Professor Richard Bauckham is a biblical scholar and theologian, whose academic work has ranged over many areas, particularly New Testament theology and, more recently, biblical approaches to environmental issues. His books include Bible and Ecology (2010) and Living with Other Creatures (2011). Until 2007 he was Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and retired early (to Cambridge) in order to concentrate on research and writing.
Do you remember the early weeks of lockdown, the ‘great pause’ when there was no road traffic and very little human noise? Taking a walk along a usually busy road. I felt like I was walking back in time to the days before motorized vehicles.
David Attenborough’s latest BBC documentary, ‘Extinction: the facts’ makes shocking but deeply compulsive watching. Viewers have spoken of being so overwhelmed as to switch off and return later, and being moved to anger and sleeplessness. I wasn’t as depressed as many, and will come back to why.
Between 1 September and 4 October, churches around the world will be participating in the Season of Creation. Our Director of Theology, Dave Bookless, has been on the global planning group for the past couple of years, and here he explains more about the concept and this year’s theme, ‘Jubilee for the Earth: new rhythms, new hopes.’
The love of stuff justifies consuming people in the name of production, progress, and the maintenance of privilege. It also justifies the voracious plunder of our planet with no regard for the delicately balanced web of life, its most vulnerable members, or for the living conditions of future generations. And it eats away at our very soul.
Our mobility, freedom and security put on hold… Our health and our lives threatened… Our wealth plummeted… Our temples of consumerism closed. All because of an almost invisible virus. Amidst very real fear and grief, this gives us an opportunity to rethink ‘flourishing’, and how our economic systems can be regenerative and restorative rather than unstable, unjust, and unsustainable.
COVID-19 has stopped us in our tracks. It is as though the whole globe has been put on a time out. We could fill the unnerving silence with bread-baking, Zoom meetings and Netflix bingeing. Or we could take this rare opportunity to reflect, reconsider and reboot.
As the COVID-19 coronavirus makes its relentless way across the world, it is not the only thing that is going viral. Fear, panic-buying, stock-market slumps, and fake news stories are also infectiously spreading like viruses, making the situation so much worse. In this context, I want to ask two key questions.
A friend of mine who has a brother living in Australia recently took the difficult decision never to fly to Australia again. ‘Love hurts’, she commented ruefully. Others will make different choices, for different reasons, but choose we must.
I walked over and tossed vegetable scraps in the trash with a tinge of guilt at still not having a compost system set up. Then my soul turned to the Lord with arms crossed and heels dug in as if to say, “I can’t care about compost right now” or maybe, more accurately, “I refuse to care when so many people are hurting.”
When Greta Thunberg speaks, the world listens. How is it that a 16-year old Swedish schoolgirl, unknown just over a year ago, has become one of the best-known faces and voices on the planet?
