Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Saints Arrested - Christian Witness and Climate Change

Jo | 30.09.2006 12:31 | Climate Camp 2006 | Climate Chaos | Ecology

The Reverend Malcolm Carroll, Baptist Minister, has been "doing a Saint Paul" this week, getting himself arrested to give his Christian witness to the atrocious rise in Carbon Dioxide emissions from air travel in the United Kingdom.

He held a sermon on the taxiway tarmac of Nottingham Airport, naming short-haul flights a sin, and calling for repentance from the evil of flying, urging us all to mend our fuellish ways. His little service of meditation and reflection was attended by members of the Climate Camp, kneeling to show their profound (and varied) beliefs, out of respect for the good pastor.

Much of the language being used to describe Climate Change by scientists and politicians rivals that of the Bible in its Apocalyptic overtones, and yet, until recently, the faith-based organisations have been terribly circumspect in their pronouncements, desperate not to tip any apple carts or rock any boats.

What Noah would have made of this stance, I don't know. He was into rocking boats, big time. He built the most rocking boat you could ever dream of, because he knew, he just knew, that God was going to make it precipitate and inundate, and that he had to save himself and his little family, and the whole of the animal kingdom (with some spare to eat later).

The early Christians encouraged each other with gentle reminders that they could be held by the authorities, flogged or fed to voracious lions etc at any time, but that this persecution was all in the plan, and that if they did it to Jesus, well, you could certainly expect them to do it to you.

Thankfully, protesters don't get crucified in the United Kingdom, except in the media. Some think that the age of protest is dead, as protest is no longer necessary, or should no longer be tolerated, since we have very public conversations and debates, and transparency and engagement.

Yet on Climate Change, we have a sluggish Government and non-governmental organisations that are proceeding with undue drag, political processes that truly need to be energised. Plus, we are fighting the spin from public voices funded by oil companies.

How to break this impasse ? Following the good old traditions of opposition, this means protest.

Why put yourself on a public highway and block the traffic to draw attention to Fossil Fuel-driven Global Warming? Why block the business of a small provincial airport in order to question the UK's nightmare travel expansion plans ?

Why put yourself in a position where you can get arrested, prosecuted, charged, tried; when instead you could sit safely at home, and watch petrol-heads (nearly) killing themselves challenging the world land speed record on television?

What gives Christians the impetus to throw themselves into the firing line, breaking "national security" to complain about kerosene abuse ?

Why should Christians break the social norms of behaviour to assert the end to Big Energy injustice, and claim a future for the atmosphere ?

Is Climate Change that serious that we need to break customs and laws ?

In fact, we follow an Arrestable Jesus, a man who knew in advance that he was to be held, tortured and murdered for expressing the love and forgiveness of God, but who continued with his Freedom Mission regardless.

The man who said he was going to look like the Snake-on-a-Stick that Moses held up during the epidemic in the desert, the man who said that he was going into the belly of Hell for three days, as the Sign of Jonah.

The man who said "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

Personally, I will not be breaking any laws, or compromising any airport security, or climbing up and abseiling down any power station cooling towers, or locking onto motorways. I do not agree with this form of protest for myself, as my tactics are strictly non-confrontational, but I can appreciate how Malcolm and others of the Climate Camp came to agree this action.

I applaud Revd Carroll on his direct action this week, and I hope I can be as strong and righteous and fearless in my own way, in my own attempts to fight Climate Change.

I, too, am a Christian, and in addition also a member of the Climate Camp, a broad movement, and not just a political or religious party. We do canvassing community for collective consensus, in preference to polarised picky partisan polemics.

Church, here's your warning : if individual Christians feel strongly enough about environmental destruction to put themselves in a position where they can be arrested, maybe it's time for the Church Militant to be more visible.

If Christians see that they need to act autonomously outside of their home churches in order to have an impact, then it's time for Christian leaders to shake up, and spice up their approach.

With the IPCC Report coming out in February 2007, and the likely scenarios that will be depicted, you will need to have a response on typed up notes to hand to match the gravity of the situation.

Climate Change is already compromising the water supply, crops, habitat and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide, and threatens to undermine the Global Economy within a few decades, as well as creating waves of Climate Refugees, and driving countless animals and plants to extinction.

Tearfund have an open, public, loud position on Climate Change. Christian Aid are campaigning. Malcolm Carroll is prepared to get arrested to bring a message of repentance to our newspapers. Rowan Williams can talk openly about it. Richard Chartres can wing it. Why can't you ?

Jo
- Homepage: http://www.workface.org

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech