Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Climate sceptics in religion and media It is all very reminiscent of another battleground into which, given that these lectures are supposed to be about theology and public life, I will digress for a moment: evolution and creation. I find it incredible that, in this supposedly sc…

CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 4b The effect of climate change in Antarctica

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

The effect of climate change in Antarctica All the climate models show quite clearly that regions warm at different rates. Polar regions show the greatest rises and the biggest consequences. And the changes are not all in the future. During my five-week voyage along the Antarctic…

CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 4 Hope, hype and honesty reporting global change: A still point on a turning planet

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Hope, hype and honesty reporting global change: A still point on a turning planet My background is in geology, though I have been a science journalist for three decades. As far as religion is concerned, my position might be best summarized by the answer the late Arthur C. Clarke …

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 3c Reading Luke and saving the planet

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Reading Luke and saving the planet After this brief snapshot of Palestine then and now, I return to the central issue: how does reading Luke affect the agenda of global warming? We have looked at the context for Jesus’ ministry, but what of its content?…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 3b Jesus as a landless prophet and the situation of Palestine today

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Jesus as a landless prophet and the situation of Palestine today What were the issues for Jesus and the community for which Luke wrote regarding justice for the earth? Even though this was a community treading lightly on the earth compared with ourselves, ecological justice was f…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 3 Consider the lilies of the field: Reading Luke’s Gospel and saving the planet

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Consider the lilies of the field: Reading Luke’s Gospel and saving the planet ‘Consider the lilies….’ (Luke 12.22–31); the flowers in the grounds of Tantur Ecumenical Institute, outside Jerusalem, near the Bethlehem checkpoint, are thought to be the biblical lilies. Whether they …

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 2d Destruction of destructive powers

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Destruction of destructive powers I am now going to turn back from chapters 8 and 9 to chapter 3, because I want to ask where the Church stands in all of this. I turn especially to the warning to the church in Laodicea:…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 2c God’s redemptive will in the midst of calamities

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

God’s redemptive will in the midst of calamities It is in this situation that the warning is sounded. Revelation is not astrology: it is not foretelling particular events, the catastrophes which might attend climate change. What it does do, however, is prompt us to thought…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 2b The environment and the development agenda

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

The environment and the development agenda So now, back to our text (Rev. 8.6 –12): Four angels, one after the other, blow their trumpets and destruction falls on the earth (v. 7), the sea (v. 8), the rivers (v. 10) and heaven/the sky (v. 12). One-third of all life is affected, b…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 2 Visions of the end? Revelation and climate change

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Visions of the end? Revelation and climate change In chapter 4 of Revelation the author tells us that the song of praise before God never ceases (4.8), but now there is silence. ‘Heaven seems to hold its breath because of what is about to happen on earth.’…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1d Creative engagement with nature

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Creative engagement with nature Renewing the face of the earth, then, is an enterprise not of imposing some private human vision on a passive nature but of living in such a way as to bring more clearly to light the interconnectedness of all things and their dependence on what we …

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1c An intelligent response to environmental crisis

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

An intelligent response to environmental crisis The ecological crisis challenges us to be reasonable. Put like that, it sounds banal; but given the level of irrationality around the question, it is well worth saying, especially if we are clear about the roots of reasoning in thes…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1b Responsibility for creation

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Responsibility for creation It is a rather different reading of the biblical tradition from that often (lazily) assumed to be the orthodoxy of Judaeo-Christian belief. We hear regularly that this tradition authorizes the exploitation of the earth through the language in Genesis a…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1 Renewing the face of the earth: Human responsibility and the environment

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Renewing the face of the earth: Human responsibility and the environment Some modern philosophers have spoken about the human face as the most potent sign of what it is that we can’t master or exhaust in the life of a human other – a sign of the claim upon us of the other, of the…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - Introduction

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Introduction ‘When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.’ (Psalm 104.30, NIV) The reality of climate change, and the challenges it presents to su…

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - Contributors

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Contributors Jonathan Draper is Canon Theologian of York Minster. Previously he was Vicar of Putney in south-west London, taught systematic theology at Ripon College Cuddesdon and was a member of the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University. He is the author of To Love and Serve …

CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - Acknowledgements

by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper

Acknowledgements The Ebor Lectures were conceived as a response to the growing need for theology to interact with public issues of contemporary society; they aim to promote public conversation and to contribute to the formation of personal decisions and collective policy-making i…

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