Creation Groaning

The subject of this issue of Interpretation is climate change. It is arguably the most important theological and ethical issue of our time, overshadowing all others—war, hunger, poverty, racism—because it affects all others. Yet, public and political denial continues. The religious community ought to be in the forefront of a movement to address climate change (for one such effort, see http://interfaithpowerandlight.org). Not to do so would be like having stood aside from all previous social justice movements.

Theodore Hiebert lays the biblical foundation, arguing that the world as God’s creation lies at the heart of faith, a reality long denied by the dualism of nature versus history. For Rosemary Radford Ruether, Christian theology must address the unprecedented possibility that humans can destroy the Earth. Larry Rasmussen argues that we now live on a new and different planet, thanks to climate change, which requires a new and different construal of Christian faith and ethics. William H. Schlesinger represents the scientific community. Readers unfamiliar with the causes and consequences of climate change may want to read his article first.

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In This Issue

RECLAIMING THE WORLD: BIBLICAL RESOURCES FOR THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS • Theodore Hiebert
The Bible believes this world is our home, the primary place we live and practice our faith. It provides us ways of reinventing our role in the world and gives us reasons for human faithfulness to it even when the crisis we have created for the world looks impossibly desperate.

ECOLOGY AND THEOLOGY: ECOJUSTICE AT THE CENTER OF THE CHURCH'S MISSION • Rosemary Radford Ruether
This essay examines two major biblical and theological traditions for ecological commitment: the covenantal tradition, biblical and modern, and the sacramental tradition, biblical and modern. It also asks how we need to reclaim these traditions in the practice of the churches today.

NEW WINESKINS • Larry Rasmussen
This essay explores the conversion of various Christianities to an “Earth-honoring” faith with a moral universe different from the one presently at home in most heads, hearts, and practices. Such reborn faith and morality would be new cloth, new wineskins.

CLIMATE CHANGE • William Schlesinger
Atmospheric physicists show us that rising concentrations of certain greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere should raise the temperature of the planet at rates, times, and places that are consistent with recent observations of ongoing climate change—that is, global warming. It will take great leadership to guide us to a sustainable future before we experience huge destructive impacts on the environment of our only planetary home.

Between Text & Sermon

Genesis 1:1–2:3
– Pete Peery

Leviticus 25:1–24
– Uriah Y. Kim

Revelation 21:1–28
– Carol J. Dempsey, O.P.

Major Book Reviews

Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats by Gwynne Dyer; Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future by Matthew E. Kahn; Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben; and The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World without Ice Caps by Peter D. Ward

– Thomas W. Mann

Ecotheology and the Promise of Hope by Anne Marie Dalton and Henry C. Simmons

– Rosemary Radford Ruether

1 Corinthians by Robert Scott Nash and 2 Corinthians by Mitzi L. Minor

– Frank J. Matera

The Lost Meaning of the Seventh Day by Sigve K. Tonstad

–Ben Witherington III