Dear Friends,
As the great naturalist David Attenborough celebrates his 100th birthday this week, home groups are continuing with our Carbon Literacy Course, seeking to preserve the creation Attenborough has done so much to draw to our attention.
Our opening sessions are focusing on participants calculating their personal carbon footprint. If you’ve never done this for yourself, try here: https://carbon-calculator.climatehero.org/ (it will also give you tips about how to reduce your footprint).
This week our group explore a little about how our attitude to the environment is influenced by our beliefs. Dave Bookless, co-founder of the Christian charity A Rocha International, created an illuminating diagram of three approaches to the environment ‘Ego’, ‘Eco’ and ‘Theo’.
Obviously, Ego places humans at the ‘top’ as consumers for whom nature exists as servant. The earth is simply there to sustain us. Such a worldview promises doom for the earth’s resources are not inexhaustible.
‘Eco’ represents an advance and it is one which is associated with a humanist vision of the planet: we humans are part of a system; we are dependent upon it; but we are no different from the nature. Clearly, if we lived on this basis, it would be an advance on ‘ego’. But somehow it underplays the uniqueness of humans.
Bookless’s final image, ‘Theo’, represents what he suggests is a Christian ideal. It proposed we see humans as part of a system in which we have a responsibility as stewards to uphold the integrity of nature, and to give it a direction towards love. In this sense, humans are called to responsible co-creation with God in shaping the world for the best.
Much of David Attenborough’s work has been towards stirring up in his viewers a loving attitude towards nature. Let’s join in.
Rev Dr Mark Laynesmith