Mediaculture: Reflections on the effect of media and culture on our faith

Denial is a powerful force. When we don’t want to face an uncomfortable reality, particularly one we may share responsibility for, we tend to deny its existence.

This seems to be the case with climate change. In his book A Political Theology of Climate Change (Eerdmans, 2013, $30), Michael S. Northcott notes that while science indicates that “the earth is warming faster than at any previous point in human or earth history, … the rate of change from the point of view of one human generation … is imperceptibly slow.”

To help us face this reality, he offers a political theology that “situates culture in creation and politics in the geography of the nations.”

He ties this approach to Scripture, showing the development of a political theology from Genesis 1 through Revelation, then on into Christian history, up to the present.

Politics has to do with how we organize ourselves to make decisions about how we treat one another.

We face major problems. If we don’t greatly diminish our use of fossil fuels, Northcott writes, we will see “a growth in civil conflict and mass migration as populations—particularly in developing countries—experience growing energy, food and water insecurity.”

A study by the Central Intelligence Agency argues that climate change “will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global systems to manage, and therefore will have global security implications serious enough to compel international response.”

Northcott notes that “those who follow the science most closely, and understand its implications, are more afraid than the non-scientists.” Meanwhile, “coal, oil and gas corporations have poured vast funds into anti-climate science lobby groups and think tanks.” This is called short-term thinking. It’s also called selfish.

As Northcott puts it: ”Resistance to climate change science is … strongest among individuals, groups and organizations who identify most strongly with the core political claim that individual choice and the pursuit of self-interest in consumption and production activities are the sources of the human good, of freedom and flourishing.”

But Scripture shows us a different politics. “The triumph of Christ over earthly powers presages a new peace between humanity and creation,” Northcott writes. And “for the Apostle Paul the salvation of humanity in the Incarnation represents the potential renewal of creation.”

Northcott traces the development of our view of nature and our place in it, until today, “to be modern, then, is to deny that the weather is political, or that politics influences the climate.”

We keep operating under the assumption that we are somehow separate from the creation and have no responsibility toward it.

Since “God so loved the world” (John 3:16)—and that word is “kosmos,”—our continuing destruction of it is an affront to God.

We are also called to love our neighbor, something the nations are not doing. Northcott writes: ”The current refusal of the nations to acknowledge their ecological responsibilities to promote economic and political practices within limits also promotes a growing tendency to scapegoat the poor and destitute both within and beyond national borders.”

Northcott calls on Christians to remind the nations of their responsibilities to the growing number of migrants who will appear at their borders as a result of climate change.