures of 110O F, blasts of over 100 miles an hour and fierce fires, like open mouths, consuming all in their path. The heat of the typical bushfire had changed. With climate change have come increased hot spells, decreased rainfalls and unfriendly weather patterns. The rise of C0 2 in the atmo- sphere has led to increased vegetation in the region, much of which is tinder dry on a day like Black Saturday. We are no longer prepared for disasters like these. One hundred and seventy people were burned alive. More than 7,000 people are homeless. Graham Mills, from the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research is quoted in The Australian as saying, “the conditions that lead to extreme fire weather are heat, low humidity, wind and drought … On Saturday the temperature set new records. … When you get those conditions, nobody has really had experience of them ever before.”  The Australian, 10 February 2009, at www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25031133- 28737,00.html, accessed June 2009. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2125 125 05/08/2009 16:32:59 PM  126 God, Creation and Climate Change With Black Saturday the paradigm of a typical bushfire has changed, the furor intensified and the classic bushfire scenario superseded. The “way” of the bushfire we once knew has been superseded. This example can be multiplied. The way of the seemingly eternal ice caps has changed and seas are rising. The ways of the storm, the drought and the floods have changed. The way of the ocean is changing as villages, like those on the shores of Orissa on the Bay of Bengal, are inundated by incoming waters. With these changes in the codes of our climate, how do we interpret our cosmos? If God were to search for wisdom, the governing design behind our climate, what would God find today? The same wisdom? A damaged blueprint? An emerging new design? Conclusion Assuming the above wisdom cosmology is relevant in an age when we speak of genetic codes, habitats and interdependent ecosystems, what would wisdom mean, both in terms of human searching and divine de- sign? Or, in terms of the narrator of Job, where can wisdom be found? What would wisdom mean as we face the colliding codes in a changing climate? How do we redress the balance? Or, if wisdom herself were to speak, would she say again, “I am the way that precedes the works, the presence that informs the process?” James Lovelock may respond by claiming that earth herself will cry aloud and take revenge on humanity. He claims that “global heating” is pushing us to the brink of destruction. “We live in a planet,” he claims,” that can respond to the changes we make either by canceling the changes or canceling us.” The issue before us in this context is how wisdom will respond and just as importantly, how will we respond. Perhaps the answer is that if we wish to acquire wisdom in the current climate crisis we need to review each of the statements summarizing the wisdom cosmology given above, and ask whether we respect this truth and how we might to restore harmony with each code—be it genetic or other—with each domain or ecosystem and with that mysterious integrating design or blueprint that we call wisdom.  James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia (London: Allen Lane, 2006). DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2126 126 05/08/2009 16:32:59 PM  127 Black Saturday  Norman Habel Amazing flames that scorch the sky, Like hurricanes of fire, Alive with eucalyptus oil, Are roaring higher and higher. These swirling balls of oil ablaze, That leap o’er trees at will, Descend on fields and flock and homes, Explode and burn and kill. Where’s God in all this swirling ash? Where’s God in all this pain? Awaiting somewhere in the sky To one day send some rain? The face of God is burnt and black; The hands of God are red! The God we know in Jesus Christ Is bleeding with the dead. Is this, O God, the shock we need To face our life ahead, Adjusting to a Greenhouse Age When we must share our bread? Christ, show us now your hands and feet, The burns across your side To show you suffer with the Earth, By fires crucified!  Tune: Amazing Grace. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2127 127 05/08/2009 16:32:59 PM DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2128 128 05/08/2009 16:32:59 PM  129 God’s Lament for the Earth: Climate Change, Apocalypse and the Urgent Kairos Moment Barbara Rossing As we face rising waters, hunger, and displacement, God suffers with us. As we mourn the distress and wounds of God’s creation, God weeps with us. As we struggle for justice, God struggles with us. As we expose and challenge climate injustice, God empowers us. A recurring question among victims of climate change in Asia, the Arctic and other regions is, Why is God punishing us? In the Puri district of India, the village of Chhenu has already been submerged by rising seas and storm surges. Other villages, such as Udaykani, Rahakandal and Bali Bonfalo, face future relocation because of climate change. Village women took our hands to show us the encroach- ing ocean, just beyond the edge of their villages. Rows of little casuarina trees, planted by the local Women’s Forest Protection Committee with help from Lutheran World Service (LWS), hold back the erosion of the shoreline dunes. One village’s well, located next to the Hindu temple, became undrinkable two years ago due to salination from a rising water table. Now there is only one private well for drinking water.  Call to Worship, Eucharist Worship Service, 19 April 2009, Puri, India, written by George Zachariah and recent graduates of Gurukul Lutheran Theological College.  The connections between gender and climate change are striking. In Tanzania, “red-eyed women” have been accused of being witches. Women and girls who have to walk longer distances for water because of deforestation and draught are more vulnerable to assault and rape. See, for example, Resource Guide on Gender and Climate Change (United Nations Development Programme, 2009) at www.ungei.org/resources/files/genderandclimate.pdf, accessed June 2009. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2129 129 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  130 God, Creation and Climate Change Whether in Puri, India, or in the Arctic Lutheran village of Shish- mare thousands of miles away, severe storm surges and rising seas are forcing entire communities of people, with whom the Lutheran communion relates, to become climate refugees. Houses topple into the sea, traditional fishing and agricultural economies are decimated, and villagers are forced to relocate. In Tanzania, mosquitoes have ar- rived in villages on the slope of Mt Kilimanjaro that had hitherto never experienced malaria. Medical effects such as the increasing spread of malaria and other vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever have led medical organizations to name the climate crisis as the most urgent public health crisis facing our world.  Traditional village communities throughout the world are experiencing the cruelest injustice of global climate change: it is the world’s poorest people—those who have done the least to cause the problem of climate change—who are the first to suffer its catastrophic effects. Where is God in this crisis? “I think nature is paying us for our sins,” one village leader in Orissa reflects.  Deep spiritual questions about God’s disfavor and punishment are a common response to the experience of calamitous disruptions in normal weather patterns, whether among Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or indigenous villagers. Participants in the LWF encounter in Puri, Orissa, India, prayed a litany that brought forward a different theological perspective—that of lament—in response to the rising waters and displacement caused by climate change. This litany gives voice to a crucial theological and bibli- cal insight: that “God weeps with us. God suffers with us. God struggles with us.” God laments with us…. But God does not curse us. To be sure, it is possible to read the Bible in a way that interprets catastrophic weather as God’s curse or punishment for people’s sin. Some verses from the Book of Revelation and other biblical texts can be read to foster such an interpretation. But especially since the people most severely affected are not the same people whose sin caused the problem, interpretations of climate change in terms of punishment for sin can be highly problematic. In seeking a more pastoral biblical response we  The Lancet Commissions in Great Britain recently concluded that, “Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” See, The Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission, Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change (16 May 2009), p. 1693, at www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health/ucl-lancet-climate-change.pdf, accessed June 2009.  Richard Mahapatra, “Climate Change in Orissa – Part Two,” at www.worldproutassembly. org/archives /2006/04/climate_change_5.html, accessed June 2009. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2130 130 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  God’s Lament for the Earth 131 can draw on other scriptural traditions, exploring how God is lamenting with us, crying out on behalf of the earth and its communities against imperial oppressors. In this article, I shall draw on the apocalyptic and prophetic voices of Scripture to develop that interpretation that God laments with us and with the earth, crying out against oppression. I will primarily focus on the Book of Revelation. I will also draw on the prophet Jonah and the story of the Ninevites’ repentance as a positive model for systemic change on the part of a major world empire facing imminent destruction, in response to God’s urgent prophetic word. In seeking to read the story of Revelation in a way that foregrounds God’s urgent grief and lament for our world rather than God’s punishment or curse, I will emphasize four elements of the book’s message, focusing on the final depiction of the New Jerusalem as the healing vision toward which the entire book builds: First, in Revelation, there are frequent statements of “woe” over the earth. The intent of these statements is not to pronounce God’s curse against the earth. Rather, these declarations are a divine lament or cry on behalf of the world—bemoaning the devastating conquest of earth by the unjust Roman Empire. The Greek word ouai therefore is best translated not as a pronouncement of “woe” but rather as a cry of mourning, “How awful!” or “Alas!” Second, a strong sense of an impending “end” pervades the entire Book of Revelation; however, the “end” that the book envisions is not primarily the destruction of the earth or the end of the created world. Rather, Revelation envisions an end not to the earth itself but to the imperial order of oppression and destruction. Third, the plagues of ecological destruction in the Book of Revela- tion are modeled on the plagues of the story in Exodus of Israel’s liberation from oppression in Egypt, with the first-century Roman Empire cast in the role of Egypt. As with the Exodus story, the plagues in Revelation are warnings to repent, not predictions of devastation for its own sake. Their goal is liberation, not environ- mental destruction. As in the story of the prophet Jonah’s preach- ing to Nineveh, if the oppressors repent, the terrible plagues will not be carried out. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2131 131 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  132 God, Creation and Climate Change Fourth, Revelation culminates in a final vision of the New Jerusalem, one of the most earth-centered visions of our future in the whole Bible—an apocalyptic wake-up call that can renew our sense of ethical urgency and deepen our ecological commitments. Revela- tion places the Christian community at an ethical crossroads—a kairos moment—facing a choice between Babylon/Rome or citizen- ship in God’s New Jerusalem. The book’s urgent call to renounce empire and participate in God’s healing and renewal gives a model for responding to the climate change crisis today. “Alas” for earth, not “woe” upon earth: God does not curse the earth A first step toward a more ecological reading of Revelation involves a reconsideration of the so-called “woes.” If God cares about the earth and its inhabitants, then how are we to explain the apparent “woes” against the earth that are so prominent in Revelation? The Greek word that is usually translated “woe” (ouai) is frequent in Revelation, beginning with the fourth trumpet in the middle of ter- rifying Exodus-like plagues (Rev 8:13). The word is invoked both as an exclamation and, somewhat peculiarly, as a noun, bearing the definite article: “the first ouai” (Rev 9:12) and “the second ouai” (Rev 11:14). The terrifying exclamations of “woe” throughout Revelation’s middle chapters have led some interpreters to think that God has consigned the earth to suffer plagues of ecological disaster and destruction. For example, between the fourth and fifth trumpets an eagle flying through mid-heaven cries out “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth” (Rev 8:13). Later, a heavenly voice announces what sounds like a curse: “But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Rev 12:12). However, in these so-called “woes” of Revelation, God is not pronounc- ing a curse but rather offering a lament, bemoaning earth’s suffering and abuse. In my view, Revelation’s “woes” must be read in light of the book’s overall critique of empire. The Greek word ouai is not easy to translate into English. It is a cry or sound in Greek that can be used to express lament or pain—like a mourner keening in grief, wailing out repeated cries of “oh, oh, oh” at DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2132 132 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  God’s Lament for the Earth 133 the death of a loved one.  Spanish Bibles simply use the sound “Ay, ay, ay.” In my view, the Greek word ouai is better translated consistently as “alas!” or “how awful!” rather than “woe” throughout the entire Book of Revelation. Lamentation or “alas” is clearly the sense of the word ouai that is used later in chapter 18 in the three-fold formulaic lamentations pronounced by the rulers, merchants and mariners weeping over Babylon. For example, the kings of the earth say, “Alas, alas, the great city, Babylon, the mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come” (Rev 18:10), a lament echoed by the merchants and mariners (Rev 18:16, 19). Most translators render the three groups’ expression as “alas, alas” (18:10, 16, 19, The Revised Standard Version and The New Revised Standard Version).  This standard translation of ouai as “alas” in Revelation 18 should inform our translation of other references to ouai in Revelation as well. The so-called “woes” then declare not a curse against the earth, but rather God’s lament on behalf of the earth that has been subjugated by evil powers. It is as if God were crying “ouch” or “alas” on behalf of our suffering world: “Alas, earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Rev 12:12). Although no English word is the exact equivalent of the Greek, the subtle but important distinction between a pronouncement of “woe” and a lament of “alas” makes an enormous difference both ecologically and spiritually. “Alas” conveys a level of sympathy and concern for the earth that the English word “woe” does not. Moreover, there is no “to” in the Greek text, so typical translations of “woe to the earth” are par- ticularly inaccurate. If we translate ouai as “alas,” God can be understood as sympathiz- ing in mourning and lament over the earth’s pain, even while God is threatening plagues as a means to bring about the earth’s liberation from injustice. Such a translation is supported by recent interpretations of similar passages in the Old Testament, such as Jeremiah 12:7–13, about  So Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1974).  The Jerusalem Bible translates the laments of Revelation 18 as “Mourn, mourn, mourn,” a helpful translation for underscoring the tone of lament—although the verb is not an imperative.  Grammatically, in the Greek of Rev 8:13 and 12:12 the word “earth” is in the accusative case, not the dative case that would normally translated as “to.” The accusative is mostly likely an accusative of reference. In light of this, a literal translation might be, “Alas, with respect to the earth” or “Alas for earth.” DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2133 133 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  134 God, Creation and Climate Change which Terence Fretheim has written: “these verses are a divine lament, not an announcement of judgment.” End of empire, not end of earth: liberation of earth from captivity to Rome So why does God lament or mourn on behalf of the earth in Revelation? In my view, the cries of “alas” in 12:12 and throughout the middle chap- ters are best understood as part of the book’s larger political critique against Roman imperialism. This leads to my second point: Revelation’s primary polemic is not against the earth as such, but against the exploi- tation of the earth and its peoples. The voice from heaven expresses God’s cosmic cry of lamentation because God is outraged that the lands and the seas have been subjugated by Satan’s emissary, the Roman Empire. God cries out in a cosmic lament against the violent conquests and predatory economic system of the empire that has enslaved both people and nature. Crucial to such an anti-imperial reading of Revelation is God’s proc- lamation that the time (kairos) has come “for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Rev 11:18). This statement attributes blame for the destruction of earth not to God but to unjust “destroyers” who decimate and devastate the earth. What God plans to destroy, according to this crucial verse, is not the earth itself but rather the idolatrous “destroyers” of earth—that is, Rome, with its entire political economy of exploitation and domination. This makes a crucial difference both eschatologically and ecologically for the way in which we interpret the book. In the view of Revelation, God will no longer tolerate Rome’s de- struction of the earth, despite Rome’s claim to rule forever. In fact, the author’s so-called “end times” language was probably chosen deliber- ately in order to counter Rome’s imperial and eschatological claims to eternal greatness. Rome claimed eternal dominance over the entire world, with such slogans as Roma Aeterna—eternal Rome. The boast of the whore of Babylon/Rome reflects this imperial hubris, “I rule as a queen; I am no widow, and I will never see grief” (Rev 18:7). This ar- rogant boast sets up Babylon/Rome for its catastrophic dethronement  Terence Fretheim, “The Earth Story in Jeremiah 12,” in Norman Habel (ed.), Readings from the Perspective of Earth, The Earth Bible 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 96–110. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2134 134 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  God’s Lament for the Earth 135 and destruction only a few verses later. God answers Rome’s boasts of omnipotence and eternity with a resounding “no.” In response to the question of the eternity of Roman rule, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be … ?” (Rev 6:10), Revelation comforts the souls who had been martyred by Rome with the message that it will be “a little longer” (Rev 6:11) until God will destroy “those who destroy the earth” (Rev 11:18). Revelation’s insistence on the imminent “end” assures its audience that Rome will not rule the earth forever. God’s kairos moment puts an end to oppression. Revelation’s lament, its “Alas for the earth” (cf. Rev 12:12), concedes that Rome’s own imperial claims of domination over the earth have come to pass. But Revelation makes clear that Rome’s unjust exploitation of the earth is only temporary. Satanic Rome will not last forever. The devil knows that “his time is short” (Rev 12:12). The cry of “alas” (ouai) “for the earth” (Rev 12:12) expresses the certain hope that Satan/Rome will not stalk the earth much longer. In summary, the God of Revelation does not seek to destroy the earth. Rather, God seeks to rescue the earth—the land, the seas and the crea- tures who inhabit them—from the sickness of empire that is devastating the world, so that creation can be brought to fulfillment. The Exodus story in Revelation: plagues as warnings How will the liberation and healing come about for the earth and its peoples? The most important biblical model for Revelation is the Book of Exodus, the story of the liberation of Israel from bondage in Egypt. Imagery from the biblical Book of Exodus furnishes the pattern for much of Revelation’s imagery, including Jesus as the Lamb who takes on the role of Moses. The connection to Moses and the Exodus becomes explicit when God’s servants sing the “song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb” (Rev 15:3). The entire Book of Revelation suggests a parallel between the Christians’ journey out of Rome and the Israelites’ journey out of Egypt. The author of Revelation calls Christians to “come out” of Babylon (Rev 18:4). As such, the Book of Revelation  For the argument that Revelation draws most extensively on Exodus traditions, see the works of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, especially Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991). DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2135 135 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  136 God, Creation and Climate Change gives a “rereading of the Exodus, now being experienced not in Egypt but in the heart of the Roman Empire.”10 In Revelation’s rereading of the Exodus story, the Roman Empire is scripted in the role of the predatory system analogous to ancient Egypt. As Ellen Davis points out, biblical writers aptly called Egypt “the iron furnace” (cf. Deut 4:20; Jer 11:4; or “iron-smelting furnace,” New International Version). Egypt was “the biblical archetype of the industrial society: burning, ceaseless in its demand for slave labor (the cheapest fuel of the ancient industrial machines), consuming until it is itself consumed.”11 The exodus liberated God’s people and healed them from the sicknesses of Egypt (cf. Ex 15:26). John of Patmos applied that biblical critique of Egypt as a “sick society” to diagnose as a sickness the all-consuming Roman imperial economic system of his day. Promises of “manna” (Rev 2:17) and the tree of life for the “healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2) served to encourage the Christian community in their exodus out of the Roman system, on their journey towards healing. In our own time, we can ask what manifestations of empire analo- gous to Egypt or Rome may pose comparable threats to the health of the world and to God’s people today. From the perspective of climate change, for example, we might diagnose as “Egypt” our unsustainable system of carbon consumption that poisons and enslaves the world, imposing a kind of climate slavery on the world’s poorest nations and on future generations. The healing vision of New Jerusalem (Rev 21–22) can help us envision an alternative way of life in contrast to the “iron-smelting furnace” of consumption. Understanding the profound ways that Revelation borrows from the Exodus story can also help us to interpret what is perhaps the most ecologically difficult imagery of the book—the plague sequences described in the middle chapters (Rev 6–16). As we saw with regard to the “woes,” Revelation’s terrible plagues can give the impression that the destruction of rivers, scorching heat, burning of forests, waters turning to blood and other environmental calamities are somehow an expression of God’s will to destroy the earth. But Revelation’s plagues are threats and warnings to oppressors, not predictions of inevitable destruction. They are modeled on God’s threats of punishment against 10 So Pablo Richard, Apocalypse: A People’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Maryk- noll: Orbis, 1995), p. 77. 11 Ellen Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 69. For the description of “the sick society that is Egypt,” see p. 71. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2136 136 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  God’s Lament for the Earth 137 Pharaoh in Exodus. The plagues serve as wake-up calls, warning of the consequences of Rome’s unjust actions. God does not predict that these ecological disasters must happen—they are rather urgent warnings of what may happen if oppressors do not repent. The plagues project into the future the logical consequences of the trajectory that the Roman Empire is on, so that people can see in advance where the dangerous imperial path is taking them. The plague visions of Revelation function like the nightmarish visions Ebeneezer Scrooge experiences in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—they show a terrifying future that will happen if Scrooge does not change his life. But they also make clear that there is still time for change, and that disaster is not inevitable. The plagues of Revelation are part of the book’s liberating vision—they are “ecological signs” enlisting nature itself in the struggle for liberation. Terence Fretheim argues that the Exodus plagues “function in a way not unlike certain ecological events in contemporary society, portents of unmitigated historical disaster.”12 In our time, it can be especially important to see the threats of rising seas, drought and other calamities as wake-up calls—portents of disaster to warn of the consequences of climate change, and to call upon industrial nations to change course before it is too late. Chilean scholar, Pablo Richard, interprets Revelation’s plagues as imperial assaults on the poor, arguing that it is inaccurate even to call the plagues of Revelation “natural” disasters: In earthquakes and hurricanes the poor lose their flimsy houses because they are poor and cannot build better ones; plagues, such as cholera and tuberculosis, fall primarily on the poor who are malnourished. … Hence the plagues of the trumpets and bowls in Revelation refer not to “natural” disasters, but to the agonies of history that the empire itself causes.13 Richard draws an analogy also to contemporary imperial situations, compiling a list that could well be updated to include the climate cri- sis: “Today the plagues of Revelation are rather the disastrous results 12 Terence Fretheim, “The Plagues as Ecological Signs of Historical Disaster,” in Journal of Biblical Literature 110 (1991), p. 387. 13 Pablo Richard, Apocalypse: A People’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1998), p. 86. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2137 137 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  138 God, Creation and Climate Change of ecological destruction, the arms race, irrational consumerism, the idolatrous logic of the market.”14 Threats of dire consequences await oppressors if they continue in their unjust ways. As Revelation 16:5–6 shows, it is axiomatic or fitting (axios estin) that the consequences of oppression on the earth will come back around in boomerang-like fashion upon those who commit injustices. We can apply a similar logic of consequences to describe the danger of global climate change. Global warming is not punishment from God, but rather a consequence of the physical fact that in this universe that God has created, with its finely-tuned atmosphere, certain actions cause other things to happen. It is a physical fact that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases trap heat. In terms of a biblical logic of consequences, what may be “axiomatic” (axios estin, Rev 16:6) for our world today is that we cannot continue on this trajectory of carbon consumption without heating up the planet to dangerous levels. We must alter the course of our life before it is too late. To summarize, I am arguing that both Revelation’s plagues and the “woes”—two elements of the book that can seem the most anti-ecologi- cal—show us God’s cry for a world that needs to be freed from the toxic system of imperial exploitation. As in the Exodus story, God calls on people to “come out” of empire, to withdraw from participation so as not to be implicated in empire’s sins (Rev 18:4) and so as to be able to participate in the healing vision of renewal—God’s New Jerusalem. The present moment as a kairos time: the call for repentance and testimony Revelation’s focus on the urgency of the present moment is another aspect of the book that can help us face the crisis of global climate change. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, has called the climate change crisis a “kairos moment” for churches and for the world. He warns that the time is short for the world to take decisive action on climate change: As individuals we are often conscious of a kairos, a moment when we make a choice that will affect our whole lives. For the human race as 14 Ibid. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2138 138 05/08/2009 16:33:00 PM  God’s Lament for the Earth 139 a whole, there is now a kairos, a decisive time in our relationship with God’s creation. We will either act in time to protect life on earth from the worst consequences of human folly, or we will fail to act.15 Archbishop Bartholomew ended the 2007 Symposium on the Arctic in Greenland with this sobering prayer: “May God grant us the wisdom to act in time.” Dr Martin Luther King Jr used the expression “the fierce urgency of now” to refer to the US civil rights movement of the 1960s—an expres- sion that could also be used to frame the climate crisis as a civil rights crisis today.16 That is because scientists tell us that we are soon reach- ing thresholds of carbon dioxide levels past which it will be impossible to reverse, runaway catastrophic changes, such as the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, or the melting of the methane rich Arctic permafrost. Consequences of climate change will fall most heavily on the poorest people of the world. The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report recommended the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide at no more than 445 parts per million. A growing number of scientists now recommend an even lower target for atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, 350 parts per million, because of worse-than-expected changes since 2007.17 The world’s premier climate scientist, James Hansen, believes there is still time to avert irreversible tipping points. But in Hansen’s view we have less than ten years to act.18 15 His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Symposium on the Arctic, 7–12 Septem- ber 2007, Greenland: “The Mirror of Life: Part 3, Symposium Closing Address,” at http://orth- transfiguration.org/library/orthodoxy/mirros, accessed June 2009. 16 Dr Martin Luther King Jr, “A Time to Break Silence,” April 4, 1967, in James M. Washington (ed.), A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1986), p. 243: “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. …Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’” 17 See the Web site of the 350 organization, at www.350.org/. The 350 parts per million target is based on climate scientist James Hansen’s 2008 argument in, “Target atmospheric CO2 : Where should humanity aim? Open Atmos. Sci. J., 2 (2008), pp. 217–231. See also Bill McKibben, “Earth at 350,” in The Nation, 12 (May 2008). 18 James Hansen, “Why We Can’t Wait,” in The Nation, 7 May 2007. Some organizations now speak of an even shorter timeframe of 100 months within which the world must stabilize and begin significantly to decrease carbon emissions in order to avoid tipping points. See the Web site http://onehundredmonths.org/ whose partners include a number of Christian organizations. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2139 139 05/08/2009 16:33:01 PM  140 God, Creation and Climate Change The church must take seriously such mounting evidence from sci- ence. The church must name this ten-year window as a kairos moment, a moment of hope and urgency. How can the church draw on the Bible publicly to address this crisis with hope, underscoring especially the urgency of that ten-year window? The biblical Book of Revelation holds out hope for the future, both with its New Jerusalem vision and it repeated calls for repentance. Revelation is a hopeful book in the sense that it believes that there is still time for people to “come out” of empire (Rev 18:4) and live according to God’s vision for the world. It is not too late for repentance. This explains why Revelation departs from the Exodus tradition at one crucial point. While Revelation largely follows the Exodus story for its terrifying plagues—the seven-fold sequences of trumpets and bowls that are poured out upon the earth and its waters in chapters 8–9 and 15–16—Revelation refrains from using the exodus motif of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Hearts are never hardened in Revelation. To be sure, the book’s positive calls for repentance (the imperative of metanoe, to repent, Rev 2:5, 16, 3:3, 19) are concentrated in the seven opening letters, whereas later references to repentance are all phrased in the negative (“they did not repent of …” Rev 9:20, 21; 16:9, 11). Yet, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has made a persuasive case that even these negative references to repentance in chapters 9 and 16 serve as part of the book’s rhetorical appeal to the audience to repent: “John writes this grotesque and brutal vision not for cruelty’s sake but rather for the sake of exhortation to repentance.”19 In chapter 11, Revelation lifts up a model of successful repentance in the rest of the people—nine tenths of the population—who do respond to the testimony of the two witnesses and are persuaded to give glory to God (Rev 11:13). This turning on the part of the populace is a hopeful aspect of the book from which we can draw. The two witnesses of Rev- elation symbolically represent God’s people. These two witnesses give the kind of public testimony and witness that John wants the Christian community of his own time to emulate in their own prophetic testimony against the worship of Rome. Such public testimony can furnish a model for the church today. As African American scholar Brian Blount describes, 19 Schüssler Fiorenza, op. cit. (note 9), p. 72. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2140 140 05/08/2009 16:33:01 PM  God’s Lament for the Earth 141 “John is calling for a witness of active, nonviolent resistance to Rome’s claim of lordship over human history.”20 Perhaps an analogy in today’s times would be a call for the church to engage in a witness of active nonviolent resistance to our “worship” of fossil fuels, our addiction to an unsustainable carbon based economy. The church must play the role of the two witnesses today, calling for such a public metanoia or repentance. Scientists tell us that halting carbon emissions at a safe level is fully possible with existing technol- ogy.21 What is needed is public, political commitment to reducing carbon emissions by eighty to ninety percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. The Council of the Lutheran World Federation has called for reducing emissions by forty percent by the year 2020, a goal that is both hard- hitting and achievable—if we muster the political will. 22 The Uppsala Interfaith Climate Manifesto 2008, convened by the Church of Sweden, calls for reductions of forty percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and ninety percent reductions by 2050.23 Other churches and religious communities have issued similar statements. We must all join together as religious communities, scientists, public policy makers and other prophetic lead- ers to give public testimony that calls upon the world—and especially its richest nations—to turn away from our addiction to a dangerous, carbon-consuming way of life. Time is of the essence in Revelation. But interestingly, the book’s perspective is not simply of time hurtling towards an inevitable end. Rather, Revelation puts great emphasis on the importance of the pres- ent moment as a moment for decision and repentance, a fact noted by a number of scholars. Shifts from past tense to present and future, along with calls for repentance and use of deliberative rhetoric, all serve to draw the audience into what Canadian Lutheran scholar, Harry Meier, calls “an abiding sense of the imminent”—extending the urgency of the 20 Brian K. Blount, Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), p. 40. 21 IPCC Working Group III Summary Report for Policymakers: “The range of stabilization levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available and those that are expected to be commercialized in coming decades,” at www.ipcc. ch/ipccreports /ar4-wg3.htm, accessed June 2009. 22 Resolution adopted at the 2008 meeting of the LWF Council, Arusha, Tanzania. 23 Hope for the Future: Uppsala Interfaith Climate Manifesto 2008: Faith Traditions Address- ing Global Warming (Church of Sweden, 2008), at www.svenskakyrkan.se/Webbplats /Sys- tem/Filer/14AD960A-3652-460F-8F9E-E31BED75158D.pdf DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2141 141 05/08/2009 16:33:01 PM  142 God, Creation and Climate Change present moment.24 The entire Book of Revelation calls on the audience to “come out” of empire before it is too late (Rev 18:4), in order not to fall prey to the catastrophic judgment and plagues, in order not to share in the collapse of the empire. Are there biblical models for such a drastic turning, analogous to what the world’s citizens must undertake in the next ten years? The most intriguing biblical model may be the empire of Nineveh in the Book of Jonah. Unlike Revelation’s view that the Roman Empire itself is hopelessly doomed, Jonah offers a more positive storyline for impe- rial repentance and turning. The huge imperial capital city of Nineveh changed its course and averted certain disaster in just forty days. Today, in the face of naysayers who say we can do nothing, or who claim that climate change is not dangerous, Nineveh can offer us hope. Nineveh can serve as a parable for how the greatest “empire” on earth today can shift course and avoid disaster. Jonah’s urgent warning to Nineveh that it had “just forty days” recalls the warnings from our best scientists that we have “less than ten years” to avert irreversible climate tipping points such as the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Nineveh’s transformation began at the grassroots level. It was the regular people in the streets who first believed God and responded to the prophet’s warning, engaging in public action (Jn 3:5). Their grassroots action then caught the attention of the king who repented and issued policy directives for public repentance. Humbly, the king said, “this is what we have to do.” He embarked on a fast-track campaign to change public will. The king made his case: “Perhaps it will be in time. Hope- fully we are in time to avert the disaster so we will not be destroyed.” The Book of Jonah shows how thanks to grassroots mobilization, good leadership, and an effective prophet, a giant ship of state—including all the people and even the animals—can abandon its destructive course in time to avert a catastrophe. We can learn from Nineveh. Time is short, our scientists tell us today. Scientists may be our proph- ets today who are preaching “just forty days,” or “just ten years.” The question is whether we will heed their prophetic testimony. Revelation places the Christian community at an ethical crossroads—a kairos mo- ment—facing a choice between the doomed empire of Babylon/Rome or citizenship in God’s New Jerusalem. The heart of the message of Revela- 24 Harry Meier, Apocalypse Recalled: The Book of Revelation After Christendom (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), p. 147. DTS-Studies-God_Climate_Change-2142 142 05/08/2009 16:33:01 PM