Why Saving the World

could

Save the Uniting Church

Jessica Morthorpe, Uniting Earth Advocate & Director of the Five Leaf Eco-Awards

We have built our houses on sand. We were promised that if we sought unlimited economic growth, it would end poverty. We were promised that if we gave up our rights and freedoms as laborers, it would create more and better paid jobs. We were promised we could become a new and better thing than citizens, members and people – we could become customers!

We were promised that all this would make us happy. That it would make the world a better place. That this was progress, and we shouldn’t stand in the way. And so the idols of economics and GDP and unlimited growth grew.

But these promises turned out to be lies, and their prophets false.

Unlimited growth on a finite planet has always been an impossibility. And some of the values we gave up in the pursuit of it, we now find really did have value. The world around us seems to be getting worse, not better.

Thanks to climate change, suddenly we find ourselves standing, literally, in the ashes of our assumptions and arrogance.

Yet climate change is just a wake-up call. It is not, itself, the real crisis. It is a symptom of a deeper human spiritual crisis that raises many questions about what it means to be human, what it means to be part of nature, what it means to care for other people and creatures, what progress is, what we truly value, and what we are willing to pay for it.

This is a direct challenge to people of faith, to those of us who tell stories, make meaning, and live out our values.

Churches have many vital roles to play in fighting climate change. We who are called to love God’s creation and our neighbours, must first remove the log from our own eyes by reducing our own carbon emissions, and ultimately becoming carbon neutral. This will add integrity to the work we must then do inspiring our congregation members to pursue sustainable lifestyles and advocate to all levels of government for real climate action. These are just some of the elements of the Synod Climate Action Strategy we are currently implementing in NSW/ACT, and we would love to have you all join one of our five task groups. (For more info please visit https://www.unitingearth.org.au/)

But even more than this, I want to make two very important points:

Firstly, that this truly is core church work, and core Christian discipleship. I see a lot of exhausted congregations and ministers who hear us talking about the need to act on climate change and the environment as a church, and guiltily just add it to their ever growing to-do pile. This comes out of an underlying assumption that creation care is a nice thing to do, but ultimately it is an extra – an add-on – something to do if you have time. I want to challenge that assumption.

From the very first line of the Bible, it is clear that caring for creation is not a peripheral thing. God’s care for and love of creation is woven deeply through the whole text. (For more info see: http://www.blessedearth.org/wp-content/uploads/wordpress/2011/09/Scripture-Themes.pdf)

By failing to make creation care core business, in a sense we fail to be church, and we fail to embrace part of the identity God calls us into as church communities. Part of the impact of this, is that we are perceived as hypocritical, inauthentic, and not all that we should be. This makes us less attractive and less inspiring – in short, less something that people want to be a part of.

Which brings me to my second point. When we push creation care to the side as too hard, or something we will get to later – we miss a huge opportunity!! Because saving the world could save the church.

Remember those false promises I began with? They have led young people like me (I’m one of the dreaded millennials) to feel deeply disillusioned with the world, and particularly with neoliberal economics. Part of why they reject the church is because they see it as part of this system, part of maintaining the status-quo that is oppressing them and leaving a world that is poorer, less habitable and more lonely in its wake. Too often in recent years we have been on the wrong side of history.

But at the risk of sounding mercenary – all of this disillusionment is an opportunity for us. If young people were happy with their lives, happy living without a community in the ashes of a dying planet – then they would never have any reason to need the church.

But people do need us right now. As they come to the realisation that how we order our society is broken and wrong, they are casting about for alternatives. But all they can see are things that don’t seem like real solutions. So they are trying to work out how to live. They are trying to work out what deep, embedded and lived sustainability looks like.

And our churches are full of people that can actually help with what they are looking for. There are an abundance of examples, but two key ones are community and skills:

Community – yes churches are in decline, but on average 1.6 million people still attend a church on any given Sunday in Australia (NCLS, 2011). We are still bastions of community, still centres of social capital – and as people realise that the way out of this mess involves putting community ahead of individualism, and that almost everything sustainable is easier as part of a community, they are going to want to learn about real community from us again. We have to be open to welcoming them, and willing to teach with humility what we have learned.

Skills – we love to bemoan how our churches are aging and we lack young people. But what our people have in abundance is wisdom, experience and skills! There is a growing ‘Right to Repair’ movement in Australia, and churches like St Luke’s UC Highton are getting on board by running monthly repair cafes, where people can bring broken electronics, furniture and clothes, to be taught how to repair them by the church members. But if a monthly thing sounds too challenging, I love to talk about Port Melbourne Uniting Church, and their annual skills fest. This is an event where they bring together those with skills to teach, and those with something they would like to learn. And as old skills like knitting, sewing and crocheting become popular again with younger generations, we have churches full of people who could be teaching these skills. In fact, when I mentioned my own sadness that I never got to learn how to sew at school like so many of my older friends did in a Sydney church recently, a wonderful lady invited me to her house and gave me my first lesson with a sewing machine – I’ve already repaired a few simple pieces of clothing with what I learned.

Three more important things to note about this opportunity:

1. Environmental ministries like community gardens and repair cafes are really good at creating places where people can belong before they believe. Instead of asking people to jump straight from no church knowledge or background, to walking inside a big strange building every week; these “third spaces” give people the opportunity to meet and build relationships with church people somewhere that feels safe. It’s like putting out an extra stepping stone to bridge the chasm.
2. This opportunity is particularly big for the Uniting Church. I often quip that we are the greenest church in Australia, but the bar is so low that that doesn’t mean very much. But we do have both a head start, and the history. We have been talking about the environment since our very first Statement to the Nation in 1977 when the church was founded. We passed our first climate change resolution in 2003, and we have at least 13 national assembly resolutions about environmental issues, and many more in each Synod. Our very Basis of Union document says that the goal of the church is to serve God’s purpose of the reconciliation and renewal of all creation. We’ve got this. Environmentalism is in our DNA as a church. It’s a history I’m very proud of, and a large part of why I’m still part of the Uniting Church today. Better yet – it’s a differentiating factor. It’s something no other denomination can match us on – so let’s shout it from the rooftops with pride, and make sure all of our young people know that this makes us unique and worth being part of.
3. Environmental ministry is a work of love. Caring for creation is a testament and witness to our love for the creator, the creation, and the people of the world. It says that we care, and that instead of being paralysed by fear at the state of the world, we are going to do something about it. It shows that we believe in resurrection, in the broken being restored, and that the world can get better. We have all seen the amazing leadership of Gen Z, the generation after mine, leading these global climate strikes and speaking up for their right to a future. You might not know that it was two young rural Australian girls who really helped the movement kick off globally. Who saw Greta Thunberg’s protest in Sweden, and decided to protest in solidarity in Castlemaine, VIC. From there, they lit the world on fire. But this is a fire largely fuelled by fear, disillusionment and disappointment. As Greta herself has said multiple times, this is not a burden that should be falling on children. Their childhoods are being stolen because adults wouldn’t step up to the challenge and they are scared.

One of the big questions behind all this fear is, do you love me? Children are supposed to feel loved and safe, but this generation is asking, not just their parents, but all of us – do you love me? Do you love me enough to save my future? Do you love me enough to make the changes needed? Do you love me enough to put my survival ahead of your own comfort and convenience? How about we, the people of the God of love, respond with a resounding yes!

In short, church environmental ministries might be the greatest evangelism tool you have never heard of!

I’m not going to tell you that such an approach will be easy, or that it will make young people flood in the church doors. I’m not a snake oil salesman, and there are too many other factors working against us. But I do want you to know that, done for the right reasons, I think this is the best chance the Uniting Church has of becoming truly relevant, authentic and connected again, for all ages. And most churches aren’t opposed to the idea of building environmental ministries, they are just so tired dealing with the day to day, and fighting their fears about the future, that they are overlooking this golden opportunity sitting right in front of our noses. So let’s cast out our fear and take another prayerful leap of faith. The longest journey begins with the first step.

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If you’d like to read some more of my thoughts about neoliberalism and the church, you can read my paper in Uniting Church Studies here: https://www.academia.edu/39770070/Seeking_Freedom_Together_The_potential_of_churches_to_move_from_enthrallment_to_neoliberalism_to_centres_of_a_new_old_way