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R. A. Davis
and the world, and to comfort ourselves with the hope of future redemption. Remarkable
doctrine this, unlike anything elsewhere found in the Scriptures, that heaven and earth, sun,
moon and stars, leaf and blade, every living thing, waits with sighing and groaning for the
revelation of our glory. (Luther 1909, p. 103)
In another sermon on Romans 8, Luther named the suffering of creatures as that
service they provide to the unjust and the wicked (Luther 1909, p. 109). Using the
sun as an example, he suggests that this “noble and admirable work of creation” is
“fit to serve only God, angels and pious Christians, who thank God for it.” “But”, he
continued, “it must serve those who blaspheme and dishonor God and who are guilty
of all wickedness and lawlessness” (Luther 1909, p. 109). So while creation serves
God obediently, it suffers the indignity of serving the Devil and the wicked (a similar
viewpoint is seen in Edwards 1741, p. 13). Enduring all sorts of injustices, Luther
called creatures martyrs (Luther 1909, p. 110). Luther’s lesson is that if the innocent
sun can endure an injustice, then so can we. Yet merely accepting this injustice, and
suffering patiently as creatures do, may lead to a fatalistic attitude in the face of
climate change and hamper adaptation efforts, of which humans alone are capable
of.
Similar to Luther, most Pacific Christians believe in the afterlife and the end to
earthly suffering. This may discourage climate adaptation of a technological kind that
preserves life on earth here. After all, the earthly attachments Christians have, and
the desire to protect and secure them, distracts them from appropriate focus on future
glory. As a spiritual adaptation to climate change, this is out of step with the care for
creation focus of ecotheology, and might be called fatalistic fundamentalism (Rubow
and Bird 2016, p. 159). In addition to Luther’s point on what humans can learn from
the patience of creatures, it might help adaptation efforts in the Pacific to emphasize
that creatures suffer from our injustice toward them. If, therefore, Pacific Christians
take seriously their cosmological and theological notions of their interconnectedness
with all creation, and their responsibility to other creatures as brothers and sisters
(cf. Kasulis 2002, p. 123), then adaptive behavioral change could be encouraged in
order to reduce the suffering of other creatures, such as the air, land, sun, and sea
due to human sin.
Fighting Climate Change, Fighting God
For the church in the Pacific and elsewhere, the worst case scenarios related to
the effects of climate change make for apocalyptic reading. Sea-level rise and
more frequent and stronger cyclones will be devastating to Pacific island nations.
Elsewhere, heat waves and drought could have catastrophic effects on the global
population and its food supply.
What might Luther have to say to this doomsday outlook? To answer this, we
would ask whether Luther and his society faced their own existential crisis analogous
to what Pacific nations face with climate change, and how he responded to that crisis.
The answer is yes, he faced the existential threat of invasion by Ottoman Turks who
R. A. Davis
and the world, and to comfort ourselves with the hope of future redemption. Remarkable
doctrine this, unlike anything elsewhere found in the Scriptures, that heaven and earth, sun,
moon and stars, leaf and blade, every living thing, waits with sighing and groaning for the
revelation of our glory. (Luther 1909, p. 103)
In another sermon on Romans 8, Luther named the suffering of creatures as that
service they provide to the unjust and the wicked (Luther 1909, p. 109). Using the
sun as an example, he suggests that this “noble and admirable work of creation” is
“fit to serve only God, angels and pious Christians, who thank God for it.” “But”, he
continued, “it must serve those who blaspheme and dishonor God and who are guilty
of all wickedness and lawlessness” (Luther 1909, p. 109). So while creation serves
God obediently, it suffers the indignity of serving the Devil and the wicked (a similar
viewpoint is seen in Edwards 1741, p. 13). Enduring all sorts of injustices, Luther
called creatures martyrs (Luther 1909, p. 110). Luther’s lesson is that if the innocent
sun can endure an injustice, then so can we. Yet merely accepting this injustice, and
suffering patiently as creatures do, may lead to a fatalistic attitude in the face of
climate change and hamper adaptation efforts, of which humans alone are capable
of.
Similar to Luther, most Pacific Christians believe in the afterlife and the end to
earthly suffering. This may discourage climate adaptation of a technological kind that
preserves life on earth here. After all, the earthly attachments Christians have, and
the desire to protect and secure them, distracts them from appropriate focus on future
glory. As a spiritual adaptation to climate change, this is out of step with the care for
creation focus of ecotheology, and might be called fatalistic fundamentalism (Rubow
and Bird 2016, p. 159). In addition to Luther’s point on what humans can learn from
the patience of creatures, it might help adaptation efforts in the Pacific to emphasize
that creatures suffer from our injustice toward them. If, therefore, Pacific Christians
take seriously their cosmological and theological notions of their interconnectedness
with all creation, and their responsibility to other creatures as brothers and sisters
(cf. Kasulis 2002, p. 123), then adaptive behavioral change could be encouraged in
order to reduce the suffering of other creatures, such as the air, land, sun, and sea
due to human sin.
Fighting Climate Change, Fighting God
For the church in the Pacific and elsewhere, the worst case scenarios related to
the effects of climate change make for apocalyptic reading. Sea-level rise and
more frequent and stronger cyclones will be devastating to Pacific island nations.
Elsewhere, heat waves and drought could have catastrophic effects on the global
population and its food supply.
What might Luther have to say to this doomsday outlook? To answer this, we
would ask whether Luther and his society faced their own existential crisis analogous
to what Pacific nations face with climate change, and how he responded to that crisis.
The answer is yes, he faced the existential threat of invasion by Ottoman Turks who