I’m aware that my previous post (about providence and climate change) was a bit of a tangled mess. Let me try to tease it apart a little and lay out the direction in which I’d love to see the conversation move.
What I’m proposing to do is:
- Take another look at the question of how Christians should respond to climate change. In particular, I’d like to focus on some of the urgent, practical questions — about how to balance competing priorities, etc — that I never really got around to dealing with in my earlier reflections (such as THIS, THIS or THIS).
- Yet in turning to application I don’t want to turn my back on theology. I’ll continue to try to gather my thoughts around the topics of God’s providence — his gracious, sovereign and purposeful interaction with the world he has made — and human stewardship, taking Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness as a touchstone.
Here (in a little more detail) is how I’m proposing to tackle it:
- ‘If you are the Son of God…’ — God’s provision and human stewardship
- ‘Not by bread alone’ — the heart of human stewardship
- ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’ — the shape of human stewardship
- ‘Serve him only’ — the goal of human stewardship
- ‘They will bear you up’ — the un-looked-for satisfaction of stewardship
I expect to add further sub-points as I elaborate on each of these ‘theme-statements’, fleshing out what they might mean for our responsibility to care for God’s good creation (although, of course, they have wider application — and indeed, the fact that creation care isn’t the only game in town is something with which we’ll no doubt wrestle as we move forward).
