COP 26 and the Great Commission

Climate science is a sophisticated business, so it is a sitting target for sceptics and climate change deniers. But you don’t need computer modelling to sense that something is not right with nature.

Southern species are moving northwards. I picked up two ticks this year walking in the north of Scotland. You can now find hummingbird hawk moths in Derbyshire. And if you want to climb down to the Mer de Glace, a mighty glacier near Mont Blanc, you must abseil 300 feet further than when I first did that descent in 1974; the glacier is shrinking!

This is all very new and the fact is that the world is getting warmer, that biodiversity is under threat, and that human activity seems to be the culprit.

This is our Father’s world, and we were created to work it and take care of it (Gen.2:15). Taking care of the earth is a spiritual activity and everything in our nature is designed to equip us to be the planet’s caretakers. John Calvin put it like this: ‘Let him who possesses a field so partake of its yearly fruits that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavour to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits that he neither dissipates it by luxury, nor permits to be marred or ruined by neglect … let everyone regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.’

In Genesis 1, God’s image-bearers are told to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’. Chapter Two requires us to take care of the biosphere. We have done well with the first, and very badly with the second. Calvin’s words, ‘injury’, ‘dissipation’ and ‘neglect’, could have been written this morning. We are in trouble and our kid’s generation are in deeper trouble, so the Glasgow Climate Change Conference was very, very important.

Cyrus the Great (559 –29 BC) decreed that God’s people should return to Jerusalem from their exile in Persia. A pagan ruler unwittingly promoted God’s plan and purpose on earth. Augustus Caesar (27BC – 14 AD) had a walk-on part in the Nativity because he did the same. Might not COP26 be part of this pattern? Is this common grace in action? I certainly hope so, because we cannot continue as we are. You cannot save the planet by recycling your bottle tops – we need global action.

Christians can be deeply sceptical about all this. Maybe you simply don’t believe the science? Well, you don’t need to, because the shift to renewables makes sense anyway. Imagine being self-sufficient in renewable energy, less dependent on oil and gas, and pouring less poison into our waterways. It is all about moving from dissipation and neglect to caring for the earth. Or, to put it another way, it is being obedient.

Others might point to the Great Commission and say that none of this is our business, we should just preach the gospel and let God look after the environment. But read Genesis 2:15 again, I don’t think He is going to do that, He gave that job to us.