Study guide Urgent: Time for creation care H


By Robert C. Blezard


umans have put the planet on a crash course simply by con- tinuing to do what has come


naturally for millennia—using as much of the earth’s resources as we possibly can to build better lives for us, our families and our communi- ties. We got away with it when the population was small and resources more plentiful. But now that there are 7 billion people on earth, we are consuming resources at an unsus- tainable rate, our pollution is altering the climate, and population contin- ues to rise.


Changing direction will mean doing what comes unnaturally, at least at first: restraining our desires, lowering our consumption, and developing a worldview that sees everybody as interconnected and evaluates every decision for its impact on others. In other words, liv- ing a Christian life.


Blezard is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Arendtsville, Pa. He has a master of divinity degree from Boston University and did subsequent study at the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg (Pa.) and the Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia.


Exercise 1: The good life • How do you define “the good life”? What images come to mind? • How is the good life depicted in advertisements, TV shows, maga- zines and other media? • What is the connection between our cultural definition of the good life and wanting more stuff, bigger stuff, better stuff and more money? • How much stuff and money is enough to make us happy? What does our culture say? What do you say? What does the Bible say? • How has the view that the


good life involves ever-increasing consumption led to our current envi- ronmental problems? • How can we learn new ways to live? • What happens if we don’t?


Exercise 2: Population explosion Just 100 years ago, the earth’s natural resources seemed limitless, and the capacity of air and water to absorb our waste appeared infinite. What’s changed is population. In 1517, when Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses, the planet’s population was 425 million. It reached 1 billion in 1804; 2 billion in 1927; 3 billion in 1960; 4 billion in 1974; 5 billion in 1987; 6 billion in 1999; 7 billion in 2011. Earth’s population is three and a half times what it was just 86 years ago—the lifetime of many of our congrega- tions’ members. • What pressure does that put on natural resources? • How does the picture change when you assume everyone wants “the good life”? • How can humanity ensure that as population rises there will be enough for everybody?


Exercise 3: Deny yourself Jesus told us plainly what it takes to be a disciple. Read Matthew 16:24- 26 and discuss: • What does it mean to deny yourself? • How is that instruction different from what we hear in our culture? • How have you denied yourself lately? • Considering that adapting to a planet with many more people and


much scarcer resources will mean reducing consumption and sharing more, is Christian self-denial a con- cept whose time has come?


Exercise 4: Lopsided consumption Consider: Reports say the world’s richest 500 million people produce 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide, chiefly by burning fossil fuel, while the poorest 3 billion pro- duce just 7 percent. • Upon whom does the onus fall to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions? • What would have to change to achieve it? • How would you change to help? What else would you do to help? Consider: While comprising just


5 percent of the world’s population, U.S. residents consume 25 percent of the earth’s resources. • What does this inequality say about the fairness of the current systems that drive economics? • How would you describe a fair dis- tribution of resources? • What would have to change to achieve it? • How would you, personally, change to help?


Exercise 5: Love your neighbor Jesus also taught that the whole law and the prophets is summed up in “do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). • How does this apply to the environment? • Are we not responsible for ensuring that our neighbor’s (and our own) air, water and land stay clean? • Does our neighbor include genera- tions yet unborn who have to live on earth after us? 


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