Environmentalism & Catholicism talk summary
The talk was by Dr Scott Powell and was titled "Catholics, The Environment, and the End of the World"
- "our very contact with nature has a deep restorative power" - quote by JP2 (the fav)
- Environmental consciousness has theological significance
- Pope Benedict quoted from 2010 that was saying that state of the environment is a huge crisis that cant be ignored
- quote attribution suprises people, most people assume its some random enviro activist, but nope its a pope.
- under his papacy the Vatican actually became the first carbon neutral nation (take that atheists ha)
- JP2 said at one point that you cant be authentically pro-life without being pro-environment (JP2 being the best, once again)
-Summer of 2015 - Laudato Si Encyclical came out
- the world finally started paying attention to what the church has been saying about the environment (note: nothing new in the doc, just a resstatement but people were hella shook)
- 2 big reactions to its publication
- people got very angry (eg the pope has no right to speak on these things hes a religious leader blah blah blah)
- people started twisting his words to fit their own political agneda (a big yikes)
- just a month or so later the Supreme Court ruled same sex marriage is now legal - everyone promptly forgot about Laudato Si and how angry they were (so much anger)
-Essential message of Laudato Si - We are NOT our own gods
-idea that applies to a broad range of moral issues
-Why does the Church think this way?
- all comes back to the big problem in the Church - human sin
-in 1967 a grumpy old guy named Lynn White Jr wrote an article about the historical roots of ecological crisis for the Science academic journal
-article was a big deal, defined conversation about religion & ecology for the forseeable future, the most cited document on the topic
-big claim was the Christianity was to blame for our ecological crisis bc Genesis gives us the right to abuse creation (hur dur)
- BUT HOLD UP THERES ANOTHER SIDE TO THIS STORY
- How we read Genesis matters!! because one way or another it gets cited in all kinds of contexts religious and non religious
- but it gets messy bc people only every frame it two ways
-atheist evolutionist, we all come from monkeys shut up about Jesus
-christian fundamentalist, everything happened in exactly 7 days bc we're taking this literally
-Both frames - wrong.
-side note - he talked about a debate he watched between Bill Nye and a Southern pastor and it was "like watching a train wreck" (i laughed, giggled and felt very validated by this burn)
-anyway what people dont talk about is the Catholic interpretation of Genesis
- Catholics teach the Bible is inspired by God and without error
-whatever the sacred author was trying to say - thats it
-Bible uses word "day" comes from translated hebrew word "yom" which can mean years,eons, etc
-its a story about the WHO not the HOW
- Why 7 days?
- in hebrew numbers are about quality more than quantity
-we're not trying to figure out "what time on thursday did God create the brachiosaurus"
- the word for 7 in hebrew, the same word used when making a covenant
-hebrews saw it as God saying vows to the world, everything he made he wedded himself to it, (ex: "I seven you")
-10 times it says "God says" and each of those 10 times creation responds
-creation is formless and void until he fills what is empty (at this point my mind practically exploded)
- he put fish in the sea , sun in the sky, etc
-7th day is day of rest - he vowed himself to creation, aka "seven'd" himself
-humans were created on the 6th day for the 7th day
-line 26 in the story "in image and likeness of God"
- hebrew word "selem" (idk on the spelling sorry) is word for image
- referred to statue/sculpture of the king put at city entrances so you would know whos in charge
- you are the "selem" of God - people should instantly recognize the king of our lives
-we are created by relationship, for relationship (woah)
-hebrew word for "to know" which is "yadow" doesnt mean to know about, it means to be the God of something
-aka the big PROBLEM THAT THIS ALL COMES DOWN TO
- using something of creation and making ourselves the gods over nature is WHY THE ENVIRONMENT IS IN TROUBLE WHY THIS ALL MATTERS
-some people think natural disasters are nature lashing out against us for our sins against creation/nature
-we're the only creatures on Earth where wee feel out of place, but Jesus became human to reconcile our relationship with God, creation is waiting for us to live out that call (woah!! woAHH!! woah!!)
-adam was essentially a glorified gardener - his task was to till and keep eden
- he fails at this (whoops)
-he's supposed to protect it, but fails because the snake comes into the garden and threatens eve (you had one job my dude, one job)
-it actually might not have been a snake tho
-"hanash" the word we translate as snake means something else in hebrew
-can refer to anything from a crocodile to a 7 HEADED DRAGON (never tell me the Bible is boring again yall i swear)
-so, to be in the image and likeness of God is to be a gardener
-ex: woman mistakes the risen Jesus to be a gardener, Jesus refers to himself as one, etc
-gardening means being faithful to small things
- small decisions to make ourselves holy, when we're holy creation will be satisified and will no longer "cry out in travail" (mic drop)
-all of creation will rise again just like us humans, he came to redeem ALL of it.
