What is it with the Church denominations on the Climate Crisis? The coverage seems to be be declining rather than taking a sharp turn upward and beginning to act like they understand what’s at stake. This is a colossal ethical problem. To stay out of the issue in their coverage is tantamount to a blasphemous bow to the forces of status quo. And Status Quo theology and spirituality is a sign of serious irrelevance and irresponsibility. It’s so sad and enraging that all of the deonominations are seeing movements (like FossilFreeUMC and others), and yet these movements garner practically NO coverage from the denominational media.
The Crisis has accelerated to absolutely unpredicted extremes, and yet the media chug along focusing on the same issues. You’d think it was the 1970’s, before most anyone was aware that we had this growing problem (even then there were some who saw it coming). We no longer have that to fall back on. The evidence is CLEAR, and yet the church can’t seem to see this as an occasion to seriously re-examine how utterly unsustainable the world’s advanced industrial powers have molded us into serious threats to the planet’s ecosystems.
Folks, it’s time for a Reformation! Seriously. This is not hyperbolics. The problems tackled by Martin Luther were serious cultural and spiritual issues, but nothing on the scale of the Crisis faced by the very systems that created and provided for the flourishing of humans on this earth. Without them, there is no more theology at all. There are, certainly , problems within this larger problem that create chaos amongst humans and their societies, but these will only worsen as climate catastrophes accelerate in number and severity; when water shortages intensify, and mass poisoning from numerous toxins being unleashed on people spreads.
The ethical problems compound as the “profiteers” of this madness still seek to undermine the awareness that there is a crisis. The Church MUST stand out and against this and call for a serious change of direction; toward an “Ecological Civilization”; toward what Bill McKibben calls “Deep Economy”; toward what John Cobb and Herman Daly called “Ecological Economics”. The church denominations MUST get with the program, or become yet another symbol of accommodation and “conformity to the world”. Ironically, in this case, “conformity to the world” contributes and gives assent to the destruction of the world’s systems that gave and sustain life as we know it.