In response to this defeat, theology has off ered diff erent ways that may each be explored by reference to totality and relation. It suffi ces for my argument merely to indicate that these earlier approaches are caught up in the contrast between settlement and journey and, in their diff erent ways, end by affi rming the ascent of the human to mastery, the plenitude of home, and the constancy of theological questions. 21 Specifi c and unconvincing accounts of totality and relation are in play here. Let me briefl y characterize these options.
(1) Th e fi rst response is stewardship. Christopher Southgate maintains, ‘ Th at human beings are called to be stewards of creation tends to be the default position within ordinary Christian groups. Th e concept of stewardship is affi rmed in recent major documents in both the evangelical and Catholic traditions. ’ 22 In an otherwise strong rejection of stewardship, Clare Palmer similarly notes its citing by John Paul II in 1985 and in an offi cial report by
19 R. R. Ruether, Sexism and God-talk: Toward a Feminist Th eology (London: SCM Press, 1983),
pp. 79 – 82.
20 Scott, A Political Th eology of Nature , pp. 8 – 13.
21 I am once more indebted here to Adams, Colonial Odysseys , pp. 45 – 87.
22 C. Southgate, ‘ Stewardship and its Competitors: A Spectrum of Relationships between Humans and
the Non-human Creation ’ , in R. J. Berry (ed.), Environmental Stewardship: Critical Perspectives Past and Present (London: T&T Clark, 2006), pp. 185 – 95 (185).
the Church of England in 1990. 23 In addition, we can note its more recent deployment in a 2005 Church of England report, Sharing God ’ s Planet , from its Council of Mission and Public Aff airs. 24 Richard Bauckham makes a comparable comment: ‘ Th e understanding of the human dominion over nature that has become popular among Christians, in the context of a new consciousness of ecological responsibilities, is the idea of stewardship. ’ 25 Moreover, the model of stewardship interprets humanity less as over creation than is evident in dominion and rather more as within it. Nonetheless, the performance of stewardship is part of the human vocation, so to speak, and the steward is regarded as active in terms of management or administration.
We may readily appreciate that stewardship relates all too easily to the theme of the ascent of the human to mastery. Th e totality that human beings face is incomplete and needs to be fi xed.
(2) A second response to defeat off ers a move away from transcendence towards immanence in the context of the affi rmation that, as Elizabeth Johnson avers, ‘ Th e symbol of God functions. It is never neutral in its eff ects, but expresses and molds a community ’ s bedrock convictions and actions. ’ 26 If the symbol of God functions, theological development is required to ensure that it functions in the correct way. Th us if human beings are to understand themselves as being-at-home, theology needs to develop its perspectives on a God of the economy that might commend such home-making.
Th e tendency of this analysis is clear enough: if the world or nature may be understood as God ’ s presence, the value of creation is increased or enhanced.
So it is claimed. In other words, the otherness of God to the world is consid-ered a withdrawal of God from the world that is considconsid-ered synonymous with a reduction in the sacredness (read: value) of the world. To speak, for example, of the world as God ’ s body – as Sallie McFague does – is to argue that God is present by way of non-human nature. It is to claim furthermore that God is present to nature in ways that ought to mean that we respect nature more.
23 C. Palmer, ‘ Stewardship: A Case Study in Environmental Ethics ’ , in R. J. Berry (ed.), Environmental
Stewardship , pp. 63 – 75 (64).
24 Council of Mission and Public Aff airs, Sharing God ’ s Creation (London: Church House Publishing,
2005), esp. 16 – 28.
25 R. Bauckham, ‘ Modern Domination of Nature ’ , in Berry (ed.), Environmental Stewardship ,
pp. 32 – 50 (42).
26 E. A. Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Th eology of God (London:
Continuum, 2007), p. 98.
Nature is one of the forms of God ’ s presence to us and this form cannot be altered or degraded without in some way dishonouring God. Such a presenta-tion is oft en called panentheism. 27 In the affi rmation of this pan(en)theism, the world is rendered habitable by reference to the presence of God. Th e totality is one in which human beings fi nd themselves and which is in turn founded upon the immanence of God.
(3) A third response, which, for the sake of good conversation, I should add is where I locate my own work, develops the resources of Christian theology in reconstructive rather than constructive ways. For this position, it is the resources of theological tradition that shape some of the questions and set some of the terms of the debate. As Ernst Conradie recommends, what is required is ‘ a theological anthropology in which the relationship between human beings and God is regarded as decisive for being human ’ . 28 Th is response may conclude with a cautious affi rmation of stewardship. Th is response also wishes to engage with developments in anthropology and cosmology and because of this engagement may refuse stewardship. 29
Th e most substantial and sustained eff ort to explore being-at-home on the earth is Ernst Conradie ’ s An Ecological Christian Anthropology . One aspect of his argument that is distinctive is the eschatological interpretation of being-at-home: ‘ . . . a sense of belonging should be understood as the very content of an eschatological longing ’ – ‘ . . . it is only through the Christian longing for the new earth that we can discover our belonging, in body and soul, to this earth ’ . 30 In this fashion, Conradie faces directly the charge that Christian faith off ers a personalist and escapist eschatology. As is already clear, the totality appealed to refers us to a theologic that has not thrived in the modern period – and insists that this totality is only fully understood by reference to the transcendence of God. Th is response thereby builds from the defeat of theology.
What shall we say in response to these responses? First, stewardship enacts the modern tendency that affi rms the ascent to mastery of the human. Th e totality
27 Part of this paragraph is from P. M. Scott, ‘ Which Nature? Whose Justice? Shift ing Meanings of
Nature in Recent Ecotheology ’ , in P. Clarke and T. Claydon (eds.), God ’ s Bounty? Th e Churches and the Natural World (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2010), pp. 445 – 46.
28 Conradie, An Ecological Christian Anthropology , p. 11 (emphasis his).
29 Scott, A Political Th eology of Nature , pp. 213 – 18.
30 Conradie, An Ecological Christian Anthropology , p. 13 (emphasis his).
that nature presents to the human is somehow incomplete and needs to be completed. Further, the relations between human creatures and non-human creatures are one of hierarchy and management. For the second position, the totality of nature now includes the human and thereby off ers a new context of intelligibility with which theology must work. Relations between human and other creatures are affi rmed. For the third response, the totality of humanity with nature needs development: it is given, to be amended, and opens out into the transcendence of God. Th e relations between humans and non-humans are given but not set in a series of asymmetries.
Yet these three diff erent responses should not be allowed to obscure a common feature: the strong dynamic of exile and return sources an account of totality that is defi cient and needs to be corrected. Th ere are diff erent accounts of relations through these three responses but a persistent problem with totality . Th e same desire runs through all three: salvation is reinterpreted as the plenitude of home, of human beings establishing themselves everywhere as at home. Maybe the issue is not the false relation forged between salvation and the alienation of nature, as our three options like to present the matter. Th e issue is the projected notion of home secured by salvation that operates with an account of defi cient totality that is to be overcome. Th e totalities on which these responses rely are not identical. We move from a totality that needs to be fi xed, to one in which the human should immerse itself, to one that may be developed. In response to defeat, theology aims for the plenitude of home, for humans to be at home everywhere. What is sought by all three responses are the expansion of home and the overcoming of the loss of access to home.
Th eology off ers compensation for a loss of plenitude. All three responses are therefore ‘ metaphysical ’ . Only in affi rming an eschatological element does the third response partly escape this critique. Eden – exile – return is corrected by suggesting that return be replaced by completion or fulfi lment. It is this third response based on the schema of Eden – exile – new Jerusalem that I will explore further below, not least by exploring the politics suggested by reference to the city of Jerusalem.
On balance, it seems to me that a detailed exploration of totality and creaturely relations in which the human participates is required. Only in this way will the theological concept of home come into view. It is not an exploration that theology is used to – and in this perhaps, it shares a
caution and a diffi culty with political philosophy. As Bruno Latour notes, ‘ Political philosophy did not anticipate that it would end up administering the sky, the climate, the sea, viruses or wild animals. It had thought it could limit itself to subjects and their right to property; Science would take care of the rest. ’ 31 Perhaps political theology oriented on ecological crisis considers that business as usual is still possible.
Yet, drawing on totality and relation, we may appreciate that stewardship is reactive and defensive: it projects salvation as the work of the human in administering the completion of the incomplete totality. Reference to the new cosmology in the second response is overly concerned with a cosmological narrative to the detriment of system and relations of domination and thereby it over-stresses totality and fails to see how the totality it proff ers does not engage structures of power. Th e third option sets aside the defeat of theology by claiming (assuming?) that the questions posed by theology are constants and are still in play. What follows in the next two sections works from within the third option but does not regard theological questions as constants and recommends the reformulation of these questions under the conditions of late modernity.