David A. Hart, University of Derby, DE22 I1GB Ecologica _ Christianity by Lloyd Geering ‘The time has come for the most significant change that Christian spirituality has yet experienced. But this change is itself part of a much more comprehensive change in human consciousness brought about by the evolutionary process.’ So wrote Catholic priest Thomas Berry in The Dream of the Earth.
One of the historical roles now being assigned to our generation is the role of creating, in its main outlines, the forms of spirituality appropriate to the new story of human origins. This is the ecological age and we must create an ecological spirituality. But since no spirituality emerges out of nothing but only out of what has gone before, our task is to see how an ecological spirituality can emerge out of our own cultural past, which is a Judeo-Christian past.
The first step is to understand why the spirituality of the past has now become inadequate and even dysfunctional. The Christian story was a stupendous story but something was missing. The natural world was desacralized and was no longer permeated by the sacred dimension. Judeo-Christian monotheism promoted a negative view of the natural world. As it did so, it created a dualistic view of reality. This set God the Creator over against the created world. It set Heaven over against earth (whereas in Genesis heaven and earth formed one reality). It set Spirit over against matter.
All these divisions are in conflict with the new story of origins, which is showing us that the contrast between heaven and earth is a false dichotomy. The earth is all of a piece with the planets, the sun, the stars and the nebulae. The earth is of the same order and of the same basic reality as the heavens.
The new story of origins is showing us that while we rightly value what we call the spiritual The new story of origins is putting us humans back into our proper place among the many and diverse living forms on this planet. We humans, by the very genetic code out of which we are formed, are cousins to all other forms of planetary life. We have no special rights of ownership and dominion over the other forms of life.
Before we create the new spirituality for the ecological age we must first abandon the following false dualities of the past: ¢ the duality of a self-contained divine being separate from the universe, which he/she has supposedly created; e the duality of two separate orders of reality - spirit and matter. This includes the duality of religious versus secular; and e the duality of humans over against the planet, as if we were temporary visitors who do not properly belong here but are destined for another world.
So our first steps towards the new spirituality will be to learn how to re-unite heaven and earth, how to reunite the spiritual and the material, and how to rediscover within the earth the creativity and sacredness long associated too exclusively with the heavens.
The pantheism of Spinoza, the evolutionary approach of Teilhard de Chardin and the ‘process theologians’ and the non-realism of Don Cupitt, have all the real significance of the incarnation doctrine became lost dimension of the human condition, there is no absolute gulf between the other living creatures and us.
It is rather that spirituality is potentially present in all physical matter and has now reached in us the highest level known to us. But this spiritual dimension can never be divorced from the material. We are not spiritual beings temporarily encased in physical bodies. We are rather psycho-physical organisms who enjoy a finite existence. The absolute dichotomy between spiritual and material is a false one. been steps in the abandonment of the duality of God over the creation. If we still speak of God it will be more in the manner used by Gordon Kaufman when he wrote in In Face of Mystery, ‘To believe in God, thus, is to commit oneself to a particular way of ordering one's life and action: it is to devote oneself...to working toward a fully humane world within the ecological restraints here on planet Earth, while standing in piety and awe before the profound mysteries of existence’.
Sof 56 November 2002 Ecological Christianity can draw considerably from the most central Christian doctrine, that of ‘incarnation’ or ‘enfleshment of God’. When the Evangelist wrote ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ he uttered a very daring thought. It has certainly been too much for orthodox Jews and Muslims to accept. Now we have to consider whether or not in the long run it was too much even for Christians to stomach indefinitely. For though Christians adopted the notion, they also wanted to restrict it very severely. For example, it happened only once and in only one man. And even he was forced to leave the flesh behind and be returned to heaven in a glorified body. This process of thought that took place in the mental imagery of Christians could be described as excarnation, rather than incarnation. Thus orthodox Christianity did not take the daring thought of the Evangelist to its logical conclusions. Rather, they reversed it. The divine presence that supposedly had enfleshed itself in humanity (but only for the relatively short period of one person's lifetime) had now returned to heaven, the proper dwelling place for divinity.
Why did this reversal of the incarnation come to take place? The brief answer is that while Christianity was still in its fluid state, it became influenced by rival religious movements, all of which were offering personal salvation from a confusing world, which posed a terrifying future. ‘What must I do to be saved?’ was a common plea. Christianity established itself as the religion of salvation par excellence. And Jesus Christ was proclaimed the Saviour of the world.
But how did he save? By delivering people from this wicked and fallen world and leading them to a new world. And where was this world? At first it was to be this world — dramatically renewed. It was to be ‘a new heaven and new earth’. But as time went on it was changed into a supernatural world completely other than this world of space and time; thus this world came to be devalued. The Christ figure became the spiritual saviour leading people to a spiritual world beyond death. The humanity of Jesus and the real significance of the incarnation doctrine became lost.
It is not surprising that with the advent of modernity from the 18th century onwards, not only has the genuine humanity of Jesus been recovered but also the theme of the incarnation is being re-interpreted as the basis of where Christianity may go in the future. One of the pioneers was Feuerbach in his book The Essence of Christianity in 1843. His thesis may be briefly summarized in today’s language thus:
The central essence of Christianity, and what distinguishes it from all other religious traditions, is the incarnation. And what the incarnation means is this. The divine has enfleshed itself in the human condition; not just in one man, but also in the human species. The mythical throne in heaven is now empty. God and humankind are reconciled. They have become one and the same. And what is the divine? What is the Word that Sof 56 November 2002 is said to have become flesh? It is the very creativity that has brought the world into being. Thus the Christian doctrine of the incarnation illumines for us what is happening on the surface of our planet. On this planet, from this point onwards, the creativity that our forebears observed within the world and the responsibility for its care (traditionally associated only with the gods or God) are now to be found chiefly in humankind.
Thus the doctrine of the incarnation, long affirmed as central to the Christian tradition, may well provide the way by which the broader Christian tradition can make a substantial contribution to ecological spirituality. e It overcomes the duality of the divine creativity and that which is created. The two form one evolving, self-creating process. e It overcomes the duality spirit and matter. Socalled physical reality is the matrix of spiritual reality. e It overcomes the duality of the Saviour Christ over sinful humankind. It does this by restoring the full humanity of Jesus. Moreover, the divine presence is not exclusive to the man Jesus.
Humanity everywhere, irrespective of race, colour, gender or tradition, has the capacity to enflesh and mediate the divine. e It overcomes the duality of the world and us. We humans are no longer to see ourselves as over against the planet, using it, subduing it, dominating it, and exploiting it. We are of the dust of the planet ourselves. The world and we ourselves are all parts of one process, a selfcreative process. The creativity of the planet has now evolved in human self-consciousness - to the point where we find increasing responsibility resting on us for the future destiny of the planet.
We human individuals live and die.
It is our great privilege to have been born into this awe-inspiring evolution of life and to have inherited the evolving human culture created by our forbears. And it is our responsibility to transmit this and the earth itself in the best possible state for our descendants.
Immortality is something belonging to species rather than to the individual and particularly it belongs to the planet. It is our role to play a creative part in the transmitting process. This is briefly how to see the Christian past evolving into what may be called ecological Christianity.
Lloyd Geering is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, Victoria University, Wellington.
His latest book, Christianity without God, (Bridget Williams Books, NZ & Polebridge Press, USA, 2002) is now available from from Sea of Faith, 15 Burton Street, Loughborough LE11 2DT at £11.00 plus £1.00 p&p (cheques payable to "Sea of Faith”).
A review will follow in a future edition of this magazine.