The Most Reverend Paul Sarker – former Moderator of the Church of Bangladesh – issued a call to action on climate justice in a webinar hosted by the Center for Anglican Communion Studies at Virginia Theological Seminary. Recognising the vulnerability of his country of Bangladesh, Asia as a continent and the whole world to the climate catastrophe he closed his address with these words:
Today we worship not our God who created the world but we directly or indirectly worshipping idols of technology, unfair trade, money and wealth. Archbishop Justin Welby mentioned these dominant forces in his `Dethroning Mammon’ as `the alias of Mammon’. These dominant attractive and influential forces not only damage or demoralize the human being but all species and nature of our earth. In a papal encyclical letter, Pope Francis declared that the science of climate change is clear and that the Catholic Church views climate change as a moral issue that must be addressed in order to protect the Earth and everyone on it.
It is clear, as reported by the scientists and the statistics that the rich countries are more responsible for global warming than the developing countries, but the developing and poor countries are suffering more. Here the question raised for climate justice. There is no doubt that huge climate refugees will try to move from the low lands to the high lands. But still, some powerful rich countries seem to play a game with this issue and not taking the necessary steps to reduce the causes of climate changes. We know that numerous long-term changes in climate change have been being observed at a massive scale. Climate refugees deserve climate justice and it can’t be only financial support but necessary steps must be taken together in collaboration of all countries. All faiths should come together, even space needs to create to work together with faithless communities, the scientist and theologians, and development thinkers to protect the creation and to work for climate justice. We need to be more prophetic to save the world from the consequences of sin, our wrongdoings. We should let our future generations live in a just and peaceful world with other human and creation in harmony. It is our moral and spiritual responsibility that we can’t ignore. We are not electing our national leaders to make more nuclear weapons or to dominate the financial and business of the world through unfair trade and to compete with other countries in a motive to supersede them. We elect them to serve God through serving God’s people and creation.
We still are not clear about the origin and spread of the Covid-19, but we can understand that it occurs perhaps because of our negligence, our guilt, our pride or misuse of our authority. Our stewardship is our covenant responsibility to protect, care and serve the whole creation for God’s glory and honour His Creation. Let us pray and work for the kingdom of God, as our Lord Jesus asked us to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is heaven.” Amen.