Christian Salvation and Ecological Restoration

This two-day course explores the roots of the disconnection between people, creation, creatures, and creator.

We also discuss the efforts to establish reconnection in ways that are both spiritually and ecologically restorative.

For the early Christians, there was a deep relationship between the human person – body and psyche or soul – and the body of the cosmos and the creatures who dwell within it which is largely lost to us in urban Britain. Modern scientifically informed theologians tend to psychologise or explain away narrative descriptions in the gospels of bodily healings, and the bodily resurrection of Christ as hyperbole. This tendency reflects the alienation between mind and body, persons and the Creation, which in a context of industrialisation and urbanisation, most people have become detached from the earthly cycle of food growing, seasons, and broader processes of cosmic renewal. Nonetheless, the Christian liturgical year remains steadfastly mapped to these cycles and is a rich, though under-used, resource for reconnecting people of God to the Earth and so restoring our relationships of body and soul, both to God, to other persons and other creatures.

There is a growing ecological crisis in the modern human relation to nature but we are encouraged to think of this crisis in mechanical terms – machines such as boilers and car and jet engines emit waste gases into the atmosphere and this ‘changes’ the climate. But there is a deeper disconnect between persons, creation and ‘all creatures great and small’ that is responsible for the growing tide of mental and spiritual distress that afflict so many people today.

In this two day course, led by Professor Michael Northcott, we will discuss the roots of the disconnect between persons and the divine Creation, and the ways it afflicts both us and other creatures and ecosystems. We will explore the many efforts being made to reconnect persons to creation and creatures, as well as reconnecting Christians with their Creator and with each other in ways that are both spiritually and ecologically restorative. Michael will demonstrate that this is a missional message of hope for restoration and healing that Christians can embody and share in their mission to our ‘sceptred isle’.

Contact Alison Ogden for all booking enquiries
aogden@sarum.ac.uk  |  01722 424826  |  01722 424800 (main reception)