Rev Trevor Sargent is one of the Church of Ireland reps on the ECI committee. He has contributed this reflection:
Earth Day, 22nd April each year, began as a suggestion by Irish-American peace activist, John McDonnell at a UNESCO Conference on the Environment, held in 1969 in San Francisco. This led to ‘environmental teach-ins’, where solutions to addressing the planetary challenges we all increasingly face, were discussed.
All of these ‘solutions’ can be summarised in one Christ-centred sentence, ‘live more simply so others can simply live’. This could be translated as, for example:
- reduce our carbon footprints, eg. holiday locally to minimise flying.
- grow and eat more fruit and vegetables, and eat less meat.
- share items more, and buy ‘second hand’ to save using finite resources.
The Dean of Killaloe, the Very Revd Dr Richard Marsh told me recently that the average Anglican worldwide is female, earns €2 a day, and daily walks 4km for water. Earth Day is a reminder in our churches to think globally and act locally.
CAN I BE A CHRISTIAN AND ALSO ACCEPT THE SCIENCE OF EVOLUTION?
Earth Day can also be a catalyst for discussion about how we can reconcile with science the accounts of creation in Genesis, chapters one and two. Genesis 2:3 tells us that ‘God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating he had done’. The belief that earth was literally created in six days has come to be called ‘creationism’.
Then in 1859, Charles Darwin, published, ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’, after which it seemed that evolutionary science, (which now ages the earth to about 4.5 billion years) was irreconcilable with ‘creationism’.
Personally, I have no difficulty reconciling the creation accounts in Genesis, as long as I read them primarily as explaining WHY God created life as we know it. The ‘six day’ aspect of the creation story is, for me, a divinely inspired narrative, which takes us through a poetic variation of an evolutionary roadmap, but without specifying HOW long each ‘day’ might be. With advances in science, since Genesis was written, I feel that we are now able to appreciate, all the more, the genius of this loving Creator, who created, not only creation, but also our curious brains, and science as well. When all is said and done, ‘the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it’. (Psalm 24: 1)