Eco-human Future

That will require some adjustments in our theological emphases but is necessary if the church is to serve the new world and evolve a new dimension in our spirituality. Lloyd Geering touched on this when he wrote:“Ecological spirituality will focus on the nature of our relatedness, not only to one another as humans in human society but also to all living forms of life in the ecosphere and to the forces of nature.”Relatedness. That’s the key word here.

In opening ourselves to this, there’s wisdom to be drawn from communities who’ve come close to achieving that in their own environments. For example, the Omaha Indians welcome newborn children in a ceremony expressing a human intimacy with the earth. Something of that spirit could well be incorporated into our ritual of baptism.

Closer to home, the Te Urewera Act, passed in 2014, describes the Te Urewera forestland as “a fortress of nature, alive with history; its scenery . . . abundant with mystery, adventure, and remote beauty . . . a place of spiritual value, with its own mana and mauri” – a phrase that conveys the perception of “a living and spiritual force” over the whole forest area.

Three years later came the Te Awa Tupua Act, which gives the Whanganui River the rights and responsibilities of a legal person, similar to companies and charities, and with its own appointed guardians.

Te Awa Tupua conveys the idea of the whole Whanganui River system, its spirit and the people related to it, as “an indivisible and living whole … incorporating the river and all of its physical and metaphysical elements.”

At the heart of both Acts is the recognition of a Māori relatedness with the natural world. The way they bring together two deeply divergent traditions, one western and legal, the other indigenous and cultural, has excited interest around the world. Mt Taranaki will be next.

As a secular Christian, I see no problem in conceiving of a mauri, a life force, at work in an ocean, a river, a mountain, the forests of Te Urewera – a life force that finds expression in their unique ecologies, a life essence to be respected, a life energy we can live alongside, respond to and enjoy. To Māori that’s the mauri and it’s everywhere in the natural world. Birds, animals, trees, plants, the soil, each has its own mauri.

Allow that in your thinking and you’ll find yourselves subtly, profoundly, changing the way you relate to an ocean, a river, a mountain, a forest, your pet, your rose garden, your friends, yourself. I shy away from acclaiming Tangaroa as god of the ocean. But how about Tangaroa as symbolising the life force of the ocean?

Such a re-set could well broaden our Christian vision and nudge society forward into a new and deeper relationship with the Earth. What else might help?

Earlier I touched on baptism. Perhaps there’s also room for conceiving a new trinity of God (or Godness), Humanity and the Planet, complementing the traditional Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Religion must be free to evolve new forms to reflect new realities.

That kind of evolution is already being expressed in new hymns and new liturgies going beyond a decorative use of natural imagery to genuine theological depth – including one by the Ephesus Group drawing on the new story of creation, Our Universe: Ourselves.

Complement that with private contemplation and you’re on to a winner. In Sacred Nature, English religious scholar, Karen Armstrong, offers some suggestions towards a spirituality befitting an eco-human future:

■ First, take your ego out of the centre of your being. “Many of us are eager to achieve spiritual enlightenment of some kind,” she says, “but often we don’t realise that this entails the loss of the self that we so busily and inventively preserve and promote.” That’s also key, of course, to living with compassion.

■ As to nature, begin by “looking closely at our immediate environment, making ourselves aware of the magnificence of trees, flowers, birdsong and clouds, until they are no longer just a backdrop to our lives but a daily marvel”.

When that’s embedded, we are ready to steadily expand our consciousness, rippling out to make room for all our fellow-beings, beyond our own ethnicity, sex, nationality, politics, religion and species. In other words, an eco-human spirituality.

This is the final article written by Ian Harris for Touchstone. Our long-time contributor has decided that as 'a newspaper man', writing for an online publication has no appeal. We thank Ian for his thought-provoking and inspired contributions. Editor Touchstone.