As noted earlier, the Australian Anglican Church is not governed by an external organisation such as its denominational parent, the Church of England99. Whilst it is largely independent, the Australian Anglican position on ecological matters needs to be understood in the international context of the Doctrine of the Anglican Communion, which is still significantly influenced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England.
A lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury given at the University of Kent in March 2005 and entitled ‘Ecology & Economy’100 provides a relatively accessible perspective on his view of environmental matters as does his letter to UK political party leaders produced prior to the
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Link to the Pope’s Letter to the President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences 97
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=53138 98
See for e.g. Monbiot, 2007 and Mackintosh & Downie, 2007. 99
See http://www.anglican.org/church/ChurchGovern.html for further information about the structure and governance of the Anglican Church.
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national election101. A link to the Environment Policy on the Church of England website also provides important context and is notable for its overt inclusion of ethical investment considerations102.
The Church of England’s Mission & Public Affairs Council has also produced a briefing document for the Synod in relation to environmental matters103. Whilst focused on UK-related issues, it also has a global aspect and some important theological information that helps to understand at least some of the broader Anglican perspective.
The Anglican Communion participated in the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg during September 2002. The subsequent Anglican Consultative Council, following the Summit's conclusion resolved to:
“support actions in the five key areas identified by the Summit, namely water and sanitation, energy, health, agricultural productivity, and biodiversity and ecosystem management; add its voice of concern and support to those calling for a renewed and committed international approach to the control of those processes which increase global warming and affect climate change; and urge each member church of the Anglican Communion to celebrate the Sunday nearest to 1st June, World Environment Day as Environment Sunday in order to raise environmental awareness across the Communion.”
Also in 2002, the Global Anglican Congress on the ‘Stewardship of Creation’ took place and provides additional international context to the Australian Anglican response104. It reveals that the environmentalist reformation of institutional Anglicanism significantly commenced after the 1998 Lambeth Conference and the subsequent resolution by the bishops of the Anglican Communion to address the ‘environmental challenge’. To quote the Commission for the Environment of the Diocese of Canberra & Goulburn, “Lambeth saw the environment as one of the key issues of our time, recognising it as a moral issue and not just a matter of good housekeeping” (my emphasis). The document from the 2002 Congress suggests that despite the outcomes of the Lambeth Conference, the author is pleading for thorough and integrated ecological reform that goes well beyond symbolic policy-making and platitudes, right down to the detail of how each church and parishioner operates. It is also noteworthy that until the 1998 Conference, ecological concerns were not on the official agenda of the Anglican denomination. This explains in part the relatively undeveloped response to ecological issues seen in the Anglican Church of Australia at a national level when compared with its Catholic counterpart.
101 http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/abcletter.html 102 http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/ethical/policystatements/environment.pdf 103 http://www.cofe.anglican.org/about/gensynod/agendas/gsmisc767.rtf 104 http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/31/00/acns3108.html
The Lambeth Conference’s recognition of the ecological crisis as a moral issue rather than simply an anthropocentric and instrumentalist concern is significant. The environmentalist movement is dominated by arguments that privilege a form of science, perhaps because science is, along with a form of economics, one of the two dominant knowledge systems of Western society. Environmentalism has increasingly pushed its case on scientific and economic grounds, with some believing these truths to be the whole story. Others know or feel that science and economics are only partial truths but that they are the ‘languages’ that are more acceptable to the bulk of society, or at least its decision-makers, than are the languages of morality and ethics.
Lambeth makes the connection between the scientific data such as the rates of species extinction, levels of pollution, changes and forecast changes to climate, etc., and the moral dimension in which these need to be seen. This is essentially a recognition of the difference between supposedly objective ‘facts’ and the values that can be attached to them.
Recognition of the moral dimension of the ecological crisis appears to be a significant catalyst, along with the increasingly clear impacts of ecological harm on people, especially the poorest, in motivating the Churches to take a relatively strong policy stance in the debate, especially in relation to global warming. It has also given a renewed voice to at least some environmentalist groups and individuals who can now speak more confidently of the moral dimension, even if they have to do so vicariously through the Church, for example, ‘Changing climate: changing creation’, a publication of some Australian Church groups and the Australian Conservation Foundation.
The global Anglican Communion is the international policy body for the Church but as noted earlier, its role is primarily advisory. It includes a body called the Anglican Communion Environmental Network (ACEN), which at the time of writing was chaired by Australian Anglican Bishop George Browning. This group held its yearly meeting in Canberra in April 2005 and produced what appears to be its first significant policy document in the form of a “Statement to the Anglican Communion”105. The Statement was officially noted and in June 2005, the Anglican Consultative Council, a major policy-making body of the Anglican Communion, endorsed its recommendations.
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I have reproduced the minutes of the Councils meeting106 because of their significance for Anglican Church ecological policy:
“The Anglican Consultative Council notes the Statement to the Anglican Communion from the ACEN, and endorses its recommendation that all Anglicans be encouraged to:
• recognise that global climatic change is real and that we are contributing to the despoiling of creation;
• commend initiatives that address the moral transformation needed for environmentally sustainable economic practices such as the Contraction and Convergence process championed by the Archbishop of Canterbury;
• understand that, for the sake of future generations and the good of God’s creation, those of us in the rich nations need to be ready to make sacrifices in the level of comfort and luxury we have come to enjoy;
• expect mission, vision and value statements to contain commitment to environmental responsibility at all levels of church activity;
• educate all church members about the Christian mandate to care for creation;
• work on these issues ecumenically and with all faith communities and people of good will everywhere;
• ensure that the voices of women, indigenous peoples and youth are heard;
• press government, industry and civil society on the moral imperative of taking practical steps towards building sustainable communities.
Asks Provinces to take the following steps urgently:
• include environmental education as an integral part of all theological training107;
• take targeted and specific actions to assess and reduce our environmental footprint, particularly greenhouse gas emissions. Such actions could include energy and resource audits, land management, just trading and purchasing, socially and ethically responsible investment;
• promote and commit ourselves to use renewable energy wherever possible;
• revise our liturgies and our calendar and lectionaries in ways that more fully reflect the role and work of God as Creator;
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http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/39/75/acns3998.cfm 107
It is unclear whether this refers specifically to the training of clergy or to theological training in general. If it refers to the former, it remains that there are no compulsory ecotheological or
• press for urgent initiation of discussions, which should include all nations, leading to a just and effective development beyond the Kyoto Protocol,;
• support the work of the World Council of Churches Climate Change Action Group;
• bring before governments the imperative to use all means, including legislation and removal of subsidies, to reduce greenhouse gases.”
The above represents a significant advancement in the ecological policy of the international Anglican Church and forms the framework for related policy statements in Australia. In terms of the criteria that I have established for my analysis of Church policy, the Anglican Consultative Council’s statement is ecologically literate and grounded; goes beyond rhetoric and ‘motherhood statements’ whilst providing an appropriate level of detail; and it represents a ‘whole of Church’ approach that is both top-down and potentially bottom-up in relation to policy refinement and implementation.