{"id":1758,"date":"2015-06-23T08:42:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T13:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2021-01-29T15:53:19","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T20:53:19","slug":"climate-change-and-pope-francis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/climate-change-and-pope-francis\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change: Pope Francis Exposes the Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"

When presidential candidate Jeb Bush wanted to criticize Pope Francis for writing an encyclical on climate change, Bush is reported to have said that religion \u201cought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting into the political realm.\u201d In other words, religion should stay clear of economics and politics, and the Pope is getting too close.<\/p>\n

If I may quote one of my children\u2019s favorite exclamations to summarize the Pope\u2019s much more lengthy and eloquent response in the encyclical Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>: That\u2019s ridiculous!<\/p>\n

But the majority of American Christians don\u2019t see it that way. The distinction between religion and politics\/economics makes total sense to us. We\u2019ve been schooled to believe the myth that religion has to do with our private, inner lives\u2014our souls\u2014and not the wider world of public matters like politics, economics, and science. The reality of climate change and how to respond belongs, according to this myth, to the latter.<\/p>\n

This religious myth is just another form of the heresy of Gnosticism which Christianity has been fighting from its beginning. Gnosticism taught that our souls are connected to God, and the rest of the world can be rejected or enjoyed, whichever you like. None of the rest matters. \u201cGnosticism,\u201d scholar Harold Bloom has said, \u201cis the American religion proper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is precisely why many American Christians have such a hard time relating our faith to anything other than our souls. Like race, for instance. Or the environment. Pope Francis is teaching us why we should learn.<\/p>\n

The Pope\u2019s argument hinges theologically on the distinction between God and creation.<\/p>\n

It feels almost silly to need to be reminded of this: Christians believe in one God who is \u201cCreator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen,\u201d as we say in the Creed. \u201cAll that is, seen and unseen\u201d\u2014creation, in other words\u2014is oriented toward God as its source and purpose for existence. And \u201call that is\u201d includes human culture, politics, and economics as well, however disordered. Everything belongs. Getting this distinction straight is critical.<\/p>\n

Because, Francis says, we humans have long failed to do just that. We have imagined that we are on the God-side of the distinction. We have allowed our politics and economics to treat the rest of creation as if it were oriented toward us<\/em> as its source, useful for our purposes alone. And the \u201cour\u201d here are those with wealth and power. The rest have been left out.<\/p>\n

We have created what Pope Francis calls a \u201cthrowaway culture.\u201d We \u201cuse\u201d creation for our purposes. Along the way we have damaged it. And the world\u2019s poor suffer from that damage disproportionately.<\/p>\n

The discussion of these things may not belong within the sphere of gnostic American religion, but it does within the sphere of the Christian religion\u2014for everything<\/em> does. For Christians, there is no realm\u2014politics, culture, economics, science\u2014outside of the scope of God\u2019s creation and free from consideration of how it should be ordered toward God and the common good of all\u2014including the non-human creation.<\/p>\n

This is Christianity 101\u2014basic stuff. But the myth of the distinction between the religious sphere and these others is endemic, it seems. Among the other reasons we need this encyclical\u2014and there are many\u2014we need it for the Pope\u2019s eloquent \u201cNo!\u201d to this myth. This \u201cNo!\u201d is particularly important as we enter a presidential race in which religious people who want to speak about politics will too often be told, from both sides of the political line, to get back where they belong.<\/p>\n

I know a pastor talking with a church\u2019s search committee about whether she should become that church\u2019s next pastor. A member of the committee told her, \u201cWe don\u2019t want sermons about politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

My advice to this pastor: Give the search committee a copy of Pope Francis\u2019s encyclical on climate change, and say, \u201cRead this, then let\u2019s talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, friend, don\u2019t hold your breath waiting to be hired.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Rev. Dr. L. Roger Owens is associate professor of leadership and ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and teaches courses in the MDiv, Doctor of Ministry, and Continuing Education programs. Before coming to PTS he served urban and rural churches for eight years in North Carolina as co-pastor with his wife Ginger. He has written multiple books including <\/em>The Shape of Participation: A Theology of Church Practices which was called \u201cthis decades best work in ecclesiology\u201d by <\/em>The Christian Century.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When presidential candidate Jeb Bush wanted to criticize Pope Francis for writing an encyclical on climate change, Bush is reported to have said that religion \u201cought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting into the political realm.\u201d In other words, religion should stay clear of economics…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[127,128],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ministry","category-theological-reflection","tag-climate-change","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\r\nClimate Change: Pope Francis Exposes the Myth - Pittsburgh Theological Seminary<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We\u2019ve been schooled to believe that religion has to do with our private lives and not politics, economics, or climate change. 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