Revealing Revelation: A Biblical ‘Green-print’ For Our Ecological Future by Lizzie Rushton

Worried about global warming? It’s nothing compared to the fire and brimstone that some believe await us in the End Times. 

Lizzie Rushton is completing the final year of a BSc in Environmental Science and Geography at Oxford Brookes University, where she is researching the impact of faith on environmental ideas and values. She plans to continue her studies at Nottingham University next year, when her husband will take up a curacy in the parish of Nettleham, Lincolnshire. In this week’s guest soapbox (and in something of a departure for Vulpes Libris) she tackles one of the most influential books in history – the Revelation of St. John – as a source of competing Christian attitudes to environmentalism.

(Many thanks to Ravenari for the ‘Totem Fox’ picture!)

-:oOo:-

The turn of the century has brought renewed interest in the ecological crises facing the planet, a subject to which Christian writers have contributed a substantial body of work. Two titles published earlier this year encapsulate the key concern for Christian environmentalists: Martin and Margot Hodson’s Cherishing the Earth. How to care for God’s creation and Dave Bookless’ Planet Wise. Dare to care for God’s world.

The central issue for Christians is: how does their faith shape and mould their care for creation? The answers to this question are varied and complex. Two contrasting schools of thought about a central verse in the book of Revelation are particularly revealing.

When considering biblical texts that exemplify Christian care of the environment, the imagery from the book of Revelation may not be many people’s first choice. The depictions of Armageddon and apocalypse found in Revelation have been utilised in a cynical and calculating fashion to market President George W. Bush’s foreign policy, both to Americans and the world, drawing heavily on the idea of judgement. The good shall receive salvation, while the wicked shall be damned:

Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death. (Revelation 21:7-8 NRSV)[1]

As Michael Northcott notes in his book An Angel Directs the Storm (2007), Bush set out his apocalyptic vision to rid the world of the wicked and evil long before 9/11 and the war on terror. However, the calamitous events of the 11^th of September 2001 provided a context for visions of imperial American power visiting judgement to be accepted beyond conservative evangelical groups, and to reach the wider majority of people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Despite this highly publicised and selective use of a widely misinterpreted biblical text, there are those who believe that the early section of chapter 21 of Revelation can reveal the true nature of the Christian responsibility towards creation. The text is as follows:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ( Revelation 21: 1 NRSV)

This is the climax of John’s vision of the ‘end times’: the renewal of Jerusalem as the culmination of the return of Christ. This comes to us today as part of the Book of Revelation, which is a compilation of the astral visions recorded by the prophet John around 70 C.E. whilst he was living on the Mediterranean island of Patmos. The vision clearly states that at the return of Christ the ‘old’ earth and heaven shall make way for a ‘new’ heaven and earth. This has led some Christians to suggest that care for God’s creation is unimportant, as this current earth will inevitably be replaced by another. Some have been documented as suggesting that the duty of a Christian is not to impede the destruction of this earth so as not to prevent the coming of Christ.[2]

There are other ways to view this passage, by re-examining the language and interpretation of the Greek translation of the Old Testament (also called the Hebrew Scriptures or Hebrew Bible). Such an argument can be found in a briefing paper written by Margot Hodson[3], who argues that the idea of a new earth replacing the current earth at the end times has come about because of a failure to consider this passage in its scriptural context. In using the phrase ‘new heaven and a new earth’, the author of Revelation alludes to Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22. The text in Isaiah refers to an ideal world, one of renewal, peace and prosperity. It does not suggest that a brand new earth has somehow appeared; a ‘new start’, no doubt, but not a rejection of the previous earth. Furthermore, the Greek word for ‘new’ used in this verse is ‘kainos’, which also occurs in 2 Corinthians 5:17 where Paul talks of people being renewed or remade in Christ. Therefore, the ‘new’ earth is not an earth that has not existed before, but one that emerges from the old.

In his book Planet Wise. Dare to care for God’s world, Bookless also highlights the use of the word ‘kainos’ in the Greek translation, stating that the meaning is closer to ‘renew’ than ‘replace’[4]. Bookless speculates that had the author of Revelation wanted to suggest that the new earth was a replacement for the previous earth he may have used the alternative word for ‘new’ which is ‘neos’.

What does this interpretation mean for Christians who prioritise care for the environment? Firstly, the current earth is not a precursor to a new gift of a replacement planet once disregard for the environment has caused an irreversible catastrophe. The ‘second’ or ‘new’ earth will be a renewed form of the previous version. Secondly, the care of God’s creation by Christians is integral to following Jesus Christ, not peripheral: disregard for creation is disregard for God.

Tom Wright’s[5] interpretation of this passage from Revelation shares key similarities with Hodson’s.

In his book, Surprised by Hope (2007), Wright states emphatically that the ‘new earth’ does not mean ‘that God will wipe the slate clean and start again’, but that there will be renewal of the old earth and the redemption of the faithful. However, the pathway that Wright takes to reach this conclusion is radically different to the semantic analysis of Hodson. Wright states that the new world described by John is the joining of the previous world and heaven to form a renewed realm of peace, prosperity and faithful love. Heaven and earth are joined by the descent of heaven to earth. This idea can be found later in the following verse of Revelation:

‘And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.’ (Revelation 21:2 NRSV)

The uniting of heaven and earth is echoed in the promise articulated by many over the last two thousand years, in the Lord’s Prayer, given to the disciples by Jesus Christ himself:

‘Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.’

(Matthew 6:10 NRSV)

The key to understanding Tom Wright’s interpretation of this passage is to understand his ideas about resurrection. Wright asserts that what we believe about life after death dramatically influences what we believe about life before death. Therefore, what we believe about the end times has a direct impact on the way we view the current earth. This interpretation of the passage from Revelation reinforces the message that care of creation is central to the worship of God. It is not possible to care simply for the spiritual element of ourselves and our world; God cares about the wholeness of his creation, both the material and the spiritual.

 

In order to utilise this seemingly inappropriate passage from Revelation as part of a biblically grounded ‘greenprint’, the literal reading that our current earth shall be replaced by a new one needs to be discarded. Of the two interpretations, one uses literary and semantic contexts to conclude that the ‘new earth’ signifies a new reign of peace among men on the previous sphere. The other, perhaps more challenging and visionary, is that of a new world being formed out of the old – much as Christ’s resurrected body was created out of his previous form. This idea is more radical as it goes beyond textual re-interpretation and asks us to look again at what is the central belief of Christians, namely that Christ died and rose again in mortal form. The very fact that creation care has the resurrection at its centre highlights the great importance that it should and could play in the worship and evangelism of the Christian community.

 

 

Suggested Further Reading:

There are many books available on this subject, several of which have been published in the last year alone. Here are a few to consider.

Bookless, D. (2008) Planet Wise. Dare to care for God’s world. IVP. UK

Hodson, Margot. Environmental Christianity: insights from our Jewish heritage. JRI Briefing paper – No. 13. JRI. UK

Hodson, M.J. and Hodson, M.R. (2008) Cherishing the earth. How to care for God’s creation. Monarch Books. Oxford.

Spencer, N and White, R. (2007). SPCK. UK

Wright, T. (2007) Surprised by hope. SPCK. UK

---

[1] New Revised Standard Version, (2003) 3^rd edition, Manser, M.H.

[2] Martin Hodson notes his meeting with a group of Canadian Christians who proposed this view of ‘creation care’ whilst on sabbatical in Toronto in the early 1990s. Hodson, and Hodson (2008) pg201

[3] Margot Hodson is chaplain of Jesus College, Oxford and a director of The John Ray Initiative, which promotes responsible environmental stewardship in accordance with Christian principles and the wise use of science and technology. John Ray (1627-1705) was an English naturalist, Christian theologian and the first biological systematist of modern times, preceding Carl Linnaeus.

[4] Dave Bookless is National Director of a Christian Ecological Partnership called A Rocha UK.

[5] Tom Wright is the Bishop of Durham.