Towards a Traditionalist Ecology, Part 3: Christian "Climate Change"
A Scriptural conception of climate change is, unlike the secular version, incalculable and unquantifiable. It is a matter of faith and an encounter with the inscrutable mystery of God’s "economia"...
Maybe there will be no natural penalty, in the short-term, for our ecological covetousness. The Lord is merciful – he “Sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45) This is because He loves everyone and gives us time to repent and learn to love Him back. A Scriptural conception of climate change is, unlike the secular version, incalculable and unquantifiable. It is a matter of faith and an encounter with the inscrutable mystery of God’s economia – his cosmic plan for our spiritual development. Natural disasters, like illnesses, can be blessings: they can call people to repentance and to unity, they can incite more intensity of prayer, and they can forestall us from committing worse sins.
One of the most brutal passages of Scripture shows the potential violence of nature, according to God’s will. In 2 Kings 2:23-24, the prophet Elisha goes up to Bethel, where a group of young men (probably warriors) ridicules (and probably threatens)1 him. God sends two she-bears – a fitting representation of the awesome power of nature – who kill 42 of the young men. God was not simply protecting His prophet. According to St. Augustine, Bethel was a center of idolatry, and the young men were probably instructed to ridicule the prophet of God by their parents or commanding officers, who needed to learn to fear God because they wouldn’t love Him. The boys’ deaths may have made their parents repent and honor the prophet. Here we see how the natural world and our spiritual behaviors influence one another in a feedback loop.
And yet this same principle of the spiritual affecting the natural offers us hope. Christ enabled St. Peter to walk on water for as long as his faith outshone his fear. In our modern times, St. Porphyrios describes a holy man breaking a long drought almost immediately, through intense, focused prayer.2 St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco protected his refugee flock from a typhoon in the Philippines, through fervent prayer. Many miracles are attributed to St. Herman of Alaska, listed here.
This is where a secular critic might interject something about correlation and causation. Speculating about the natural effects of the spirit may be an interesting diversion, they would say, but it’s irresponsible, at a time of global catastrophe. But this objection indicates an ignorance about our God and assumes a faith without works.
The story of the manna in the wilderness shows the truth about God’s providence for humanity as a whole. During the wilderness wanderings, the population of Israel was probably over 2,000,000 people. The Sinai Peninsula, being a barren desert, couldn’t have supported such a nomadic population for 40 weeks, much less 40 years. The manna, which sustained the entire nation, was a profound miracle wherein God temporarily transcended the laws of nature for his people. God created and maintains the laws of nature – His power is not subject to these laws. He can and will work a miracle any time it is spiritually beneficial for us. This miracle history refutes those who claim that climate chaos could cause “the extinction of humanity” or the irreversible destruction of the biosphere. We know how this earth’s story will actually end – on God’s terms and timeline.
The Prophet Elisha knew this. In the verses immediately preceding the bear attack in II Kings, Elisha healed the spring of the waters of Jericho by casting salt into the source. How can salt heal a spring of water? By a miracle, and for a symbol: we are called to be the salt of the earth, called to heal all creatures of creation.
To be salt is difficult. But the difficulty can be borne when we give it to God. Most of us don’t need to do this by ridiculing climate hysteria or digging into esoteric conspiracies. A humbler and more hopeful – and therefore more graceful and productive – approach can be found in Psalm 104 (103 in the Septuagint version). Here, the psalmist sings praises to the wonderful complexity of creation. He describes how “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God,” and then, “The sun ariseth… and man goeth forth unto to his work and to his labor until the evening” (Psalm 104: 21-23).
Rising early and working is how we seek our food from God: living a selfless, active faith and exercising wise dominion (not tyranny!) over the rest of creation. We must cultivate healthy soil on our farms, protect the rivers in our mountains, end the use of bags that break down into ubiquitous microplastics, and take compassionate care of animals. A good Christian is a good conservationist. But to be salt does not mean coveting, taking obsessive account of what we lack, or fretting that we won’t have enough unless we control everything. To be the salt that revives the waters is to live a more ancient and reverent mode of being, every day, singing “praise to… God for as long as [we] have [our] being” (Psalm 104:33), and working to tend the garden of creation by the sweat of our brows.
Such a life constitutes a powerful and rigorous path to ecological redemption. No matter whether the worst prognosis of climate change is true, or the entire theory is false, then to be salt is the way we should approach nature. We must bring our worries and problems to God, not complaining, but asking simply, humbly, and faithfully for God to deliver us. What happens when we approach God like this?
We and all creation are showered with blessings. The Lord “will rain bread from heaven.” This bread may be physical, feeding our bodies, or it may be spiritual bread, the Word of God wherein the Apostle urges us to “Walk by the spirit, and not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). This bread, the Word, will help us to endure discomfort and insecurity. It will help us share earthly gifts without covetousness. It will help us to pray and to fast (Orthodox Christians are already vegan about half the time; we don’t need a “meat tax” to reduce our consumption). It will inspire us to live more simply, accumulating permanent treasures in heaven, rather than chimerical wealth here on earth.
“But,” one might protest, “The world is a big place, and most people, even most Christians, don’t even know about, much less follow, ascetic practices. Personal spiritual actions won’t be enough.” Such a consideration won’t worry us, if we turn back to Exodus 16. There, we see God forgive the Israelites, instead of judging them. Why? According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, God granted mercy because of the consistent faith of Moses, the God-seer, who devoted himself completely to prayer and obedience. One faithful man among the ungrateful millions saved all of the wandering Israelites.3
It would be helpful if our leaders could model such faith for us wanderers in the wilderness of modernity. But even though they don’t, we can find inspiration in Moses, Elisha, St. Peter, and all of the saints, who show us how to ask for and receive what the Lord lovingly offers us. Communion with Christ gives us the strength to cultivate a climate of humility in our hearts. With such an internal climate, our spiritual actions will cause life-giving water, and not pollution, to suffuse the natural world.
Charles Haywood, “Review: God Is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament (Stephen De Young),” The Worthy House (blog), January 26, 2022, https://theworthyhouse.com/2022/01/26/god-is-a-man-of-war-the-problem-of-violence-in-the-old-testament-stephen-de-young/
Porphyrios and Sisters of the Holy Convent of Chrysopigi, Wounded by Love: The Life and the Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios (Limni, Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey (Publisher), 2005). Page 129.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).