#Meek6: Jesus is the answer to climate change

This article is the transcript from episode #6 of a six-part podcast that I released between October 2, 2022 and January 2, 2023. The name of the podcast is “The Meek Will Inherit the Earth”. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast directories. Here is the podcast description: Jesus’s prediction that ‘the meek will inherit the earth’ is not well understood. Taken at face value, he is predicting a fundamental change in the humans who live on earth. He claimed this change is currently in progress and one day, it will be complete — humanity as we know it will be extinct and the new type of humans, along with the animals, will populate the earth. This podcast explores how Jesus saw this happening, why we should take him seriously and what it really means for us.

Episode Introduction

[0:00] Hi. My name is Brian, and this is the podcast, The Meek will Inherit the Earth. I recently read Bill Gates’ book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. I enjoyed the book and learned a lot about the formidable challenges that are facing us. Gates does a great job of laying out a plan in clear language; focusing on the required improvements in our technology, as well as listing what we as individuals can do to help. But there is a problem — I have a hard time believing his plan can succeed. The reality is, we have known the kinds of technological changes we need to make to address climate change for many years, but we have lacked the political will to do them[1]. Therefore, even though protocols and agreements are signed[2], and new scientific research is published, very few of the needed changes are actually implemented. In this episode we will think ‘outside the box’ to see if there are other ways of tackling this problem.

Housekeeping

[1:14] Thanks for joining me today. Let me assure you that this is a genuine new episode. At least it is if the posting date is January 2, 2023. For those of you who follow my podcast, you will have noticed that I am re-posting the earlier episodes. This is because my podcast hosting platform, Buzzsprout, takes down each episode after 90 days. They are doing this because I have opted to go with the free version of their plan. Hopefully the episode-reposting isn’t too confusing. I recommend listening to the episodes in order based on their number. Each episode name starts off with a number; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. This number is the guide to the optimal listening order. Thanks for following along.

In my view Gates does not have a comprehensive plan to solve climate change

[2:06] Now let’s get back to Gates’ book on climate change. Firstly, let’s start by defining the problem. Climate change refers to a long-term average warming of earth’s temperature. The consequences of the warming include, intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms and declining biodiversity.[3] It is a lot, and it has the potential to make significant portions of the earth uninhabitable and others less habitable. It is easy to imagine how this instability could lead to a lot of conflict and war. Climate change is a potential existential threat to humanity.

As noted, I think Bill Gates’ book is good for what it is. It is a plan for solving climate change within our current international governance framework and with similar kinds of macro technology to what we use today. The problem is, approaching climate change in this way is not going well. We have been talking about it for decades. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was the first global treaty to explicitly address it. It was ratified in 1992 and yet we continue to pump out more carbon almost every year[4]. We have been told it is absolutely critical to hold the average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Countries around the world have made pledges in this regard, but very few of the needed changes are actually implemented.

My opinion is that we do not have the political capacity to solve climate change with our current governance approach. Our ability to work together at the global level for the common good just isn’t strong enough. If it was, we would have made much more progress by now — after all, there is broad consensus that climate change is a very serious problem. I think we need to intensely search for options to improve on our cooperation abilities, instead of just going with the status quo and hoping for the best.

[4:29] People often point to the success we had solving the hole in the ozone layer. You can read about it on the United Nations’ Environmental Programme (UNEP) website[5]. It is inspiring to read about how the nations came together to solve the problem. But climate change is a more difficult to problem. It requires more fundamental changes in our societies and therefore, it requires much greater cooperation. Therefore, any serious plan for solving climate change should have a heavy focus on how we improve our ability to work together.

This is my main critique of Gates’ book — it is an incomplete plan for solving climate change. Gates admits that he doesn’t have the answers to the problem of political will. In his book he says, “I think more like and engineer than a political scientist, and I don’t have a solution to the politics of climate change”[6]. This admission is good, but at the same time, the title of the book suggests he is presenting a comprehensive plan, and I think people will take it that way. I view this as problematic. There is much more to do if we want to avoid a climate disaster.

Gretta Thunberg doesn’t believe we can solve climate change within today’s societies

[5:47] Maybe I am overly pessimistic? Consider environmental activist Greta Thunberg. Here is what she had to say in the June/July 2020 version of Time magazine: In response to those who say “we must adopt a so-called green recovery plan from the COVID-19 pandemic”, Greta says, “we must not for one second believe that it will be even close to what is actually required. … we have to tear up exiting agreements on a scale we can’t even begin to imagine.” “Even debating it risks doing more harm than good as it sends a signal that the changes needed are possible within today’s societies.” “From a sustainability point of view, all political and economic systems have failed.” [7] [8]

But she is not without hope. She goes on to say, “Everywhere there are signs of change, of awakening. … We have passed a social tipping point. We can no longer look away from what our society ignores, whether it is equality, justice, or sustainability.” “We must now do the seemingly impossible. And that is up to you and me. Because no one will do it for us.”

This is very interesting — Greta Thunberg, like me, doesn’t believe our current systems of governance are sufficient to solve climate change. But at the same time, she has hope in a grassroots people-movement. And this is where she has focused her efforts. Gretta started a youth-led and organised global climate strike movement called Fridays for the Future[9]. I think it is fair to say, Greta believes there is much we need to do to solve climate change that is not included in Bill Gates’ plan.

Most people think like Bill Gates — they look to government to solve the problem

[7:37] Although Greta and I do not have faith that climate change can be solved within today’s societies, most people do have great faith. And who can blame them? Government is the way we have always gotten big things done. If we want to build highways or regulate commerce or raise an army to defend ourselves, we do it through government. If we want to address crime and prosecute justice, we do it through our institutions like the police and the courts. If we want to deliver healthcare, we look to government to provide safety rules, fund research and often to directly provide care itself. Institutions are how Homo Sapiens have built their success, so it only makes sense that people look in this direction and possibly this direction only.

If the government isn’t working well, the usual solution is that we need a different government. An election or revolution is needed to make the change. Most of us have a strong belief if we were in control things would be better. Or if our political party was in control, the problems would be appropriately addressed. If you are an American you may put your hope in the Democrats, or in the Republicans — but not both! Or some Christians hope for a more basic return to Christian values — if we just prayed in school more or acknowledged God more in our public life, then things would be better.

[9:09] This was the main problem the disciples of Jesus had — they could not really hear Jesus because they believed the solution was government. The disciples weren’t trying to solve climate change, but they were hoping to create a kingdom of righteousness with Jewish self-rule. They wanted and expected Jesus to take control of the government by force. Afterall, that is what Messiah’s do. They save us from the difficult world in which we are suffering by becoming King and making society good for everyone. This is why they could not accept that Jesus was going to die. How could Jesus save the people if he didn’t take control of the government? Even though Jesus explained it to them multiple times, they could not comprehend that an alternative approach even existed.

The disciples wrote down their stories because they knew we would struggle with this too. Most people, including most Christians think like Bill Gates — government and institutions are the way to solve our problems. We need to listen carefully to the disciples’ stories.

Community-based training in peacemaking is the alternative to government

[10:20] The alternative to government that Jesus proposed was … a grassroots movement of people dedicated to training in his way of peacemaking. The name used in the Bible for the people-movement is ‘the church’ and the name for the training is discipleship.

The challenge for us is that the words ‘church’ and ‘discipleship’ have been domesticated and we, like the disciples, cannot grasp what Jesus is saying.

• We often think of the church as an institution. For example, the Roman Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church. This is not true. The church is the body of Christ. It is the people who dedicate themselves to learning and doing the kinds of things Jesus did. Regardless of who claims to be his representative, Jesus is actually represented by this grassroots people-movement.
• Discipleship simply means practicing the kind of relating that Jesus taught — instead of competing to be the most powerful, disciples perform acts of service. Instead of directing hostility at minorities and enemies, disciples seek out these groups and give them a special place in their community.

Throughout his life Jesus trained his disciples in his way of making peace-communities, he modeled it (especially through his death) and when he was leaving them, he gave them the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations. Having faith in Jesus means having faith that this community-based training is what will change the world. It means following the Great Commission and dedicating ourselves to replicating the character of Jesus in ourselves and in others.

[12:13] Unfortunately, many followers of Jesus do not understand the significance of discipleship, and instead put their trust in government. This cuts them off from the core of what Jesus was all about. Without this connection to ‘the vine’, Christian faith degrades into mere cultural practice and comforting myths about the afterlife. This is why no one looks to Christianity as a possible source of answers to the problem of climate change. This type of Christian faith is likely to continue to decline because it lacks relevance to the problems of the world.

It is funny how people overlook this approach. If you want to be a concert pianist or a professional basketball player, of course you will dedicate yourself to a lifetime of practice. It goes without saying that you have to train, even if you have a lot of natural talent. But when it comes to world peace and working with others to solve the big problems, we think about it differently. We think the source of the problems is with other people. Maybe these people are the ones in government? Or perhaps it is just people who approach life differently than we do. So instead of dedicating ourselves to practice, we dedicate ourselves to gaining power and forcing our way of doing things on others. Government is important, but if everyone is trying to seize power, it is obviously not a good recipe for long term peace and stability. Mahatma Gandhi said it well, ‘you need to be the change you want to see in the world’.

Discipleship is not anarchy or inaction; it promotes long term human success

[13:56] I should say that I have a lot of respect for people who commit themselves to public service in government and business[10]. If you are working to make the world better in this way I thank-you. I am not an anarchist or even anti-institutional. Our institutions are very important to us right now. If we somehow got rid of them all instantaneously the world would be in absolute chaos, and most of us would likely die.

Personally, I spend most of my days supporting institutions — the corporation I work for, the church I attend and the Personal Care Home where I am on the Board of directors. I am dedicated to helping these institutions succeed. They are important to the well-being of Canadians. But I also take all these activities with a ‘grain of salt’. The most important thing to me is making disciples of all nations. I am very loyal to institutions I am affiliated with, but they don’t have my ultimate loyalty. That belongs to Jesus. This is what it means to me to say, “Jesus is Lord”.

[15:08] Although discipleship is not anti-institutional, it does include a strong component of political activism. The very existence of people who refuse to participate in some of the activities of civic religion such as worshiping the emperor or going to war or organizing their finances differently often bring them into conflict with the state or other community leaders. For example, the apostle Paul was stoned in Ephesus because the silversmiths were seeing a loss of income due to his teaching (Acts 19:23). At other times, discipleship leads to more overt acts of political activism. For example, Jesus clearing the moneychangers from the Temple and his royal entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday were political stunts. They called out corruption in the Temple worship system and challenged Israel’s leaders. These political stunts played a big role in his eventual crucifixion.

Discipleship is often accused of being quietism or supporting anarchy, but neither of these accusations are true. Discipleship is Jesus’s constructive alternative to trying to seize control of the government and force solutions on others. Discipleship promotes long term human success by transforming individuals and communities. This creates fertile ground for good government policy and prepares us for a better future.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Bible’s central theme of how to create a better world

[16:42] Let me wrap up this episode by stepping back and looking at the big picture. The central event in the Old Testament is the Exodus. A group of slaves had the revelation that their enslavement was not ordained by God; the true God viewed it as oppression. These former slaves left Egypt and attempted to build a new kind of human society, founded on justice, where every family owned an allotment of farmland[11]. It was a grand vision, but they struggled mightily to implement it.

Jesus proclaimed he was the fulfillment of this vision. He would create the new kind of human society right in the midst of the current kingdoms and empires. Instead of taking over the government by force, he would build it through self-giving service to others.

The New Testament authors had a nuanced understanding of government:

• It plays a legitimate role in God’s creation. Therefore, we should support it and do what we can to help it make the world better.
• However, it inevitably oversteps its God given authority, claims divinity for itself and oppresses people. It is a beast that no one can fully control.
• In the end, the Homo sapien approach of violence management through government will fail. We need an alterative for a sustainable future.
• For these reasons our primary loyalty should be to Jesus’s way of peace. We should take on his great commission and make disciples of all nations.

[18:22] On one hand, Jesus’s approach is very earth-based and even secular. It is simply a continuation of God’s ongoing creation. We can talk about it using evolutionary language. Humanity diverged from the animals 70,000 years ago when our cooperation skills changed. Humanity is now once again experiencing a change in its cooperation skills. People who are early adopters of the new approach are the natural first fruits that the garden of creation was always intended to produce (James 1:18).

On the other hand, this simple change in intraspecies relationships leads to outcomes that are difficult to conceive of from the Homo Sapien perspective[12]. For example, resurrection from the dead. Although I don’t focus on Jesus’s resurrection in this podcast I am not trying to minimize it either. My thinking is that we do damage to the gospel if we skip to the resurrection too quickly. Jesus was the perfect image of his father because he “did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped; but emptied himself and took on the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6 NASB). Jesus rose from the dead because his life and message were perfectly aligned with his Father. If we skip over his gospel we cut ourselves off from the core of what Jesus was all about. If we are cut off from Jesus, it doesn’t matter much whether or not we believe in the resurrection. As the apostle James (2:19) might tell us, ‘even the demons believe that — and shudder’.

Jesus is the answer to climate change and the other major problems we face

[20:00] Hopefully contrasting the approaches taken by Bill Gates and Greta Thunberg to solving climate change is a helpful and challenging way to access what discipleship really means. Discipleship looks more like Greta than Gates, and it certainly does not sit on the sidelines while others try to solve the big problems of the world. Perhaps you are offended that Greta is being held up as an example of discipleship when she has never expressed any solidarity with Jesus? If so I would say two things:

• Firstly, in the parable of the Sheep and Goats Jesus tells us that there are many people who do not express allegiance to him who actually are aligned with him. And at the same time, many of the people who loudly proclaim that they are his followers, are actually not. According to Jesus, this is just the way it is.
• Secondly, I don’t mean to pronounce judgement on either Gates or Greta. Each of them are doing what they can to make the world a better place and I thank them for that. There is so much I don’t know about each of them. On the other hand, they are both public figures who are trying to change society and are calling us to action. It is our responsibility to assess what they are saying and determine how much energy we will direct towards following them.

[21:26] Ultimately, climate change as just one of many symptoms of humanity thinking we can do it ourselves, instead of trusting in Jesus. We think we can deliver the good world with our institutions, but we cannot. To get there we need to follow Jesus’s approach. Although climate change is just one of many issues, it seems big enough, that when you add it all up, it may push us over the edge. Perhaps now is the moment when the stories and institutions that have made Homo sapiens so successful, finally breach their limit? Or maybe not? Maybe we will be able to stumble through the challenges of climate change with our institutions and a few breakthrough technological inventions. But even if we do, humanity will surely find itself up against some other, even greater crisis. No one knows exactly how the next few decades will play out. As Jesus said, no one knows the day or the hour of the end of the age (Matthew 24). Until then, government will remain important but Jesus’s approach of building the new humanity through discipleship will be more important. It is the only sustainable answer to our problems.

In spite of the challenge, this is good news. God is creating a new humanity. The meek will inherit the earth. But God isn’t doing this by killing his enemies or supernaturally forcing people to do what he wants. He is doing it through a grassroots people-movement, which is dedicated to training in Jesus’s way of making community. I have sometimes heard said that ‘the church is God’s plan to save the world and there is no plan B’. I 100% agree with this. We need to catch this vision and commit to the training. I hope you will join.

Episode Summary

[23:26] OK. Let me provide an episode summary:

• Climate change poses a serious challenge to humanity, possibly even an existential threat.
• Bill Gates provides a detailed plan for how we can solve climate change through improvements in our technology in his book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. The fly in the ointment is, we don’t seem to have the political capacity to execute it.
• Environmental activist Greta Thunberg doesn’t believe we can solve climate change within today’s societies. She calls our government systems a failure and looks instead to a grassroots people-movement to solve it.
• Most people think like Bill Gates. They believe government can solve the problem and have difficulty imagining an alternative approach is possible.
• This is also the way the disciples of Jesus thought. They were looking for a society of justice, free from foreign oppressors. And they believed taking over the government by force was the only way to deliver the solution. They could not understand the alternative Jesus was proposing.
• The alternative to government is the church. The true church of Jesus is a grassroots movement of people being discipled in the new cooperations skills. Instead of competing for dominance, they commit themselves to service. Instead of directing hostility at enemies and minorities they seek them out for inclusion.
• Discipleship is not anarchy or inaction; it promotes long term human success by transforming individuals and communities. It creates fertile ground for good government policy, and it prepares us for a better future.
• The central theme of the Bible is how to align with God’s intention to create a good world of peace and justice for humanity. This theme is fulfilled in Jesus’s approach to creating the new humanity through discipleship.
• Nobody knows exactly how the climate change problem will play out over the next few decades. What I do feel confident about is that Jesus’s approach of community-based peacemaking is the only long-term sustainable answer to our problems. The more progress we can make on this, the better we will be able to work together. This greatly improves our chances of surviving climate change and of living in a world that is good for everyone.
• Although the immediate future will likely be very difficult, the long-term future is bright. As people lose faith in institutions they will catch the vision that something new is possible. In fact, they are already reaching across barriers and practicing with their neighbours. This movement will build momentum and a tipping point will be reached. This is when the meek will inherit the earth. I hope you will join.

<<< Closing Music >>>

Closing Remarks

[26:53] Well, this brings us to the end of the podcast. My original intention was to publish six episodes, and this is now complete. My next steps are to focus on putting this into practice in my own life and hopefully also to have more two-way conversations about this important good news. Thank-you so much for joining. If you found these episodes helpful, please share them with others. I would love to talk to you about it. Please send me an email at brianpracticingforpeace@zohomail.com. I have left the address in the show notes. I wish you God’s blessing and many opportunities to practice the new way of being human, while we patiently and actively wait for the meek to inherit the earth.

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[1] Yuval Noah Harari, Homo: A Short History of Tomorrow. Chapter 6 has a helpful description of our predicament and why we don’t follow scientific advice even though a majority of us agree with it.

[2] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/paris-global-climate-change-agreements Here is a list of the key agreements that have been signed: UN Framework on Climate Change (1992), Kyoto Protocol (2005), Paris Agreement (aka ‘Accord’ 2015)

[3] https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/ (emissions up every year with the exception of 2020)

[5] Rebuilding the ozone layer: how the world came together for the ultimate repair job (unep.org) Since its inception in 1972, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been the global authority that sets the environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the UN system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.

[6] How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates. Page 13

[7] June/July 2020 version of Time magazine. Time says Greta’s comments are “adapted from an essay originally broadcast on Swedish radio.”

[8] Her thinking on the problem and its solution have not changed. She was recently quoted in the Guardian saying she was “not going to Cop 27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited.” She went on to say, “The Cops are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing.” The Cop conferences, “are not really meant to change the whole system”, but instead encourage gradual progress. “So as it is, the Cops are not really working, unless of course we use them as an opportunity to mobilise.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/31/greta-thunberg-to-skip-greenwashing-cop27-climate-summit-in-egypt

[9] https://fridaysforfuture.org/what-we-do/who-we-are/

[10] I should have included non-profit organizations. I maybe should have left business out? I certainly respect people who dedicate themselves to serving others through business however, it is not public service in the same sense. Of course, the larger the business gets, the more it becomes a form of quasi-government.

[11] Micah 4:4, Micah 2:2, Isaiah 5:8, Numbers 26: 54–56, Numbers 26–27, Leviticus 25

[12] Think of how unimaginable our lives are from the perspective of Neanderthals or earlier hominins. Humans will be flying around in the air using tools we have made. Humans will travel to the moon. Humans will all be connected via radio waves and wireless networks. Humans will be able to perform organ transplants. Humans will live in cities that contain millions of people. Etc. It all would have seemed very far fetched to these earlier hominins. They wouldn’t even have had categories for understanding some of the items.