The observant few who pick their way round the World Wide Web may have noticed that Brian Morgan has been appointed Diocesan Environmental Officer. They might even have browsed their way to www.shrinkingthefootprint.cofe.anglican.org, and seen that the church is taking seriously the damage we are doing to the world around us, by hogging irreplaceable energy resources, by releasing dangerous substances into the air, the earth, the rivers, by adopting new discoveries such as atomic energy, genetic engineering, sources of wireless radiation before fully understanding their effects, by endangering whole species by over-exploitation or misuse of our surroundings.
Even where experts differ, there are obviously many questions we should be asking ourselves. But how important are they to our faith? Is hunting whales as sinful as slandering our neighbours? If we condemn some forms of vice, should we also condemn the practice of leaving the radiators on and the windows open? Isn't the environment too secular an issue to rate as "part of our faith"?
The environment is a topic where the Bible can be misused in search of proof texts. Just as one can "prove" from the Bible that slavery is justified, that adulterers deserve a death sentence, that to accept a blood transfusion is to cut oneself off from God, so one can point to God's promise to Noah in Genesis 9:3 and say that we can do as we like with the world God has given us. Or one can point to the other half of the same truth and quote Psalm 24:1: "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it," and infer that we should leave the world alone.
We do indeed live as custodians of God's world, of its mineral wealth, of its plants and living creatures. Yet whether or not we take literally the idea in the hymn All things bright and beautiful that "the Lord God made them all", we are not Buddhists. We are free to pluck the roses in our garden, to squash the mosquitoes that suck our blood, to eat roast pork or chicken curry. But are we free to gather orchids in the Alps, to introduce cane toads to Australia to eradicate sugar cane beetles, to eat the few remaining whales in the same way that the settlers on Mauritius (it is said) ate the few remaining dodos?
The answer surely lies in our Lord's command to love our neighbours. Every orchid that I pluck on the Alp is one orchid fewer for my neighbour to enjoy. Every litre of oil that I squander in my central heating is one litre fewer for future generations to use. Every bird that I drive from its nesting place is one bird fewer to delight my neighbour's ear or eat the insects that destroy my neighbour's roses.
It is important to see these questions as moral problems, and not in terms of simple economics of expediency. Of course in economic terms, as the supply of oil decreases, its price will go up. Of course in practical terms, we should devote national efforts to develop alternative sources of energy. Of course in economic terms, global warming has the potential to bankrupt our ski resorts and submerge the world's coastal cities. Of course in practical terms, we should try to find out more facts about the extent of global warming and its causes. But as Christians, we are called to balance our own needs against the needs of others: to love our neighbours as ourselves.
It is because we love our neighbours that we see some ways of treating the environment as good and others as harmful. Aircraft are good if they allow the sick in remote regions to reach hospitals, but bad if they use fuel that could be better used elsewhere, or contaminate the world with their noise and fumes. Nobody would complain at the extinction of the malaria parasite, or even the mosquitoes which carry it. Yet the extinction of "large cuddly mammals" affects us because it is a form of theft - stealing the enjoyment that generations to come may experience from seeing and studying them.
If we harm the world, we are not only harming a place where we can see God's hand at work, but we are harming our fellow creatures. Our neighbours are not necessarily alive today - they also include the generations that come after us. When we think of sin, our mind goes first to the deadly kind - anger, envy, pride, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust - but behind all these is a broader sin: simple disregard of the needs and feelings of others. Because of this, Christians should concern themselves with the needs of the environment - and sooner rather than later!
HD