THE agenda for next month’s meeting of the General Synod lists two items of Liturgical Business. The first is to adjust the calendar to enable the commemoration as martyrs of the 21 construction workers who were viciously beheaded by Islamic State in February 2015. This is unlikely to be contested.
The second is to add a festival of God the Creator, and this is much more problematic. The proposal calls to mind those 20th-century themed hymn books, often for use in schools, which put creation at the top of their contents list, and then go on to the life of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and then follow with other topics such as the Church and society or social justice. This is theology in the service of morality. The traditional church year, though, runs from Advent to Pentecost/Trinity, and is based on Christ and salvation.
A Festival of God the Creator not only breaks this liturgical pattern, but also seems, to me at least, to be at odds with a critical perspective on the Bible. Genesis 1 is historically later than the salvation story of Exodus. It is because God defeated Egypt at the Red Sea that we recognise him as the one who held back the tohuwabohu, the “waste and void”, to create heaven and earth. God’s revelation of himself begins with his self-disclosure to Moses: “I am who I am”, an invitation to intimacy which Jesus fulfils and expands.
The Bible is full of wonder at the natural world, but Jesus taught us to address God not so much as creator of the universe but as our Father in heaven. Creation and salvation, then, are two acts of the same drama, and both centre on Christ the Logos: “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” Read on, and the Bible suggests that, although we are called to be stewards of creation, we have no ultimate control over the fate of the natural world. The Gospels and Revelation have the world being rolled up like worn-out clothing and discarded.
None of this should detract from our attempts to mitigate and deal with climate change. Over the years, I have had some enlightening conversations with researchers studying the rate and the effects of global warming. The issues are obviously serious and are visibly affecting our lives. But the moral and political challenges that we face over the environment are not helped by bad theology. So-called “natural” theology is often a dead end. We know God as Saviour before we acknowledge him as Creator.
I cannot help noticing that this liturgical proposal coincided with current attempts by certain dioceses to insist that parishes remove recently installed boilers that did not match up to their environmental recommendations. Compared with resisting that piece of control-freakery, managing global warming should be a doddle.
