• Who We Are
    • Who We Are
    • Mission
    • History
    • General Synod
    • Leadership and Ministry
    • Staff
    • Board of Directors
  • What We Believe
    • What We Believe
    • Worship Ways
    • Daily Devotional
  • What We Do
    • What We Do
    • Office of the General Minister & President
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • Wider Church Ministries
  • News
  • Church Finder
  • Donate Now
  • Search
UCC Logo United Church of Christ
  • Church Finder
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Store
  • Frontline Faith Portal
  • Donate Now
  • Search
  • Who We Are
    • Column
      • About
        • Mission
        • Constitution and Bylaws
        • History
          • UCC Archives
        • UCC Brand Guidelines
        • General Synod
          • Past General Synods
        • Abuse Prevention
    • Column
      • Structure
        • Conferences
        • Affiliated Ministries
    • Column
      • Team
        • Elected Officers
        • Staff
        • United Church of Christ Board of Directors
          • Board Minutes
    • Column
      • Career Opportunities
      • Annual Reports
  • What We Believe
    • Column
      • Worship
        • Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ – La Declaración de Fe de la Iglesia Unida de Cristo
        • Worship Ways
        • Daily Devotional
        • Sermon Seeds
  • What We Do
    • Column
      • Office of the General Minister & President
        • 3 Great Loves
        • Human Resources
          • Employee Relations Resources
        • Center for Analytics, Research & Development and Data (CARDD)
          • General CARDD FAQs
          • About The Center for Analytics, Research & Development, and Data (CARDD)
          • Authorized Minister Opt Out
          • Access UCC
          • Archived Reports
          • Assessment Resources
          • Information Policies and Requests
          • Faith Communities Today (FACT) Survey
          • MissionInsite
          • Statistics and Reports
          • Vital Signs and Statistics Blog
          • Data Hub FAQs
          • Data Hub
          • Yearbook and Directory
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Justice
          • Faith Forming Publications & The Pilgrim Press
          • Faithful Action Ministries
            • Environmental Justice Ministries
            • Economic Justice
            • Racial Justice
          • Health and Wholeness Advocacy
            • Disabilities and Mental Health Justice
            • Encuentros Latinx
            • UCC HIV & AIDS Network-UCAN
            • LGBTQ Ministries
            • Our Whole Lives
            • Overdose and Drug Use Ministries
            • Scouting
            • Wellness Ministries
          • Washington DC Office
            • Justice and Peace Action Network
            • Our Faith Our Vote 2020
            • Justice Training Resources
            • Action Center
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Local Church
          • Faith INFO
            • Weekly Seeds
            • Youth & Young Adults
          • Worship Resources
            • Worship Ways
            • Sermon Seeds
            • Music and Liturgical Arts
          • Ministerial Excellence, Support & Authorization (MESA)
            • History, Polity, and Theology
            • Search & Call
            • Ministerial Profiles
            • Ministry Opportunities
            • Manual on Ministry
    • Column
      • Wider Church Ministries
        • Global Ministries
        • Global H.O.P.E.
          • Volunteer Engagement
          • Refugee and Migration Ministries
          • Disaster Ministries
          • Recovering Hope
        • Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations
  • News
    • Column
      • News
        • United Church of Christ News
    • Column
      • Columns
        • Witness for Justice
        • Into the Mystic
        • Getting to the Root of It
        • The Pollinator: UCC Environmental Justice Blog
        • UCC Roots
    • Column
      • Upcoming Events
      • Changes & Deaths
  • Giving
    • Column
      • Donate Now
      • Ways to Give
        • Our Church’s Wider Mission
          • Our Church’s Wider Mission Basic Support
          • One Great Hour of Sharing
          • Strengthen the Church
          • Neighbors in Need
          • Christmas Fund
          • 5 for 5
        • Disaster Relief
    • Column
      • Ways We Give
        • Scholarships & Grants

  • Home
  • News
  • Column
  • The Pollinator: UCC Environmental Justice Blog
  • Theologies of Genocide and Earth Day Ethics

Theologies of Genocide and Earth Day Ethics

by Berndt, Brooks | published on May 1, 2018

Climate_Justice.jpgLorie Shaull

While waiting to speak at an environmental event earlier this year, another speaker told me a fascinating story. As part of his work for a university program dedicated to energy research, he invited a prominent fossil fuel executive to a graduate-level seminar. For the class, these sharp and highly informed students prepared themselves with arguments to deftly rebut the climate denialism they fully expected to confront. The actual encounter, however, went different than they anticipated. The executive befuddled them with heart-felt declarations of how his corporation was doing the will of God.  The students did not know how to respond.

Almost a week after hearing this story I found myself speaking to a group of church youth about climate change. One of the youth who appeared to be about 12-years of age arrived with a passionate zeal to do intellectual battle with me. Evidently, the description of the workshop had motivated him to attend so that he could disabuse me of my ideas about climate change. From the very beginning, he wanted me to know that God gave us fossil fuels, so that we—humanity—could use them. I patiently put forth the perspective that a loving God would not want humans to suffer on a large scale so that we could burn fossil fuels. I did not expect to win him over, but I did want to offer a theological framework for the other youth to interpret and assess such views.

In the case of this youth, the theology espoused is transparently a theology of genocide. It involves a view of God that justifies actions that cause and will cause human death and suffering to an enormous and horrifying extent. Yet, the theological statements espoused by corporate executives and present members of the presidential cabinet can sometimes sound more like theological candy than theological poison. The EPA’s Scott Pruitt would have us believe that the burning of fossil fuels provides an opportunity to bless humanity, not curse it.

Seminary professor Leah Schade provides a compelling biblically-based rebuttal to Pruitt that posits a different blessing—one that is revealed in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  It is “the ability to discern how to live within the natural boundaries God has set for us.”

Pope Francis had it right. Planet earth is our common home. We don’t want our home to become the planetary equivalent of the gas station bathroom from hell just because of some bizarre moral notion that God has blessed us to spew atmospheric excrement into the air.

In a sense, Earth Day should be both a house party and a house cleaning party. We should celebrate our magnificent home, and we should be inspired to serve as caretakers of it. This requires that we all do our part, and it requires that we have a leader at the EPA who clearly embodies the caretaking ethic required of us. Instead of serving the fossil fuel industry, we need someone who serves the public by tending to the beautiful world around us. Our present health and our future wellbeing depend upon it.

 

The Rev. Dr. Brooks Berndt is the Minister for Environmental Justice for the United Church of Christ. He can be found on Twitter as The_Green_Rev.

Categories: Column The Pollinator: UCC Environmental Justice Blog

Related News

The Pollinator: UCC Environmental Justice Blog

UCC Co-Hosts American Climate Leadership Summit

The United Church of Christ is one of three organizations that has joined with EcoAmerica to...

Read More
Into the Mystic

An Existential Wound

Listen to the podcast https://soundcloud.com/theucc/an-existential-wound Read the...

Read More
Witness for Justice
Witness for Justice

Waiting to Exhale

Minister for Youth and Young Adult Engagement For nearly two weeks, attention has been fixed on...

Read More
  • Column
    • Local Church and Conference Resource Directory
    • Mission
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • Wider Church Ministries
  • Column
    • Contact
    • News
    • Store
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Subscribe on YouTube

Donate Now


UCC Crest
© United Church of Christ 2021. Privacy Policy.
Crafted by Cornershop Creative