1. Our Lord Jesus Christ was asked what the most important commandment was and replied “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22.37-38) As followers of Jesus Christ we are called to hold fast to this commandment, giving everything to God and not letting anything else take the place of God in our lives.

2. Furthermore, our Lord Jesus Christ said “You cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Matthew 6.24). Jesus explicitly teaches that there is a tension between the demands of the first commandment and fidelity to God, and the demands that may be made by the needs of any local political economy.

3. Surveying the present state of our societies and economies it is clear that, as a people, we have succumbed to the worship of Mammon, and that it is the duty of all faithful Christians to resist such worship, to repent of our behaviour, and to seek anew the Kingdom of God. The fruits of such idolatry are clear: the injustice and unemployment and waste of human talents; the corruption of our political leadership and their collusion with immoral financial practices; the depredation and degradation of our natural environments and the exhaustion of our natural resources; the inevitable wars and other crises that arise from the systematic fostering of base human appetites and the refusal to compromise our ways of life, and pursue a more equitable sharing of the gifts bequeathed to us.

4. As part of my pursuit of faithful Christian discipleship I therefore resolve to abandon the idolatry of “economic growth”; to reject the use of such language in my own speech; to repudiate that language when used by others; to bring people’s attentions to the way in which such idolatry increases human suffering; and above all, to seek to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, trusting that in returning to the Lord I will indeed find mercy, and that he will freely pardon me of my offenses.

Background notes
This was inspired by the Ash Wednesday declaration of Operation Noah. That declaration was primarily concerned with issues around climate change, seeking to make action to combat that perceived problem as a status confessionis – in comparison with the Barmen declaration, which focussed German church resistance to the idolatry of national purity developed by the Nazi party.
I believe that we are indeed in a similar situation to that of the churches in Germany in the 1930s. Patterns of behaviour are in play that are leading to catastrophe if not addressed. However, I am not able to sign up to the Operation Noah declaration. That is because I believe that climate change is not the issue that needs to be addressed. The science of climate change is nowhere near strong enough to be considered for status confessionis, and even if it was certain, it only scratches the surface of the relevant idolatry. That is, climate change could be solved overnight, and the idolatry of Mammon would not be affected. It is the idolatry of Mammon that is at the root of this crisis of our time, and if we address that, then we also address climate change in so far as that is necessary.
For a more substantial discussion of the theology behind this declaration, see my book Let us be Human: Christianity for a collapsing culture.
If you agree with this declaration, please do make it your own.

For the last several years I’ve been working – in whatever gaps from the daily grind I can find! – on a book exploring the resource crisis from a Christian point of view. More precisely, what I’m trying to do is understand what is going on, and why, and trace the origins of the crisis to particular theological shifts – and therefore recommending certain theological (ie worship) solutions. So it’s not a ‘use less petrol’ sort of book, more a ‘pray more to God’ sort of book, even though it opens with Peak Oil and the Limits to Growth.

I would benefit from a sustained conversation with a professional editor but I haven’t been able to get a UK publisher interested – popular theology isn’t really a commercial proposition in the UK. I thought it might be of interest to people here.

Anyhow, enough preamble send me an e-mail if you want to read it! (I’ve taken down the direct link so that I can do some more work)

I’d be delighted if anyone actually read it and commented 🙂 I’ve had very useful and constructive criticism from some friends already and I’m hoping to have the time to incorporate responses to their insights in the summer.

A moderately interesting article from George Monbiot arguing that “The problem we face is not that we have too little fossil fuel, but too much. As oil declines, economies will switch to tar sands, shale gas and coal….”

This is daft, on several levels. Monbiot ignores:
– the problem of EROEI, meaning that substituting in tar sands and shale gas etc delivers less net energy than light, sweet oil;
– the problem of infrastructure – all the existing petrol stations, internal combustion engines and (to a lesser extent) highways that are geared around the easy availability of light, sweet oil, which can’t be rapidly altered;
– the financial meltdown, making long-term finance much more problematic;
– the export-land problem, meaning that exports of oil will decline much more rapidly than production;
– he assumes that the further alternatives he mentions are technologically, politically and financially feasible within a fairly short time-frame;
– he ignores the political melt-down and wars that will be sparked by the inequitable division of resources;
and so on.

I agree that poor people will chop down trees if they have nothing else to go on. Sadly, we’re all going to end up with ‘nothing else to go on’ – in a sense, the future of the environment depends upon how quickly men kill other men as compared to how quickly men kill the trees and the fish.

It’s a very weird feeling to have given lectures describing all these consequences several years ago (insights not original to me, for the most part), and to watch things now taking place in the way expected, and to still have people denying the situation. This is why our civilisation is breaking down – it’s still too insulated from reality.