RICHARD BAUKHAM, Emeritus Professor of Universities of St Andrews and Cambridge
Our Ecological Woes – A Christian Response: Climate Change
Date/Time: 9th December 2010, 17:30 - 18:30
To hear a recording of this lecture:
Our Ecological Woes - A Christian Response
Lecture 1 - Mass Extinction
Lecture 2 - Climate Change
The angel of the Apocalypse cried ‘Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth!’ The warning seems appropriate to our age of impending ecological catastrophe. The rich biodiversity of our planet is being steadily destroyed in a process of mass extinction of species resulting from human action, especially our wasteful exploitation of resources. Climate change is escalating in ways that will eventually make the earth much less habitable for humans. Despite controversy about human responsibility for this, there is no doubt that it is occurring and most people recognize the need for urgent action. But effective action, whether at the level of agreement among governments or at the level of lifestyle changes by the populations of the countries most responsible, seems depressingly slow in coming. What can Christian faith contribute? Some people in the Green movement have seen Christianity as part of the problem rather than part of the solution, but it is increasingly recognized that the role of the world religions is vital. Significant action always stems from vision. Fundamental to serious consideration of our responsibilities in the current crisis is the issue of value. What sort of value do we set on the natural world? Does it have value we must respect or does its value consist only in its usefulness to us? Another fundamental issue is the way we imagine our relationship to the rest of nature. Are we lords, managers, curators or consumers of nature? These lectures will suggest that the Bible and Christian faith offer a conception of the world as a community of God’s creatures, a community to which we belong as fellow-creatures with others. This is a vision of ecological interdependence that can motivate and guide our actions.
Richard Bauckham was until recently Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor in the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and is now Professor Emeritus at St Andrews. He was born in London in 1946, and educated at Downhills and Merryhills primary schools and Enfield Grammar School. He then studied at Cambridge, where he read history at Clare College (gaining a B.A. Honours degree, first class, and a Ph.D.), and was a Fellow of St John's College for three years. After teaching theology for one year at the University of Leeds, he taught historical and contemporary theology for fifteen years at the University of Manchester, before moving to St Andrews in 1992. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He retired in 2007 in order to concentrate on research and writing, and is Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, where he does some teaching for the Cambridge Federation of Theological Colleges. He is also a Visiting Professor at St Mellitus College, London. From 1996 to 2002 he was General Editor of the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series. He is an Anglican (but not ordained), and was a member of the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England for some years. In 2009 he was awarded the Michael Ramsey prize for his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, and in 2010 the Franz-Delitzsch-Award for a volume of collected essays, The Jewish World around the New Testament. He has travelled widely giving lectures and conference papers. Though his permanent home is now in Cambridge, he returns to St Andrews frequently. When he can find the time, he writes poetry, and has also written two children’s story books about the MacBears of Bearloch.