The ecological crisis which threatens the sustainability of plant and animal species manifests itself in the physical environment. Its characteristics marks are well known: extinction of species at an unprecedented rate; pollution of land, air and water; the radical modification of habitats ( e.g. desertification); water shortages; a massive increase in urbanisation with its attendant concentration of populations; and climate change in which an overall increase in global temperature enhances the energy of meteorological systems. But ultimately the crisis is not one of the physical realm; it is rather a mental crisis, a crisis of human values.
Jürgen Moltmann traces the problem to the emergence of modern western society which seeks economic growth via the technological manipulation of the natural world, the latter paying much of the price of ‘progress’. Thus he writes, “The beginning of the modern world is also the beginning of ‘the end time of nature’.” (1999, p.14) More precisely, “[t]he Western standard of living cannot be universalised. It can only be sustained at the expense of others: at the expense of people in the Third World, at the expense of coming generations, and at the expense of the earth.” (Ibid., p.93)
If the so-called ecological crisis stems from the pursuit of a particular set of values – a demand for particular economic forms of ‘progress’ and ‘growth’ with an accompanying seductive tale of advancing life-style – then it is in fact a religious crisis. It is a crisis related to that in which the people of the Western world place their trust (Ibid., p.95). More, Moltmann asserts that the degradation of God’s creation to mere raw materials for the wealth-creating process, the “nihilistic destruction of nature”, is nothing less than “atheism put into practise” (1991, p.75).
A religious crisis, a crisis of values, cannot be solved by technological means. What is required is nothing less than a change of basic convictions together with a through-going reappraisal of priorities. And because a solution to this crisis demands a re-examination of our collective philosophy of life, theology has an important and unashamed place at the table.
If one needs convincing that the ecological is not an issue ‘out there’ then it is worth examining its inner aspect. In contemporary Western society we also subject our own bodies to the same abuse. We treat them as machines that are meant to work long hours giving the same performance irrespective of their own intrinsic rhythmic needs. We demand to move faster so as to pack quantitatively more into life, while thereby undermining our quality of life – the result, Moltmann suspects, of a repressed fear of death (1999, p.88). Again, what is required touches upon theological ground: a new equilibrium of body and soul (Moltmann, 2004, p.161); a new account of what constitutes the purpose of life. Here then is an important and timely entrée for chaplaincy.
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