By Mick Haining
Hands up if you’ve seen either version of ‘Miracle on 34th Street’? Spoiler alert – the judge dismisses the case against Kris Kringle [Father Christmas] because of the words on a U.S. one dollar bill which declare ‘In God We Trust’, even though no-one has ever seen God… just like we’ve never seen Santa Claus which doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.
My Chambers dictionary describes a miracle as “an event or act which breaks a law of nature, esp one attributed to a deity or supernatural force”. It goes on to say that the word comes from a Latin verb, ‘mirari’, to wonder at. As a species, we have clearly been ‘wondering’ at phenomena for a long time but also looking for explanations. Before meteorologists and vulcanologists, it would have been easy for less ‘sophisticated’ humans in the past to have decided that the most likely cause of thunder, lightning or eruptions would be the emotional response of some being far, far more powerful than the smartest, strongest human.
The View of a Mere Human
Is there a ‘God’? There’s certainly a logic to believe in one. Given what we know, it seems impossible that the universe could have exploded out of nothing. It even seems impossible [to me, at least] that there is not something that doesn’t have what everything else seems to have, that is – a beginning. Surely only something that “breaks a law of nature” would have no beginning and has always existed, i.e., a creator that has not been created. I therefore personally do not discount the possibility that there is, for want of a better word, a creator.
What I do not believe is that any interpretation of what might be the wishes or the plan of such a creator is a true reflection of reality. An octopus has brains in its tentacles and we don’t understand what an octopus might be thinking so how could we possibly know what some being that can create an entire universe [and maybe others!] is thinking or wishing? Consequently, I do not believe that God made man in his image [Genesis] – I do believe that we made God in our image but with superpowers thrown in.
I was brought up as an Irish Catholic and in my teens I had already begun to have serious doubts about some of Christianity’s ‘interpretations’. Why would an unbaptised baby who died at birth and had no control over her/his conception be sent for all eternity to a place called Limbo and never get to see God? And, given that a ‘sin’ requires knowledge and consent, as we were instructed, how could any baby be born with a sin already on their soul? Later on, I began to ask why God has to be male – does that mean he has a penis? If so, why? Does he have intercourse – because that’s a significant purpose of a penis, is it not? If, however, man did create God “in his own image”, then that would make anatomical sense as well as maybe providing a bit of logic for the celibacy of God’s representatives on earth, the priests.
Nevertheless, there are millions of people who do believe in and advocate interpretations offered [mainly by men, it seems], of what this creator wants for and from us. What difference does it make to the environment that there are differences in interpretation? If an interpretation guides the behaviour of an adherent – it should! – then what Christianity alone, for example, has to say about our relationship with the environment should make a considerable impact. Why? Because nearly one third of the world’s population claim to be adherents.
Learning to Love the Bomb
The response from Christians seems to be influenced by an instruction given by God in Genesis right at the start of the Old Testament. Having created everything else – the dinosaurs? – he creates man and gives him “dominion” [King James Version and English Standard Version] or “rule” [New International Version] over everything that lives on earth. One way of understanding that might lead some Christians to think they have been given permission to do whatever they like to nature, another way might encourage them to see themselves and act as caretakers. My partner’s brother, a very committed Christian, certainly takes the latter view – “Being a good steward in this world is one way of expressing our love for God and our gratitude to him”, he wrote in a WhatsApp message.
That brings me back to something I said earlier about how we created God in our image – similarly, we mere mortals seem to select interpretations of God’s supposed wishes to back up what we want to do anyway. On 6th August, 1945, the American B-29 bomber, Enola Gay, named after the pilot’s mother, dropped one bomb on Hiroshima that killed over 100,000 people, mostly civilians… thus many, many mothers. From what I’ve read and been told about Jesus, he just doesn’t seem to be the sort who would have authorised that mission.
Of course it was not Christian verse that came into the mind of The Bomb’s inventor, Robert Oppenheimer, when he first saw the unmistakable mushroom cloud rising over the Jornada del Muerto desert in July 1945.
I am become death, the destroyer of worlds
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 11 shloka 32
And yet here’s a quote from the American Family Association (AFA)website, posted 31/5/2016:
It must be noted first of all that Christianity is not a pacifist religion
Hmmm…
“The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered”, says the English Standard Version of Genesis 9:1-2. Include other nationalities and faiths among those beasts and birds and that would seem more in keeping with the sentiments of the AFA…
Jesus and the Environment
But as stated, there are other Christian attitudes that are far more Earth positive and a lot more consistent with Christian teaching about our responsibility for the environment. Kathleen Quiring in her entertainingly titled blog, ‘Becoming Peculiar’, on October 6th, 2014, gives “3 reasons why Christians Should Care About the Planet”. One, saving the planet saves human lives; two, God created and loves the Earth so we should, too; and three, Jesus died to save all creation, not just us.
Jesus teaches us to love our neighbours. Our neighbours include the people who live downstream from our water pollution, downwind from our air pollution, and downhill from our soil erosion
Kathleen Quiring
With an eye on the future, Quiring includes the descendants of our ‘neighbours’, too and I bet she’d also include those under an aeroplane carrying a nuclear bomb…
Pastor Adam Hamilton from Church of the Resurrection draws a very convincing parallel with God’s mandate to humans. He says “if we” [the church] “hire a youth director” and “say ‘you’re in charge’… does that mean they can do anything they want? … no, it means … I’m gonna hold them accountable to doing their job well.” As an ex-teacher, that certainly resonates with me.
He backs up his arguments with quotes from across the two Testaments, for example describing what St John’s Gospel says about God’s attitude – he “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. Pastor Adam stresses the fact that it’s the world that is loved, not merely humans so that when “God created the laws of nature that he established, he provides for all the animals. He provides for the plants and he provides for you and part of our task is to make sure that that balance is carefully maintained”.
What seems to be a huge divide between Christians about the environment is, however, once again underlined by the words of a different pastor from the Right Response Ministries who makes no bones about declaring that: “solar panels are responsible for freezing my neighbours here in Texas to death. A couple hundred of my neighbours died by freezing to death in their homes. And I believe it was an 11-year-old or 13-year-old, I believe an 11-year-old boy died during the Texas freeze the beginning of 2021. He died in his bed in the night, froze to death. Why? Because of renewable energy, that’s why. Because of solar. That’s why.” And Texans, he claims, have installed solar panels because “they started listening to liberal insanity” … I think I know which version of God I’d rather believe.
In Allah We Trust
Islam seems to have a healthier respect for the environment. With nearly a quarter of the world population registered as Muslim, that, too, should make a difference. When you combine it with Christianity, just over half of the world’s population belong to one or the other – imagine if all of those people believed and acted as if they were stewards of the world made by their creator!
Dr Nasser Karimian certainly urges his viewers and listeners to adopt that viewpoint. He echoes the views of those Christians who see humanity as stewards as opposed to tyrants and gives specific examples. Among them, he reminds his audience of an old story where the Prophet admonishes a believer for using too much water even though the man is purifying himself for prayer. The Prophet tells him that even if you’re at the bank of a flowing river you should only take and use what you need. Now there’s a message for our consumer society…! Dr Karimian gets a little political, too, when he says that “water is not something that anybody can just keep for themselves, privatize and say no, this only belongs to me”. I doubt that DEFRA would appoint him to their board… Dr Karimian goes on to declare that “the prophet tells us that the whole earth has been made for me a place of prostration, … a masjid”, in other words a mosque and that therefore “we should see the whole world with this sense of reverence”. The American Family Association clearly does not see the whole world with an equivalent sense of reverence…
Dr Shabir Ally similarly echoes how Muslim teachings and tradition underline the importance of the environment.
if the day of judgment [comes] and you already had a seedling in hand, ready to plant it, go ahead and finish that planting”.
Can Islam Fight Climate Change? | Dr. Shabir Ally and Dr. Safiyyah Ally
And Sheikh Suleiman Hani is quite forthright about a Muslim’s duty towards the environment.
If you don’t think the environment is something Muslims should care about … there’s something missing in your understanding of Islam
Islam & The Environment | Shaykh Suleiman Hani – YouTube
Muslims…
… have a framework and a belief system which mandates protection of the earth and its natural resources
Professor Ibrahim Ozdemir, Al Jazeera, 12/8/2020
These are just some of the voices I have found while researching this article and I am thus surprised that Islam does not seem to be playing a very significant role in the environmental movement. Some might argue that several Islamic countries actively pursue the opposite direction – I’m thinking of the Arab oil states. Professor Ozdemir, in fact, wrote that “Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world, is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and is doing little to curb emissions”. [Statista claims that 93% of Indonesians believe in God.]The professor suggests an interesting reason for such Islamic diffidence – “Many Muslim countries are reluctant to impose Western concepts of environmentalism” but also points to positive responses when it was explained to people that their environment-damaging behaviour was un-Islamic. His article ends with an unambiguous appeal: “Muslims must become guardians of the earth once more, for the sake of their environments and for the sake of God”.
There are prominent voices in other faiths which advocate action on the climate.
Jews should play a leading role in the efforts to reduce global climate change, in order to fulfil the mandate that we should be co-workers with God in preserving the world
Richard Schwartz, The Times of Israel
Buddha would be green
Dalai Lama, 2020, quoted in the Guardian
In the 2015 Hindu Declaration on Climate Change, there’s the following statement:
The Mahābhārata (109.10) tells us, “Dharma exists for the welfare of all beings. Hence, that by which the welfare of all living beings is sustained, that for sure is dharma.”
Hindu Declaration on Climate Change
A Little Less Conversation and A Little More Action
I’m sure that I could find quite a few other religions that would similarly support the need for their adherents to be active in attempts to tackle climate change. Extinction Rebellion has affinity groups such as XR Muslims, XR Jews and XR Buddhists and the welcome page of Christian Climate Action is set against a background of believers wearing XR t-shirts. So why aren’t all those other ‘believers’ out there just stopping oil, gluing themselves to a bank or throwing paint at a work of art?
Apart from the few groups of hunter-gatherers that still exist, from indigenous communities, from local fisherfolk and from organic farmers, most of us live lives divorced from nature. Chicken nuggets bear no resemblance to the American fable, The Little Red Hen. Veal looks nothing like the calf being taken from its desperate mother. And ketchup teaches us nothing about how to grow tomatoes. Some of you may recall the chef, Jamie Oliver, in a TV documentary seeing if American junior schoolkids could recognise vegetables – have a look at the results.
The manager of a factory is no less human than the workers on the shop floor. If religions were to underline more, much more that we are not separate from nature even if we are supposedly in charge of it, then maybe adherents would be out on the streets, closing their accounts with banks that bankroll the fossil fuel industry and refusing to pay their water bills. Focussing on protecting this world full of trees, flowers, mushrooms, birds, butterflies and whales that does exist for certain instead of living in hope of another dimension for which there is no evidence whatsoever would not damage their chances of gaining entry to that other dimension. On the other hand, eating to obesity, driving your 4 by 4 to your local place of worship and covering what was once natural with plastic grass seems highly unlikely to impress any creator capable of creating the extraordinary lives of a mayfly, a hedgehog or a salmon.
What the earth now needs is for the pastors, priests, rabbis, monks, imams, bishops, cardinals, lamas, nuns, abbots, elders, mullahs, archbishops, gurus, maharishis, vicars and the Pope to be marching with Extinction Rebellion. Compiling that list, I feel a little depressed that the titles refer overwhelmingly to men… Nevertheless, they are the leaders and the guides of billions of humans and their actions should encourage a substantial number of their followers to follow suit. Preaching is no longer enough.
The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great — and for destroying those who destroy the earth.
Revelation 11:18
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
Job 12:7-10
Wordsmiths for XR 