The Lambeth Conference must exercise moral leadership on the issue of the environment and global warming, the chairman of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, the Rt. Rev. George Browning of Canberra said last week.“The church has only itself to blame for giving the impression that it is in the business of saving souls only,” Bishop Browning said.
The environment is “what we are about,” he told reporters on July 26.
The bishop’s remarks came after plenary sessions on the environment at the 14th Lambeth Conference on July 25.
Stewardship of creation was not a “new religion” but a Biblical imperative, “an old religion” that draws upon the creation accounts of Genesis and the prologue of the Gospel of John, he said.
In their small group or indaba sessions, a number of bishops have named the environment as one of their most pressing concerns.
Bishop Browning noted that from desertification in the Sudan to the melting of the permafrost in the Arctic, issues surrounding the health of the planet were at the forefront of discussions.
In an evening plenary address to the bishops, Christopher Rapley director of the London Science Museum urged the church to take the lead in combatting environmental degradation.
Science alone could not solve the “ecological crisis,” he argued.
“We are looking for moral leadership,” Dr. Rapley said. “As a scientist I am looking in your direction.”
Liverpool Bishop James Jones told the plenary his views on the church’s responsibility to the environment had been sparked by discussion with young people in his diocese. They caused him to “rethink my own attitude to the earth”. It sent me back to the Bible and the teachings of Jesus and to the discovery of the Biblical and moral imperative of caring for the earth.”
The Bishop of Lebombo Denis Sengulane reported the effects of climate change were already being experienced in his diocese in southern Mozambique.
The country had long relied upon cashew nuts as a source of export income and support for peasant farmers.
The cycle of life in many villages revolved around the annual cashew harvest, with migrant workers returning from the cities and schools closing to bring in the harvest.
“Today, cashew nuts have gone mad with trees dropping their nuts out of season”, Bishop Sengulane said. “We have messed up the environment in such a way that even the production of cashew nuts is unpredictable,” he said.
American Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who earned a doctorate in oceanography specializing in squid and octopuses, told the press that “if we do not pay attention to the health of all creation, the other issues will not be important.”
“Salvation is about healing, holiness and wholeness,” she argued. “If we don’t pay attention to the world around us we are shirking our Christian duty,” the presiding bishop said.
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