From the editor’s desk

The way to a green theology

The citizens of Britain, like those of other Western countries, think it normal to fly abroad on holiday, sometimes several times a year. They think it normal for families to own several cars. They timetable their lives around rapid travel and high consumption of energy. This week the Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, asked them to consider what they are doing to the planet. Climate change is accelerating rapidly, and we are putting at risk the future of the earth, he said. The bishop, who is chairman of the environment panel of the Church of England bishops, was also urging his own institution to put its house in order. In launching the Church of England campaign "Shrinking the Footprint",  he was recommending energy audits for churches and tips on "green" sermons for vicars.

But the Bishop of London was going much further. He was asking people to expand their notion of sin to encompass actions that might adversely affect the planet. Sin was not just a restricted list of moral mistakes but was concerned with making selfish choices and ignoring the consequences. Those selfish choices, he says, include plane travel and driving large cars.

The difficulties the Bishop of London faces in convincing people of his argument are considerable. Not only does the global tourism industry depend on air travel, but so do many national economies. There are indeed no quick fixes or easy answers to this dilemma. As politicians know, people do not respond well to demands for a change in behaviour, nor to coercion, unless they feel personally committed to the result. In calling for this change of heart, the bishops will need to motivate people with a new sense of responsibility for the environment, a new vision for the future and a desire to do good for future generations.

Bishop Chartres will also need to convince those in the Christian community who have until now feared that a focus on the environment will detract from concern for the developing world. Presenting them with the growing evidence that damage to the environment has a detrimental effect on the poorest areas will go a long way towards achieving this.

If the arguments about sin and the environment are to prove convincing, then Bishop Chartres and his supporters must also help develop a convincing theology of the environment. Until now the Catholic Church has shown little interest in such a theology: the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church  devotes just half a paragraph to the topic, quoting John Paul II to the effect that climate is a good that must be protected.

Dr Chartres admonished the Catholic Church for failing to be more outspoken on the environment, while acknowledging that only this week Pope Benedict had spoken of the urgent need for protection for the Amazon region whose ecological balance is under threat. The Pope's views were given in a message to Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople whose Religion, Science and Environment organisation was holding its sixth symposium on the Amazon. The Pope then went on to underline the duty and importance of the two Churches working together to promote a catechism of creation.

Development of such a catechism may well prove to be the theological initiative Bishop Chartres is seeking. It is a pro-life challenge the Catholic Church should embrace.