We are a part of creation, too!

Planet Earth is in trouble. Devastating flooding and forest fires, to mention only two and warmer seas are eating away at the edges of the two polar ice caps at an unprecedented rate. These events can all be attributed to atmospheric warming, confirming ongoing reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The dominant species, humanity, is largely responsible.

Put bluntly: We human beings have thought of ourselves as apart from and above the rest of creation. Indeed, in so far as Christianity underpinned a theological belief that the world’s natural resources were God’s gift to humankind, Christianity now has a responsibility to undo some of the damage by promoting an alternative message. The indisputable scientific and theological truth is that we are creation, too!

One of the major contributing factors to the ecological crisis we face today is the centuries-old denialism that has informed our thinking about what it means to be human and what it means to be other-than-human. For many of us, when we hear the words “creation” or “nature,” we think of something outside ourselves, something that provides the background to our interests and activities.

Whether one looks to Genesis 1 and recount that we are made alongside “all kinds of living creatures” or Genesis 2 and see that, like every other creature, we humans are also made “out of the clay of the ground,” the central creation narratives include us human beings too. When we talk about “care for creation,” we ought to think about responding to both human and nonhuman creation.

We are made up of the same “cosmic DNA” as every other material creature – human and nonhuman alike – in the universe. The carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, iron and so on, which compose our physical being is no different than that of any organic or inorganic object in the universe. We forget that we ourselves are made up of its elements, we breathe its air and we receive life and refreshment from its waters.

Frankly, there is absolutely nothing else more important – no niche issue, political agenda, personal crusade or narrowly defined “life issue” supersedes the urgency and importance of global climate change. Sometimes I find myself wondering what it could possibly take for those who willfully and actively refuse to accept basic facts, the truth of science, the evidence of ecological destruction in our own backyards. We have to do something.

Profit can no longer be the driving force. There are signs already that major corporations are trying to re-imagine a way of doing business that is deliberately beneficial rather than accidentally – or recklessly – harmful. Shareholders, investors, managers and consumers must embrace it. Nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of succeeding, otherwise the human race will have embarked upon a long, slow and painful process of committing suicide.

When Pope Francis talks about the need for intergenerational solidarity and justice, this is the kind of consequential impact the pope has in mind. Francis says in Laudato Si’, “The notion of the common good also extends to future generations.” The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now. We need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences.