This is Tokens. I'm Lee C. Camp.
Episode Transcript
Lee C Camp
Chris
Slow violence is, an interesting concept that I find to be very helpful in describing what we see around the planet.
Lee
That's Chris Doran, Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University.
Chris
I do argue that climate denial is maybe a sin.
Lee
Chris refuses to accept a sort of wait-until-heaven Christian faith, then, that does not take seriously the grave issues facing us now:
Chris
Often times what I hear in churches is this sort of like, I'm going to want to go to heaven. So I have this hope that that's going to do, but it's sort of a passive waiting game and I don't have to do much until then. But instead, the early Christian witness said, while you're sitting around waiting, you're supposed to be doing this really profoundly important work and thus, we can go out and love our neighbor in new ways.
Lee
Chris is the author of a recent book entitledHope in the Age of Climate Change: Creation Care this Side of the Resurrection,in which he makes the argument that:
Chris
If the resurrection is objectively true then everything we do matters in a new way. If we know that God wins in the end, it means that certain things now, don't have to be this way. We have a vision of what a better place looks like, where you love your neighbors, where you're just to your neighbors,where you actually have clean air, clean water and decent food. If the resurrection is objectively true It's supposed to engage us to be courageous. It's supposed to engage us into seeking justice for those who have little or no voice.
Lee
All this coming right up.
Interview
Lee
Chris Doran is Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, his research and teaching have been on a variety of issues related to the intersection between theology and science. His current work focuses on developing theological responses to climate change and its effects on human and non-human creatures as well as the rest of creation.
Welcome Chris.
Chris
Thank you. Thank you, very much. I'm happy to be here.
Lee
Yes, we're grateful to have you. How did you come to give the attention you have given to climate change?
Chris
Yeah, I think there was a confluence of a number of things that I think are only starting to become more apparent to me as I get into my mid-forties now. I spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid. And whether it was, you know, kind of hiking and mountains or just being outside, playing. That, I think those things were more meaningful to me, than I expected them to be.
They weren't, you know, sort of something that I reflected on in my youth, but the older I've gotten, the more I realized being outdoors being amongst things that are not made by human hands was a big deal to just my formation and who I am. And then I started my academic work sort of in the, the intersection of what's called the religion and science or the science or religion field, looking at evolution and genetics and neuroscience and some of those things.
And then I taught a class one summer on ecology and public policy and Christianity and the sort of relationship of those. And the student feedback I had was tremendous. It really was different than the student feedback I had on a number of other classes that I was teaching in the science, religion field.
And so that was a hugely big shaper to what I was doing. And I thought as I was reading the climate science at that time, so this was back in like 2005, 2006. Irealized something was going on. And, if my students would respond to it and start talking about it a little bit more, and I thought there was something going on, that those things kind of came together for me.
And so I started shifting to teaching more about creation care and climate change and the impacts of climate change on human and non-human creatures.
And then just my own theological training. You know, it was sort of one where I have systematic and philosophical theologian by training. And those things that I was thinking about, God, the creator, God, the Redeemer, the importance of the resurrection, that those things all kind of came together for me, not just in my personal walk, but in a sense of how I was exploring the 2000 year history of Christianity.
Lee
And you're connecting basic Christian orthodoxy directly with climate activism.
Chris
Yeah, I think, the central thesis of my book is thatif the resurrection is objectively true,and I believe it is. And that ending of the apostle, Paul's saying that if the resurrection was not true, then we're all fools, you know, taking that as the starting point. Then everything we do matters in a new way.
I think that's an important thing for us to consider is how do we live every single day as if the resurrection matters? And not just on Easter Sunday or maybe a couple of special sermons throughout the year, but every single day. And that's why I, in my tradition, the centrality of the resurrection is supposed to be an every Sunday event.
And I was really taken by some of the early Christian witnesses in the first few centuries who said their whole lives were changed dramatically by the resurrection. And their courage, their sense of kindness, their sense generosity, all of those things were inspired by saying that Jesus was alive and had risen from tomb.
And I think that to me, it helped shape how I understand the work that I'm supposed to be doing now, to not just inspire people to see God in creation, but to inspire, the kind of. As I put it in the book, I think God dares us to try to make the, not yet already. And that tension between the already and not yet through the apostle Paul talks about, I think we live in a dare to God saying, try to train the, not yet into the already.
And that's what I'm trying to do, I think.
Lee
Could you spell out for a little bit more for us than some of the specifics of what that move might look like? What does it look like to make the, not yet already?
Chris
There's some things like what we're seeing, and especially during this pandemic, we cannot wipe every tear. We cannot heal every sorrow. Those are some things that are going to have to wait until the very end when God brings the consummation of all things to its complete end.
But. I think we can look out at creation and say, what does it look like for all people to breathe clean air? What does it look like for all people to drink clean water? What does it look like for all people to eat nutritionally dense food that, is reasonably accessible and cost effective?
Because I think those are things that signal God's presence in the world, that God cares not just about human people. But those three things, especially, signal that the rest of creation is operating well when there's clean air, when there's clean water. And when we have a relationship with the land where it's producing nutritionally dense food.
And so I think those to me are just three examples that I work on quite a lot, not just only in my home local community, but as I teach students about how Christians should be concerned about those things that are impacting people's lives, because those three things right there,clean air,clean water, and decent food, cause so much illness and health problems for humans and non-humans around the planet. And we have to be very thoughtful about how we understand God's work through those sorts of things that impact people's lives every single day.
Lee
You're connecting basic Christian orthodoxy with these issues in ways that as we've already kind of indicated, seems counterintuitive to some, given the cultural climate in which we find ourselves, but you're also maybe cutting against the grain at least of climate change deniers who will oftentimes depict a concern with climate change as utopian and unrealistic.
But you're speaking in very practical, realistic terms.
Chris
Yeah. I have actually a section in my book whereI doprovocativelyargue that climate denial may be a sinof some sort, whether it's a sin of omission, commission, or ignorance. I have some delineations listed in the book on that, but I, you know, as someone who comes from a science background, there's one piece of me that says, you know, some of the greatest scientists that have ever existed have been Christian, you know, and, and, those are things, understanding how God created the planet, how God's created the universe, I think is something that is so tremendously important to my own faith walk and the faith walk of countless scientists who have come before me and are presently in our society and societies around the world.
So I think that just to speak to that, it is really important for us to think about how. The history of Christianity has fostered an open and honest investigation of creation and how creation works. But also scripture talks a lot about, particularly the Israelite profits. The relationship between the land and the poor, and if the land is treated well, the poor is being treated well.
And if the poor are being treated well, the land is being treated well. And that sort of ancient wisdom insight, I think, is only borne out of the science that when we see we are treating the land, well, we all also probably exist in societies where the poor among us are being treated better and vice versa.
So I think there's some real life kinds of insights from scriptural witness that it would be easy to slough aside and say they're ancient wisdom kind of insights, but they're far more, I think, impactful to how we see what's going on in the planet. Even if these things were written four or 5,000 years ago, there were some really bright people that were communicating God's truth a long time ago.
And I think I want to be part of that tradition that carries that forward and says let's take seriously what they were taking seriously and see if, that will change people's lives now. And ultimately, Lee, the ability for us to see the gospel as something that's transformative to every single part of human and creations existence is what I think the challenge of the resurrection brings us.
Everything matters, not just some things.
Lee
Related to that notion of climate change denial, perhaps being construed as a sin. You also note quoting, I think eco critic, Rob Nixon, who will speak of a victims of environmental changes, victims of slow violence.
Chris
Yeah,slow violence is, an interesting concept that I find to be very helpful in describing what we see around the planet.
So. We can think of spontaneous events that are incredibly violent, like unfortunate mass shootings or, you know, wars or maybe a bomb is dropped on a group of people.
And there's an instantaneous kind of, explosive event that we can all look at and say, my goodness, this should not happen. And this is incredibly violent. But what we're seeing around the planet, I'll give you one example on the human side and one on the non-human side. On the human side, we see cultures like the Pacific Island nations that were rising.
Sea levels are taking over their ability to gather fresh water, or the king tides are becoming more and more frequent. And so, saltwater is impacting their ability to grow food. Those things are happening at a very slow pace. It's been taken decades and decades and decades for them to get to those points, but their cultures are being irreparably harmed.
We know there's countries like Tuvalu and Vanuatu and the Maldives and even Fiji that are looking for new places to live, you know. So those are slowly violent events. Their cultures are coming to an end. Their ways of life are coming to an end, but it's not an instantaneous sort of, event that happens on one day.
It happens over decades and decades. And that's just the Pacific Islands. I mean, I could talk about places in the middle of Africa or in the middle of Asia where desertification is happening very, very slowly, but it's causing tens of millions of people to either be internally displaced or externally displaced on the non-human side. You know, scientists tell us that we're living through the sixth grade extinction of this planet right now. And I think that's one of those things where it's not instantaneous, where we don't wake up one day and say, well, you know, there's X amount of species that have gone extinct. It's been happening over the last couple of hundreds of years in a slow, but, cumulative way.
And now all of a sudden we're waking up and realizing, oh, this, you know, mountain cat is no longer present or this bear is no longer present or this kind of marine mammal is no longer present in the way that we say. And those, I think what Nixon is trying to get at is that's a type of violence, but it's not that instantaneous violence that we're accustomed to, but it has the same practical effect.
Things are gone. Cultures are wiped out. People's ways of life that have existed for a thousand years are eradicated. Species that have lived on this planet for millions of years are no longer here. I think we have to acknowledge that as Christians for what it is and ask ourselves, should we be mourning and grieving that?Yes, absolutely. And should we be looking to arrest those sorts of things when we can? Yes, absolutely.
Lee
How would you characterize your description of hope as different from those who will use hope or eschatological notions of going to heaven as leading to quietism, passivism acting as if we don't really have to be concerned with this earth, we don't really have to be concerned with history because we have a hope, elsewhere.
Chris
Yeah, that's a, really important question. So I mean, the title of the book isHope in the Age of Climate Change, but I think what I was trying to do is to convince myself, at some level, that the resurrection hope matters and it was real. I'm a survivor of childhood abuse and, there was parts of the Christian story that didn't resonate with me because so much evil happened to me as a child.
And so as I sort of unpack that term, I found the Christian understanding of hope is different than say the cultural expectation of optimism. To me, optimism is not just a seeing the glass half full, but this sort of interesting inevitability that things will get better because things just always get better.
There's sort of optimism in that sense. There's sort of optimism from the sense of social and economic privilege that things will get better because they've always got better, but you know, wealthy people can say that really easily. But Christianity builds on this idea of hope. At least I think so through the apostle Paul. Hope comes from this three parts definition in the Old Testament: That you have an expectation of a future event, you have trust that that expectation can come true because you trust in either a deity or socio economic force or yourself.And then you have a patience of waiting. And Christians through the resurrection came to this idea that the expectation of the future with the resurrection meant that God wins. Death no longer has the final say. And you can trust in God in a new way maybe than, some of their Israelite forefathers and mothers thought, because if God had the power even over death, then trust has this new depth to it.
And I find that to be a really compelling answer for Christians in the first centuries, at least to say that there's this new kind of trust or this new depth of this trust was meaningful to transform their daily lives. And then the third part of that is the patience of waiting. We've been waiting for 2000 years and it's easy to say, well, Jesus will come back tomorrow or, you know, the 1840s. We followed all of these kind of bizarre notions of the American experience, what Jesus is going to return. But I think this patience of waiting, at least the way I understand hope, does not make us passive as Christians. It's supposed to engage our activity. So it's supposed to engage us to be magnanimous.It's supposed to engage us to be courageous. It's supposed to engage us in seeking justice for those who have little or no voice.
And so I think there's oftentimeswhat I hear in churches is the sort of like, I'm going to want to go to heaven. So I have this hope that that's going to do, but it's sort of a passive waiting game and I don't have to do much until then.
But instead, the early Christian witness said, while you're sitting around waiting, you're supposed to be doing this really profoundly important workofbeing great. In the sense of, I talk about in the book, if we're made in the image of God, we're called to do great things now, and we have no fear over death any longer. Death has that not final say.And thus, we can go out and love our neighbor in new ways.
We can go out and be brave in new ways. We can go out and be just in new ways. And I think all of that signals that hope is this really powerful, active response, rather than a passive one.
Lee
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This is our interview with Chris Doran. Coming up, we'll hear more from Chris about climate science denial, as well as some theological and practical causes for hope in light of such issues.
And: if you would like to hear more related material, then check out our two consecutive episodes on climate change and Christianity from season three, featuring climate activist Peter Harris and renowned climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.
Part two in just a moment.
Halfway Point
Lee
You're listening to Tokens and our interview with Chris Doran.
Given that your description of Christian orthodoxy relate so directly to these issues with which you're concerned, what sort of account do you give for the ways in which supposed conservative Christianity in America has rejected these ideas or has taken seriously climate change denial and acts as if these issues are merely the concern of secular liberals?
Chris
There are certainly days where I wake up and, can find it very depressing because, my own home congregation doesn't take climate change seriously, no matter how much I sort of sit in the back as it were and, you know, raise my fist preach on it or, give a meditation about it.
But I think what has given me some measure of, or glimmer at least, of hope, is that younger people, people under the age of 35, especially, take climate change a lot more seriously than their uncles and aunts and their parents. And if they are still attracted to Christianity, which survey shows is a little bit harder because church attendance doesn't always sort of match with, spiritual focus or desire to know God we know with younger folks.
But as I've taught this, class now on sustainability and Christianity for about 15 years now, I have found that more students have wanted to see the holistic approach to their Christianity and that Christianity matters to every part of their life. Not just the narrowly construed ways that quote “conservative Christianity” has looked like in the last few decades here in the state.
So while stereotypically Christianity in particularly the conservative forms of it, whether it be politically or theologically is focused on things like the abortion debate or evolution or LGBTQ issues. What I found with younger students especially is that, and I'm still talking about in the college age, so 18 to 22 year olds, the idea to talk about food and faith, or the idea of talking about climate migration and faith, or the idea of talking about like, you know, does my faith really care about clean air, clean water, and decent food?
That brings a whole different element to Christianity, which I think is totally true. I say this all the time in my classes, Christianity is the worst religion because it's a 24 hour, seven days a week job. Everything matters. Everything is either under the Lordship of Christ or not. Everything either forms you into the likeness of Christ or it deforms you, so you don't get to pick and choose which issues that you want to call Christian and which ones you don't.
And I think saying those sorts of things and challenging students to hold me accountable has given them an insight into Christianity that maybe they're not getting sometimes at some, some other places around the country that have narrowly construed Christianity with these hot button issues rather than saying, is it all of my life that is under the Lordship of Christ, is that all of my life, that changes who I am and not just certain parts of it.
Lee
What do you make of the anti-intellectualism among some Christians with regard to this issue?
Chris
Yeah, it's a tough one. I mean, I faced it at my own university, you know. So I teach at Pepperdine University and we have students who would prefer to be spoon fed understanding of scripture rather than to kind of critically reflect on it. We have administrators at times that can be in that same camp. We have faculty who could be in that same camp sometimes.
So there is certainly a cultural taboo even within universities that is, you know, sort of like, well, Christianity doesn't have to ask these really hard questions, but I take a lot of solace and refuge, frankly, in the Christian history of 2000 years. That intellectuals within the Christian tradition always ask the hard questions. I mean, from Augustine to Luther to everyone else that I'm missing, you know, that like there is this really profound tradition of asking lots and lots and lots of hard questions. So, I mean, for me personally, I find great comfort in that. As a former scientist, I find even more comfort knowing that so many Christians have been some of the world's greatest scientists and have said, I mean, even currently, you know, Francis Collins who runs national institutes of health is a very devout Christian and says his Christianity informs what he's doing, not just the research lab, but for the rest of humanity.
I think those things are really important to reflect upon. And I think sometimes it's hard in church services to remind each other that the history of Christianity is far more broad than sometimes the narrow scope of American thought. And I know that's not easy for preachers to dive into, but I think it would be good for us occasionally to remember that we're part of a larger story and that larger story has lots of critical thinkers and those folks have only strengthened their faith by critical thinking. They've never, sort of shied away from really tough questions and answers.
Lee
Speaking of asking hard questions, you're advocating as well, seeing critique of social systems as a key element of Christian witness.
Chris
Yeah. So one of the things that, I sort of profoundly think hope is about isif we know that God wins in the end,and we know that the future that God has provided us in that not yet transferring on onto already.It means that certain things now, don't have to be this way. We have a vision of what a better place looks like, where you love your neighbors, where your, just to your neighbors,where you actually haveclean air,clean water, and decent food.
We have visions of what that looks like. We just lack the will to do that at times. And so in my book my, students are always wondering why I have two chapters on, economics in a Christian theological expose on creation care.
And I wanted, as I said, well, we used to do a whole month on economics in my religion class, and I shortened that down to two chapters. Um, but the, chapters talk about the idea of using Sally McFague's language of what, what did economic system look like if it was a pale reflection of the kingdom of God?
So I argue for example, that, I don't actually think there is a Christian form of economics, but I think Christians can inspire ways of doing economic exchanges or economic systems that say things, like, sustainability should be forefront or, the interdependence of all creatures is something that would be forefront in God's kingdom.
So why can't we be thinking about that now? We might be saying things, like, if the vulnerable are left behind an economic policy, would that be something that would be a pale reflection of God's kingdom? And so think that's where my critique lies of Neo liberal thought. And some other economic systems is to say, how can we justify this when the wealth gap, for example, this century has expanded greater than we think that any other time in human civilizational history, right?
And those things kind of happen. And so the other chapter of my book on that as I. This is not the only virtue that could be employed, but I talk a lot about what it means to be frugal from that very Christian sense of the term of setting aside something so that you can then meet the needs of other neighbors.
And I think there's a critique that frugality can bring on. It's not the only critique, but it is a critique that personally we can set aside things to use in other ways to build relationships, to build communities. And that we need to be thinking about those kind of critiques because, in the case of being frugal, It's using your wealth differently than the modern society says to do. Using your wealth, to create community, to create relationships rather than to hoard things for your own.
That to me is a pale reflection of God's kingdom.
Lee
Any other particular questions you advocate for individuals or families?
Chris
Yeah. So the two big ones that I deal with all the time that make me pretty unpopular in churches, but one is the frugality thing, because while being frugal, think was a very huge Protestant virtue in the first few centuries of the American experiment, I think, you know, since the 1960s, 1970s forward, we see, you know, rates of savings going down, individual savings going down, rates of spending going up. That, talking about being frugal as an exercise of love of neighbor, is not something that a lot of Christian preachers find popular to do. Especially, as you all know, we have this, you know, kind of prosperity gospel phenomenon. That is our operational still in the U.S. and the rubs against that. So I, I talked to folks about that because it not only has profound environmental consequences, right?
If you're consuming less, you are using less resources, that's a net positive for creation. But it also changes the way that you see your possessions. And if you have a more loose association to your possessions and say to yourself, what is it that I have in my house that can be used for God's kingdom?
That's a much different relationship with what you have, that I think is, is counter-cultural in really profound ways. And then the other one that makes me super unpopular is, uh, when I start talking about, what does it mean if you eat industrialized, factory farm meat, how much meat should you eat?
What does it mean to buy from local farmers versus from large industrial places. And then that gets into another discussion about, there's plenty of unfortunately communities of color around our country that don't have grocery stores nearby. And so they don't have access to food. So you have things that are terms like food deserts or food swamps.
And so. I highlight food pretty heavily because for my students, at least. Probably their most heavy carbon footprint activity that they engage in every day is eating. And so there is a way of engaging in food that we can see God or not see God more clearly. And I think that our inability to engage in that is to disconnect, at least from my tradition saying that the Eucharist or the Lord's supper is something we practice every week.
Seems to me problematic when you say, oh yeah, it's a real big deal on Sunday, but I'm not going to connect those habits that I learned, those table manners as it were, to the rest of my week of eating that we have this complete disconnect from Sunday to the rest of the week. And what I found in the early Christian witnesses.
They wanted to have a discussion about their Christianity every single day of the week. It wasn't just a Sunday only activity. And I think, the first couple of challenges in the church were over meat eating, which we, as we just love to sort of pass over as it were. But I think that food is another one that I, I get into a lot of interesting chats about.
Lee
Any particular critique of social policies that are top of the list for you?
Chris
That's a good one. Yeah, I mean, I think you know where I'm at right now. I, I watch food policy development quite a lot, because we subsidize lots of bad calories, and those subsidies ended up being accumulated by, a small number of transnational corporations, so they can continue to grow their wallets while, generations of small family farms are being eroded, continued to be eroded and to be taken off the landscape.
And so food, as it becomes cheaper and cheaper in the U.S. Nutritionally dense food becomes more expensive. It's just this weird perversion. It's the first time in human history that we know about where, you know, broccoli is more expensive than a cheeseburger, you know, and the, and the sort of problems of obesity and diabetes and other things that come from that are profound, especially in communities of color.
So that's, lots of different things on food policy that I'm involved in. And the other one, uh, the, the new research project that I'm working on is on climate migration. That if we listen to not just scientists but national security experts and other military advisors around the planet, we know that we could have between 1 billion and 2 billion. So put together India and China, the populations of those type moving by the end of the century. Now whether that's internal displacement moving within their country or external displacement, trying to find a new home altogether. We have some significant problems that we have never seen before in human history, that kind of migration event in such a short amount of time.
And as you can imagine, there's lots of different, security issues that come with that. But also the sort of xenophobia that, we see in our country and the EU and other places. And that's migrant movement of a million or 2 million people. Now we're talking about that on much, much greater number.
So I think Christians on both food issues and volts on migration issues can inject different understandings of conversations into this global discussion, because they can say things about justice. They can say things about care for the poor and the widows and the non-citizens in ways that a secular folks cannot.
I believe at least I think we have unique perspectives to offer that just don't come from secular places.
Lee
Signs of hope in the sense that you describe hope, exemplars, folks that you're seeing take the sort of challenges you're raising seriously?
Chris
There's small movements all over the planet that are happening. Women in India and, and parts of East Africa that are teaching each other to build solar panels so that they have electricity and they can have their kids do their homework at night. There's different farm projects all over the planet that are happening. You know, just even something here in the States, like the rise in farmer's markets and community supported agriculture is, I don't know, technically if it's exponential, but the rise is great.
And we're seeing people wanting to get better understanding of their food, than probably the last two or three generations. And so I think those are small bits of hope. Obviously having a new presidential administration that says climate change is real, is a glimmer of hope. That doesn't mean the work is done.
We have quite a long way to go to catch up with where the science says we need to catch up. But I think the big one that I see at least that does inspire me. Uh, so for example, here at Pepperdine, where we have a huge population, I would say 30 to 40% of our students probably are having some form of climate denial, because the status quo sort of benefits them. I have, I started the sustainability program here at Pepperdine and, from 2015 to now, we've had a pretty big growth. And so right now, as of this morning, I have 60 students in a program that receives no formal funding from the university. So, you know, to think that there's 60 students and growing, is a really big deal to me.
About 85% of those are females which to me is really inspiring that we're seeing around the world. Is that more often than not that women take leadership roles in their communities. There's longer lasting climate and environmental protection and creation of these kinds of renewable technology, grants, and other things that are going on.
So I'm really excited by that. It's a small bit, but I think. In this case, we all need to be looking at our own communities on these kinds of small things. And the other thing that I find important on this, it's not always a glimmer of hope. But I think we're seeing more people start to connect the dots here in the U.S. between extreme weather events and climate change for the first time ever.
So national poll after national poll says more Americans than not believe that climate change is real and a serious thing. They're not always connecting that to policy, but at least they're saying that. The discouraging thing I don't mean to end on a discouraging thing, but the discouraging thing is that Christians tend to lag way behind the general American public on those, about taking the seriousness of climate change.
But again, if I want to take some small solace, it's that younger Christians are taking this more seriously. And the younger Christians, the 18 to 30 year olds are saying, if, if I'm going to stay in your church, I need to hear that you're taking this seriously. And that's a new wave that I hope older Christians will begin to take more seriously.
Younger Christians are not holding their elders hostage. What they're saying is either Christianity matters or it doesn't. And I think that's a challenge. That all of us as Christians should take up. If we want to, transmit traditions as it were, if we want to hand that tradition onto the next generation that we need to take seriously, what they say is going on.
Lee
I've been talking to Chris Doran, Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, about his recent bookHope in the Age of Climate Change: Creation Care this Side of the Resurrection. Thank you so much, Chris.
Chris
Thank you Lee, I really appreciated the opportunity. This has been fun.
Lee Camp
You've been listening to Tokens: public theology, human flourishing, the good life.
If you would like to hear more related material, then check out our two consecutive episodes on climate change and Christianity from season 3, successively featuing climate activist Peter Harris and renowned climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.
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