Three Book Reviews about Preaching and Teaching on Climate Change
One of the challenges facing the church today is the topic of climate change. While 97% of climate scientists claim that we are facing a disaster of extraordinary proportion, there are still those who claim this concern is simply a hoax. These climate change deniers seem to control much of the current policy in operation in our country and seem to serve the interest of “big oil” and “big business.” How is the church to respond?
There has been a variety of new works published on the issue that relate to teaching and preaching. I want to offer three recent works which can be of help to those of those who are called to teach and preach. The first is “Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit” by Leah D. Schade. (Chalice Press, 2015) This book is both theoretical and practical in its approach to the problem. Dr. Schade lays out in the introduction a compelling case for why creation needs good preaching. I especially recommend the first chapter, “Environmental, Theological, and Biblical Foundations,” where she provides a helpful overview of the environmental movement while setting forth the foundations of an ecological theology and defining a scriptural eco-hermeneutics. She then begins to develop in more details strategies for approaching and developing environmental preaching. Her work includes sermon examples as well as theological/biblical structure for preaching on the environment.
She takes a decidedly feminist approach to the problem by defining an “Eco-Feminist” theology. This gets particular attention in chapter four, “Eco-feminist Theology and Implications for Preaching.” Eco-feminism is a helpful way to think about the problem and Dr. Schade skillfully develops sermons that illustrate both her point and her method. This very practical treatment of the problem of climate injustice will help the preacher to develop a theoretical overview of the problem while at the same time developing a hermeneutic that takes creation and climate into account.
A second recent work is entitled, “Hospitable Planet: Faith, Action, and Climate Change” by Stephen A. Jurovics (Morehouse Publishing, 2016). Jurovics, an engineer by training, explores the spiritual dimensions of climate change. The book, which is divided into three parts, spends the first part focused on cleaning insights “from the Bible that Jesus knew.” That is, it looks at what Genesis through Deuteronomy has to say about the climate and the environment. One of the strengths of this work is that Jurovics argues that environmental degradation is not just a social problem, but it as its heart a theological problem. The primary problem is the relationship between God, humanity, and creation. He illustrates this point convincingly and repeatedly in the eleven chapters of part one.
The most help for teaching and preaching is in part one. The rest of the book centers on developing strategies for action. Part two reflects on work that needs to be done at the national level while part three look at needed action on the local level. Over all, this is a book that could be used in a study group or as part of a religious education curriculum. Its down to earth approach is a big help in making what seems like an extraordinary crisis more approachable. Jurovics, while being quite realistic about the scope and seriousness of the problem, offers concrete recommendations for change and encourages the development of hope.
A third work that I would like to recommend is, “Reality, Grief, and Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks” by Walter Brueggemann (Eerdmans, 2014). This book is not specifically about the climate crisis, but is about developing a prophetic ministry, which helps to provide a theological/biblical approach to the problem. Brueggemann argues that there is remarkable similarity between Israel’s ideology of exceptionalism and the American ideology of exceptionalism. Israel had crisis in this ideology when Jerusalem fell in 587 B.C.E., which prompted the rise of the prophetic movement. Likewise, America had a crisis in this ideology after 9/11 and that by studying the ancient prophetic response we can develop a relevant response for a very similar problem.
Brueggemann states his purpose:
“In what follows I will propose that current ‘prophetic ministry’ has an opportunity to engage in the same three tasks as did the ancient prophets: the articulation of reality that is too often disguised by our ideology of exceptionalism, the performance of grief about loss in response to the denial that the ideology of exceptionalism is unsustainable, and articulation of hope in response to despair that variously produces moralism, hedonism, and violence.” (p.3)
In rest of the book, Brueggemann outlines in some details the ancient response of the prophets to their crisis and develops how that response is relevant to our current crisis. This work is rich in the use of biblical material and in the development of theological muscles necessary to apply to the current crisis in American. While he is not talking specifically about climate change, he is developing a hermeneutic that can be applied to the subject. His three urgent tasks: reality, grief, and hope apply to the issue of climate justice. First, we must face reality of the crisis and stop living in denial. Secondly, we need to grieve the loss of this old certainty while imagining new possibilities. Thirdly, out of grief comes hope. This work develops each of these three tasks in biblical, theological, and practical detail.
As Bill McKibben of 360.org said, “we need to green the pulpit, if we are going to green the planet.” These three works should help us in our task to be prophetic preachers and teachers.
