THE Methodist Conference moved climate change to the top of its agenda as it meets this week in Wolverhampton. The new President of the Conference, the Revd David Gamble, said it was “the biggest issue facing our world today”.
He went on: “In the face of what is happening to this planet as a direct result of how we live, do we just give up, or is there a word of hope, and are there possibilities to turn the tide and make this planet a safer place?”
In other sections of his presidential address, Mr Gamble called on the Church to create safe spaces through child-protection procedures and through its work for homeless people and asylum-seekers; and, for people of all ages, colour and sexuality, for new ideas, for dialogue, mediation, and for the planet itself.
On Tuesday, the Conference discussed and received Hope in God’s Future: Christian discipleship in the context of climate change, a report urging Churches to be involved fully in efforts to halt damage to the planet. The report said that the conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change on global warming and the need for “rapid and significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions” was now so “robust” that it would be “morally irresponsible to fail to act on this analysis of our current situation. . .
“We cannot countenance a future in which God has abandoned the project of creation and redemption,” the report said. Redemption was not an escape from the created order, but its renewal, in solidarity with all God’s creatures who were now threatened by humanity.
Christian hope should lead to “an about-turn” and to bold action in the world. The issue of climate change was one of charity, love, repentance, and justice.
The report likened action on climate change to the biblical journey of the Exodus. “This is a journey unlike any other that most of us have taken, and which has a destination only future generation will reach and benefit from,” although the costs would be borne now. “This is a journey not of individuals but of a community; the people of God and the people of the earth which requires us to build for the future.”
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