Speaking Out

The image in the Honduras newspaper La Prensa was haunting: a man in a flooded street in one of Honduras’ poorer neighborhoods holds his lifeless toddler against his chest. The child was one of 29 people killed by flooding and mud slides after Tropical Depression 16 parked itself over Honduras for almost a week last October. People in Honduras think something is awry with the climate. My neighbor said: “The climate is all out of order. Our summers are longer, and the winters are much wetter”—an analysis consistent with what experts have been saying for years about the effects of global warming.

Climate change is already devastating the poor. This is a justice issue. For too long, we humans—Christians included—have considered ourselves outside nature, with the odd idea that our negative influence on the environment will have no effect on us. We have forgotten our roots in God’s creation, the Garden of Eden. The day of environmental reckoning may arrive sooner than we think.

Living in a more environmentally sustainable way begins with changing our personal actions. Our economy may have conditioned us to endlessly pursue the accumulation of stuff, but as Christians we are called to live a simple life. The way we spend our money reflects our Christian faith, and our consumer choices have a major impact on the environment. An issue of The New Internationalist said all the plastic we use, such as water bottles, televisions, packaging and disposable plates, end up somewhere—often the oceans, where it chokes sea turtles, leaches chemicals and clogs islands.

Another example is food. When we buy industrial beef at the grocery store or a restaurant, we support a system that inefficiently uses oil and water, fattens animals on unnatural hormones, encourages the strengthening of bacteria through the rampant use of antibiotics, and pollutes water systems with runoff from the cattle’s waste.

We don’t change our habits because we are used to the way things are. We have been too complacent for too long, and now is the time to do something about it. But what? I can easily become paralyzed by fear. There is nothing I can do to stop the building of another coal-fired power plant in India or the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. But paralysis means being inactive, and that is the opposite of what God commands us.

Proverbs 31:8-9 says: “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” This mandate applies not only to the poor but to the earth, destroyed in the name of economic progress. It’s particularly human to think God’s creation cannot speak for itself. The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate; honey bee colonies around the world are dying mysteriously; cholera outbreaks are more common; drinking water in much of the world is scarce; the ocean’s dead zones are bigger every year. These are clear cries for help—signs that the environment is in trouble. But I’m afraid they fall on deaf ears.

Let us in the church who have ears hear. Christians must be advocates for God’s creation. And what better place for the formation of this cloud of witnesses than in the Mennonite church, already rooted in the principles of peaceful relationship with the world? Advocating for the environment means speaking up not only for creation but for the impoverished, as the world’s poor are the first and hardest hit by the effects of climate change. We must learn that we are all connected through a complex yet fragile ecosystem. The way we treat the environment is how we treat others.

People will change, but they can’t unless they have information. At Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind., I was part of a Simply in Season elective Sunday school class in which concerned brothers and sisters gathered to talk about how faith affects choices about food. This is just one example of how we can approach environmental sustainability as the body of Christ, from toddlers to elders. Mennonite Church USA should make environmental education a priority, with sermons, Sunday school curriculum and prayer resources to help its members make wise consumer choices and understand how their actions affect others and God’s creation. Through the support of each other and by the grace of God, we can change how we treat the world God has given us.

Andrew L. Clouse serves in Honduras with Mennonite Central Committee.