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From Luke’s Journal Nov 2024 | Vol.29 No.3 | Mental Health II

Many today are troubled by the stress of harm to God’s creation, both for the current day and the future. We have even created a new term, eco-anxiety, to describe this unease. Eco-anxiety is defined as extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate change. We are now likely to live lives, for a time, in an era of creation harm.

This article seeks to act as a Christian resource to comfort and reassure us as we continue to journey with God, both as individuals and as a community.

Our God has entrusted to us a beautiful world. The created world is repeatedly declared good (Gen 1: 4,10,12,18, 21, 25, 31). People are created in the very image of God (Gen 1:26-27), and the pinnacle of creation is the Sabbath (Gen 2:2-3) – a time to reflect, rest and enjoy the presence of God in His creation.

We were called to work in the garden and keep it (Gen 2:15). All of this is recorded in the two creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2. Sadly, Genesis 3 follows – and relationships with God, each other and God’s creation are harmed.

“These people, like people of our generation, are at times splendid and creative, and at other times disappointing and destructive.”

We can learn much about the nature of God through his natural revelation. We also learn much, in the biblical account, of the relationship between a loving, merciful and just God with His people, the Israelites, to whom He has promised much. These people, like people of our generation, are at times splendid and creative, and at other times disappointing and destructive.

God continued to journey with his people. He sent prophets. He sent his Son (John 3:16). God so loved the cosmos! The cosmos is a word for the whole of creation – the environment, the creatures, and people. To be healthy, all need to be healthy. This is presented in the Old Testament concept of shalom and modern secular One Health.

The Israelites were familiar with the concept of lament – to express sadness, grief, and regret. Biblical lament is, according to N.T. Wright;

“…grieving for the present situation yet acting in the hopeful assurance that God will deliver and redeem. Despair, in itself, is hopeless, a weeping for something that cannot be regained. But lament is characterised by hope.“

When loss presents, lament is a response. We even have an Old Testament book named Lamentations. The Psalms capture the full range of human emotions. Old Testament scholars tell us that more than half of the psalms are laments.

The promise of ‘land’ is a strong theme throughout the Bible:

• Israel lamented their separation from the land of God’s promise to Abraham. 
• From the time of Jacob to Moses there was loss, sadness, and lament for four hundred years.
• With the exile in Babylon, there was a lamented separation of seventy years. 

By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion. (Psalm 137:1)

While the value of our real estate may be increasing, creation is groaning (Rom 8:22). For over two centuries, human activity in industrialisation has increased atmospheric carbon – initially silently, then with more and more disturbance and attention. The rate of biodiversity loss is alarming. The emerging story of microplastics further heightens eco-anxiety.

And so, we can lament for a time. Regretfully, this may be a significant time. The harm to creation requires healing and care for the world Jesus has made (John 1). Yet as Christians in East Africa say – “God is good, all the time. All the time God is good.” Yes, there is future hope – God has promised a renewed earth. This is our hope.

There is a challenge to respond biblically to the harm done to God’s creation.  A challenge brings an opportunity, and a response starts with a first step. Lament is positioned as a well-recognised biblical response to loss and separation.  The Psalms and other Old Testament books provide us with a template of lamenting as a modelled response to the loss of the land of promise.

Our time of lament for a groaning creation may be seventy years, four hundred years or more. There are many ways to lament and to then respond. Let me share two!

1. The International Christian Medical and Dental Association (ICMDA) has several training tracks, which are short courses. Please join an upcoming ICMDA Creation Care and Health training track – https://icmda.net/resources/trainingtracks/cch/
2. For your church community, you may seek to encourage them to learn more about eco-churches. See https://arocha.org/en/theology-churches/eco-church/.

Shalom.

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References

1. CDC. About One Health. Accessed 240912 https://www.cdc.gov/one-health/about/index.html#:~:text=One%20Health%20is%20a%20collaborative,plants%2C%20and%20their%20shared%20environment.
2. Oxford Languages – Ecoanxiety accessed 240910 https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2019/
3. NT Wright ‘5 Things to Know About Lament’ accessed 2409112  https://www.ntwrightonline.org/five-things-to-know-about-lament/