Virgil, isn’t the creation narrative precisely about how easy it is for humanity to ruin everything?

I am not in a position to judge the science, but clearly we are doing long-term damage to the environment - indeed we have already done too much damage. Do we have to wait for the more apocalyptic scenarios to materialize?

More importantly, for the church the point may not be primarily the negative one of addressing the problems but the more positive challenge: how do we model an authentic relation to the rest of the created world? It is intrinsic to an authentic humanity and, therefore, to the mission of the church that we model the presence of the creative God who calls people to himself, that we model social justice, and that we model a respectful relationship to our environment. These are positive callings, not remedial.

I wonder simply whether the church should not be preparing itself for a critical prophetic role with regard to the state of the planet in coming decades. If that is the case, we have to do so on the basis of a manifest spiritual and moral integrity. But how? How do we tell that story?